The Training - Part 1

Having woken up from her amazingly refreshing beauty sleep of a couple of hours, she was on her way to the courtyard to finally attend the next training session. Sylvia stayed and continued to work on the dance. She also had some other things to attend to after that and so did not join Octavia for her session.

As she arrived, she found the courtyard practically empty. There were a few people cleaning the area, and fewer still were practising against training dummies, either as punishment or to improve themselves further.

Towards the back of the area, where she had her session last, she found Knight Commander Althea moving around a large wooden pole that was stuck in the ground. It had small stumps of wood sticking out of it in different places and angles, forming notches along its sides.

As she moved, she swung from different angles, with a wooden sword, that while blunted still created indentations in the wood. She was poised, skilled and brutal against it.

Octavia made her way over, and as she did, Althea turned towards her, grinning.

"What, no girl to try and impress this time."

It startled her but knowing this woman she made sure to not let it affect her.

"Ah, good. You remembered my rule on distractions. Well done."

"Not really, I just decided to tune out your annoying comments," Octavia replied.

"Wha-. Hahaha. Well, Isn't that just cold of you? Think of all the effort it takes me to come up with this stuff."

Octavia finally reached the combat area. The place she had been easily defeated in. Technically.

"You got your weapon. Good. Now place it over there and take this. Now stand about…there. Great-" Althea said as she gave Octavia a wooden staff and positioned her in front of the pole. She then headed behind the wooden pole. "This will be the first part of your training and since its late, we shall get right to it. I want you to hit wherever my hand is."

"Err."

"What. Worried you're going to hit my hand. Don't worry, that's not going to happen."

"More like I'm worried I won't get to hit it." Octavia thought.

"I want you to try and hit my hand as hard, fast and as accurately as possible. When you go in for a swing, you must finish it. No pulling back and trying again. Ready."

Octavia nodded.

"Now go."

Knight Commander Althea placed her right hand over one of the notches and waited. Octavia seeing this pulled back and swung as hard as she could in that direction.

As it came down, while she may have had power, her accuracy was terrible, ending up on the notch above her hand. It also didn't help that she came down at the wrong angle.

"What was that? I didn't even have to pull my hand away. Do it again."

Regaining herself, she took another swing, this time focusing on actually hitting the right place.

She managed to aim for the right notch, but even with what she thought was a decent amount of speed, Althea was easily able to move her hand away as she came down on it.

Althea while pulling one hand away, placed her other on the other side of the pole slightly higher which Octavia was easily able to see.

Octavia pulled back and reoriented the staff she was using so she could hit the other side with her dominant hand leading.

It was slower this time as she came down, but she managed to hit her target. But like before, Althea managed to move her hand out of the way with ease.

Althea then placed her other hand higher up on the same side, forcing Octavia to pull back and shift the angle of her next strike in order to hit it.

Which she failed to do this time.

…

This continued for a while, where Althea continued to switch and change where her hands were located, shifting them around the notches in the wood, varying the heights, all of which caused Octavia to stretch and move with her strikes in ways she hadn't done so before.

Sure, there were the previous fights she had been involved in, but the attacks she had cobbled together felt natural. These did not feel the same, needing to twist and turn her hand and weapon at different angles in order to hit the right spot.

"Ok, enough of that."

Octavia slumped. She knew she hadn't done well, having never managed to hit Althea's hand. She knew before she started that would be the case, but it still wasn't a nice feeling having seen it happen.

"Right, that was not the best I have seen. But also, not the worse. There are a lot of areas for you to work on. Let's get started shall we."

Getting back into their positions, Althea placed her hand on the same notch as she did at the start and told Octavia to begin.

"Now, I want you to think and visualise where you are aiming. There are a lot of notches, and as you did at the start, it is very easy to aim higher or lower than you should and slip onto one of them. Take your time. Once you can aim properly, with enough time, it will become second nature to you and you will be able to hit any area with ease and speed."

Octavia's view of this woman had definitely improved at this point. It seemed that while she was annoying and arrogant, she more than made up for it in teaching. Granted, she hadn't been taught much yet, but it still felt like the stern-talking woman knew what she was saying.

She took her aim and pictured how the movement of her hands and arms would affect the staff and where it landed. She did as Althea said, taking a breath and thinking about it all before she swung.

Coming down, she did not stray and diverge from the path her arms and hands were travelling, and this time she managed to hit the spot correctly.

Althea though, as slippery as an eel managed to move her hand back. But really, at this point it wasn't about actually hitting her hand. Even if she wanted to. It was about understanding the techniques of fighting with a pole weapon, improving the accuracy of her strikes and taking everything that Althea would teach her to heart.

"Good. Nicely done. Now, hold that position."

Like before, she placed her other hand on the other side and on the same notch as before. It did beg the question of how she could follow the same pattern as before, but it was likely that this was standard procedure for her when teaching soldiers.

"I want to hit my hand as you did before."

Octavia was now sure she had done something very wrong the first time she did this. Following her orders, Octavia pulled back and twisted her pole around and swung down. This time, however, she missed the target by hitting two notches below. Looks like luck helped the first time she did it.

"Ok. There are a few things wrong here. But these mistakes are ones that many soldiers make the first time they really train."

She walked around, took her weapon and asked Octavia to step to the side, before placing it on the notch Octavia had started on.

"Like many other soldiers, you like to attack with your dominant hand. This makes sense, it feels more comfortable, and you have more power behind it when you use it. And sometimes it's fine to do this. A halberd has only one blade and you can't easily swap hands on the weapon, so shifting your position and arms so you attack the right way is fine."

All of which Octavia could agree with.

"But, with a weapon like yours, with a blade at both ends, doing this can cause problems. For one, it's not always possible to swap to a position to use it. It can be slow to do so and you might even reduce the power behind it if you are bending your hand or arm in a certain way. It also tells the enemy you're fighting what side is your weakest. When they see you attack using the same leading hand, when you could be using the other, they can tell which side will be harder for you to defend. And lastly, doing it means your not using everything at your disposal to fight."

As Octavia listened to her speak, she was taking all of this to heart. It also occurred to her that Althea did not have a weapon like hers. For her to be able to take her halberd training and then apply that to her weapon, as well as pointing at weak spots between the two showed just how experienced and knowledgeable she was. As well as dedicated to teaching her student.

"So, what you want to do is get used to chaining your attacks to then hit while you let your other hand lead. Then with time, you can build up speed and it will just become more fluid, making it easier for you to hit the other side of the target with the other end of the staff. With your weapon, this is not going to be a killing blow, but hitting with the pole can be enough to stun or break bones. Then there is the spike at the end, but you would need to get a good angle off a chained strike to use that well."

Althea walked to the other side of the wooden target pole and placed her hand back at the start and beckoned Octavia.

"Try it again, doing it as I said. I don't think you will get it the first time, but practice makes perfect as they say."

Octavia performed the first hit as well as before, where even though it still took time to line it up, it was slightly easier than before. When Althea changed hands, Octavia then went for the strike. Pulling her dominant hand back, she moved her other forward, changing the angle so it was in the right position. It felt weird and wrong, but it was much faster than before.

Just not as accurate.

"Great. See what I mean about the speed. With more practice and you will easily be able to get the angle right. Plus, it strengthens your other arm, so that you can attack with it using more power. By that point, whomever you face will either not know what side is your weakest and even if they do, it will not be easy for them to take you out by attacking it. Now, try it again. With more accuracy this time."

Even though this was the first true training session she had with her weapon, she had learnt so much in such a short time. While it was direct training from Althea that gave her this knowledge, she also realised that if she could remember the routine with the notched pole, she could use it to train anywhere. As long as she found a large notched pole that is.

But that will only be necessary once she leaves the castle. Which should hopefully happen once she gets the basics down.