The Dark Academy on Korriban

He had gotten a message from the twi'lek he'd met on the ship about wanting to practice her lightsaber combat skills. He was always up for a good spar so he agreed and set a time to meet in the training yard. He likely wasn't as good as some of the instructors here, but he suspected he was likely better than many of the aspirants. No point in not making inroads with his fellow acolytes.

Moyr arrived promptly and enthusiastically, in her distracting tapewear, with a spring in her step that was making things bouncy.

"Thank you for treating me to this, Lord Deathwright. But I am curious how we are going to go about it. Are practice weapons the same like real ones, having the crystal in them?"

He watched her bouncing in, but to his credit he maintained eye contact noticing the bouncing only through peripheral.

"They are similar, but have emitters that are designed only to stun rather than actual focusing crystals," he replies, holding one out to her. "These are academy equipment and get returned when we're done, but they're available here in the training yard. How much have you trained with a lightsaber again?"

"Nada. I've been a blaster person so far. But I have swung stuff as well before."

She honestly replied, stopping and shifting weight from one leg to another.

"But i already do have a preference. I want it twin-bladed. Do they have such a spear-like solution amid training weapons?"

"I did not look, but the principles of the basic lightsaber are the same. The weight and handling are far different from a normal weapon, and you must learn how to not strike yourself. A double blade can come after you've gained some skill. I've wielded all different types of training saber, but I prefer the shoto myself. For now we'll stick with these."

He holds out his saber without turning it on. "First is hand position. Basic position for any saber is right here. Because there is no weight in the blade you hold it closer to the center rather than up on the hilt. That is how you keep it balanced."

"Makes sense."

She tried to imitate his hold, focusing on the task. Her lekku stopped dangling and pressed themselves together.

"Feel free to adjust my hold."

She extended her holding hand.

He does just that, and she can feel that his hands are rougher than they look, the red of them likely hiding where the skin is tougher than the rest. "Like that. I'll probably have to remind and re-adjust a few times but eventually it will become second nature and holding it any other way will feel wrong."

He steps back. "Alright. Most attacks will require you to use only one hand. This is because using a second hand limits your range of motion. By it's very nature, a weapon is something used to injure and kill opponents, so the majority of what I'll teach you will be offensive in nature. To be effective that hand has to stay in that position whenever you strike. It will be with the angle you move your arm and the rotation of your wrist that will determine where you strike. But even with all that, you cannot strike effectively from a position of weakness."

He holds out his hand, holding it as he showed her, then places his second hand at the open space on the bottom of the saber, and plants his feet with weight balanced between them. "Therefore you must make sure your basic stance is a strong defensive one. That way, if you are being pressed and need to defend yourself you can just move into your basic stance. You'll want to hold your blade angled forward and with both hands. Blocking an enemy's strike is easier when your blade is closer to your body and you have both hands on it. You won't grow tired from holding your arms out and you'll have more power for blocking."

There were quite a few acknowledging nods in irregular intervals as she tried to take it all in at once. She was not sure if her body could take up all those habits at once. Very likely not. Still, it had to begin somewhere.

"Theory sounds great and logical, but what's the most basic attack I could fit into the intricacies of stance and grasp?"

"From the basic stance, I usually rely on a one-handed downward slash," he says. "It's the least likely to result in you cutting of your own limb. When doing side slashes your body tends to want to move your arms so that they are mirrored, but when you do a downward slash to the front it naturally tends to turn side first which reduces the area your enemy has to strike, while keeping the blade between the two of you."

Zeno then proceeds to go through the motion step by step, explaining them but not taking too long, showing her how it looks from side profile and front.

"You try now," he says as he moves to her side. "I'll watch and remind you to fix your hand position." With that he reaches out to tap her fingers with the hilt of his saber which is turned off.

She turned the buzzing light on and stared at it for a moment, before tightening her grip and glancing at Zeno.

"So I should be hitting you now?"

"Not quite. I need to make sure you keep proper form and grip for some practice strikes. Loosen the grip of your second hand. It should only tighten when you are blocking. Until then it needs to be able to move freely for balance," he says.

Moyr slowly readjusted her grip. It felt odd, this kind of weapon. She rolled the hilt along the arch between her thumb and the rest of fingers to feel it better.

"Swing as you would if you had an opponent in front of you, like I demonstrated," he says in a serious tone. "Use your mind to picture something there that you despise." Remembering back to their conversation on the ship and her question about how Zeno felt about hutts, he took a shot in the dark. "Picture a hutt before you."

"Very well. Let's slice a slug."

Hatred dripped from the verges of her lips as she took a strong stance and took several vertical and diagonal swings.

"Good intensity," he says as she's swinging. "Make sure to keep your grip proper."

A few slices in he taps her front foot with his toe. "Too much weight. After each swing you want to disperse your weight again, returning some to your back foot."

Eventually she hears his saber hum to life and her swing makes contact with it as he steps around.

With their sabers clashing, Moyr pressed into the block to avoid being thrown off balance.

"What now? How to escape a block like this and not get hurt?"

"Escaping a block like this is as simple as returning to your basic stance," he replies. "In this position there is not much either can do outside of ready another attack. Since you are just learning that means going home and then attacking again. We could keep blades locked and try to force them into each other, but without some obstruction to prevent either of us from backpedaling that is just a waste of energy." He waits for her to reset before resetting to a similar home position.

She followed his instruction to the iota, though in her mind the lightsabre felt incomplete without the blade on the other end.

"What if someone tries a low cut against my unprotected legs? The blade is blocking access to my torso, but not much below."

"Footwork. An attack like that is usually very pronounced and you should have time to backpedal," he replies. "The primary instrument is your lightsaber but the most important tool in combat is your body. Avoiding a blow is always better than blocking it."

After he says that he uses his training saber to deflect her strike to the side and moves for such a strike against her leg, but without his full speed or effort so she has time to move away.

She did move away, but her instincts told her to have the blade blocking the path to her legs as well, so she twisted her wrist to make it so.

He pauses in his position. "It's good to be ready to block like that, but consider the fact that I am down here and my lightsaber is not protecting my head..." He looks up at her and grins.

"So we're practicing hitting now?"

She bounced back, trying to exploit the opening.

"Go for it," he says with a grin as she starts her maneuver. Simultaneously, he intentionally falls to his back and rolls away from the twi'lek narrowly avoiding a strike.

"Come get some," he says showing his teeth in a wide smile. Though his look has an intensity to it, his body language does not speak of his normal violence, as he seems simply ready to defend against her attacks.

"Wanna be a lunch for tuk'ata?"

She was agile, though her fighting style was not adjusted to tapping into it. An intuitive feint before she lunged forth with a downward strike.

Zeno performed a standard block, before pushing her saber up and out of the way. As he did so he stepped forward into her personal space, one foot between hers. Very quickly quickly he moves around behind her, leaning close to her head. "Watch your footing. Your weight is too far forward after the attack." He steps back, ready to receive her next attack.