Disclaimer: Stargate: Atlantis, the characters and universe are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions and the Sci-Fi Channel. This story is solely for entertainment purposes and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: Set after The Siege.

John Sheppard, military leader and second in charge of the Atlantis expedition, landed on the floor, smack on his butt. He hit it harder then he would have liked; it knocked the wind out of him. Fortunately, the cheek that took the majority of the impact was the left one, and not the right where, less than two months ago, a bullet had exited after he'd been shot in the leg in an attempted assassination. The wound according to Dr. Beckett was pretty much healed; it only throbbed now and then.

The woman who had just slammed him to the floor was his friend, inter-planetary guide and currently martial arts instructor, Teyla Emmagan, all five-foot-six-inch-tall, one hundred and possibly ten pounds of her.

Before he even got the chance to try to recover his breath, Teyla dropped to one knee next to him and threw a short right elbow at his face, slapping it with her left hand for emphasis – and to move her left hand into position for a follow-up, did she deem it necessary.

It wasn't going to be necessary. Sheppard had no plans to hit back. He could barely breathe. Smiling took everything he had.

Teyla offered Sheppard a hand and he took it. She stood and helped him do the same.

"Are you okay?"

He managed to suck in enough air to say, 'Yeah, fine.' Holding the smile was one of the hardest things he'd done in a while, but he held it.

"Good. You see what I did?"

"I think so."

Generally, they practiced such takedowns on the nice, padded gym mats thoughtfully provided here by Stargate Command and the IOA and placed in one of the two makeshift gyms in Atlantis. Now and again, however, they stepped off the mats onto the floor. Teyla, who had been practicing this obscure martial art since she was young, had explained why such training was necessary.

"If you practice on the mats all the time, you will become used to that cushion. If you fall on the floor or hard ground, it will not be quite so easy. And since a lot of fights end up on the ground, you need to now how it feels."

Yeah. Right.

He could understand it, though he wasn't sure he was going to ever learn the stuff so well he could hit the ground and bounce like a rubber ball. But after a month of training five days a week, at least Sheppard could get the name of system right: Makar Jha'Dur Ashok. Or Ashok for short. It was, Teyla had told him, a slimmed down and simplified version of a more complex art that had been taught to a select few over the generations. She had learnt it from an old woman who had lived in the same village as Teyla when she was young, after Teyla had witnessed the old woman use the art against several visitors from off-world who had tried to rob the old woman of her possessions. From what he had seen Teyla do, apparently a big mistake.

Sheppard had been impressed with what he'd seen Teyla do. If this was the simple and easier stuff, he could wait on the really nasty moves.

"Okay, you try."

"You gonna go left or right?" he asked.

"Does not matter," she said. "If you control the center like you are supposed to, it will work either way."

"In theory," he said.

She smiled at him. "In theory."

He nodded, tried to relax and assume a neutral stance. That was supposed to be part of it, too, Teyla had said. It ought to work from whichever position you happened to be in if an attacker jumped you; otherwise what was the point? You wouldn't have time to bow and get into your ready stance if your attacker just decided to ambush you. It wasn't real likely a guy hiding in an alley in a village coming at you with a knife was going to allow you to get home to take off your shoes and preparing yourself for a fight while he stood there waiting, maybe cleaning his nails with the blade. If a move wasn't practical, the Ashok fighters didn't like to pass it along. This wasn't a do, a spiritual 'way', it was the distilled essence of anything-goes fighting; it was not an art of flashy, fancy moves, but an art of war. In Ashok, you didn't merely defeat an enemy, you destroyed him, and you used whatever you had at hand to do it: fists, feet, elbows, knives, clubs, guns –

Teyla leaped at him.

You were supposed to block first, then step, and this defense was supposed to be a move to outside of the attacker. Instead, Sheppard, rattled, blocked and stepped to the inside of Teyla's leading foot. In theory, like she'd said, it didn't matter, since anything that worked was the point.

His right foot slipped as it slid past Teyla's legs and he fell, again onto his butt. His concentration on protecting himself vanished as he again had the wind knocked out of him. He had blocked the punch, but now he could do was just lay there. He didn't follow up. He was very much aware of the fact that Teyla was now sitting on his chest, smiling triumphly.

Damn!

"John?"

"Sorry, I drew a blank."

Teyla got off him and slowly, Sheppard got back up. He'd nearly been killed by that would-be assassin a couple of months ago; if it hadn't been for Teyla, the killer would've gotten him, and it had seemed a good idea to learn more about how to protect himself, but right now the constant beatings from Teyla might soon start bringing up more problems than they were going to solve.

"Hey, Sheppard?"

Sheppard shook off the negative thoughts. Rodney McKay stood near the gym's entrance, looking at the two of them. The man was grinning.

"Rodney, what's up?"

"You said you wanted to hear when I had more about that device we found on PSY-284. I finished analyzing it now and, for some reason your headpiece isn't working and also Elizabeth wants to speak to you about some matters."

Sheppard nodded. "Thank you, Rodney." He looked at Teyla. "Apparently I need to go now."

"We can pick up where we left off tomorrow," she said. "Unless you are busy?"

"I wish I wasn't. I was planning to have a relaxing day, but I've got to put in order some reports for Stargate Command and the IOA. And I've got a meeting with some real self important people in a few days prepare for."

"You get to have all the fun," Teyla said.

"Don't I just?"

They bowed to each other, in the intricate Ashok beginning and ending salute and each headed their separate ways.