The little turtle:
Individual we are one drop, together we are the ocean (Ryunosuke Satoro)
11) Raphie .
Finally after two weeks of regaining my strength and reassuring Master Splinter and Donnie that I wasn't going to have a relapse. I was allowed to train again, I practically had to start all over and it took me longer with master Splinter unwilling to push me.
But help came from an unexpected angle, Raphie as promised helped me every day and unlike master Splinter and Leo, he didn't go so easy on me. We actually helped each other out, he had some trouble with his kata's and I had to practice avoiding attacks so we combined them. It worked pretty well and I was happy that I could spend some time with him too, he had been avoiding me for a long time and I had really missed this.
"Come on not tired yet are yah?" he taunted when I was knocked on my butt again.
"No way!" I flipped back on my feet like master Splinter taught me too, I was glad I finally succeeded, the first three times I tried it in this 'match' I just fell back on my butt.
"Alright, prepare yourself here I come!" he yelled and came at me again. I easily sidestepped his move, then he came at me with some kicks and punches, which I avoided too. Then he picked up the pace and that was where I always screwed up. I just couldn't keep up with the quick attacks and with one low sweep of his leg I was back on the floor.
"Damnit!" I punched the mat in frustration, during our fighting I realized just how easy master Splinter had been going on me, hell even Raph was going easy on me and I couldn't last longer than 2 minutes tops.
"Come on back on yer feet." Raph said and extended his hand to help me up. I ignored it and flipped like I did before. He just smirked and prepared to attack again.
Master Splinter had said, not to think too much, to just try and read your opponents movements. He said that I had to be water, water finds a way around, wearing its opponent down and so the water can defeat the hardest rock. Alright I'm water, I'm water.
This time I lasted longer, not that much but I understood now what master Splinter meant by reading your opponent. But still after two minutes and a half I landed on my butt again.
"I know now why it's called kicking someone's ass, my butt hurts!" I complained but flipped back up again. Raphie laughed at that and came at me again. Today was also the first time that I got punched in the face, Raphie had pulled his punch of course but still ... It was on that note that we ended our training.
"You're getting better" he said.
"Thanks, you too." I joked, he poked me in the side for that one.
Later that evening I practiced my balance techniques again and the first couple of kata's under Leo's supervision.
And after one more week of catching up on everything I was back in the dojo with the rest of my brothers, I even got to do a complete training session with them, not just the warming up. Master Splinter decided that it was time that my brothers practiced some more in the way of balance, because later he'd combine that with the way of invisibility and it was very important that we got those basics down.
So here I stood like in the old days balancing on bamboo sticks under the supervision of master Splinter. He was surprised and maybe a little angry when he saw that I had already combined this technique with my kata's as well.
Leo was good at this, he too had been taught in the way of balance already, master Splinter had already trained him so he could conquer his fear of heights. Mikey and Donnie weren't bad either they only fell a couple of times. Raph had the most trouble, I felt sorry for him. I remember when I used to fall down like that. Sure he knows how to land without hurting himself too much, but still falling down from that height over and over again isn't exactly painless either.
The next day when Raph and I were training I got an idea.
"Hey Raphie, let's even the odds a bit" I said.
"What do you mean?" he asked. I pulled out a lot of the smallest bamboo sticks and covered a large surface with them on the floor, so that we had enough room to fight. I jumped on them and positioned myself in the center.
"Now try to attack me" I said. He frowned a bit at me, thinking that I was making fun of him. But after a while he realized that I meant well and joined me in the circle.
This was how we practiced the next couple of days and eventually his balance got a lot better, I know this because I ended up on the floor more and more.
Master Splinter was aware of this new twist in our training routine, but he allowed it. He was happy that we were taking his teachings seriously and that we were helping each other grow.