Wang, Shu. Remembering Toph Beifong.
Remembering Toph Beifong is the memoirs of Wang Shu, one of Earthbending master Toph Beifong's four students. It is one of the few substantial sources modern scholars have concerning Toph and her life apart from biographies of Avatar Aang, who was her first Earthbending student and with whom she travelled for much of her life. The genesis of these memoirs is a story unto itself: according to the foreword, penned by Chief Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, Wang Shu's wife was convinced that he had had an affair with Toph while she was alive, and demanded that he publicly denounce her as his master if it were not true. Being loyal to his late Earthbending teacher, he refused to do so and instead published Remembering Toph Beifong. The effect this action had on Wang Shu's marriage is unknown.
Apart from Wang Shu's experiences during his Earthbending training, he also recorded some of the conversations he would often have with his master. One of these conversations gives an explanation for why the Beifong school of Earthbending differs so radically from the other schools: Toph learned Earthbending directly from the badgermoles and developed it independently, being forced to do so because of her blindness. This explanation is generally held to be the most plausible reason for these discrepancies. Other conversations concerned her Earthbending philosophy and her many travels with Avatar Aang.
Wang Shu's descriptions of his training with Toph portray her as a harsh and demanding teacher, exacting to the point of being almost unreasonable. She demanded the best of her students, but always had their progress in mind. She placed much emphasis on developing the sense of touch, especially with the feet; from almost the beginning, Wang Shu was blindfolded whenever he trained with her. Her methods were quite unorthodox for her day—they are only beginning to gain acceptance outside the Beifong tradition even now—but by all accounts, they were quite effective. Toph taught her students one-to-one exclusively. Her lessons typically lasted all day, and were conducted with such vigour that both master and pupil would be utterly exhausted by the end of the session. However, her teaching schedule was erratic at best. Often she would be travelling with the Avatar and his friends; typically she would leave without any prior notice.
Probably the most interesting part of the memoirs concerns Toph's final hours. She died early, at about the age of fifty, due to an unknown disease. Wang Shu writes that Toph's close friend Katara, a skilled Waterbender healer, had even attempted to cure her with water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole without success. In the end Toph resigned herself to her fate, but not before she gathered her four Earthbending students and attempted to teach them what she could. It is from this final lesson that advanced students of the Beifong school derive the technique of Metalbending, which she had developed herself but never before taught to anyone. She then gave individual farewells to those present, which comprised Avatar Aang, Chief Sokka, Firelord Zuko and their wives, as well as her students. She died clinging to Chief Sokka's hands.
Because Toph Beifong only had four students (the first of which was Avatar Aang) and rarely associated with anyone but her immediate relatives, her students and her few friends, little has been written about her life and teachings. Her other students wrote Earthbending manuals based on her teachings, while biographies of Avatar Aang could hardly fail to mention her; however, Remembering Toph Beifong is the only writing that focuses on her life. Though from a very personal point of view, Wang Shu's work is invaluable because of the paucity of other sources regarding her and her life.