Chapter Eleven: Working for the Weekend
…
We had spent a few hours driving at full speed down the highway on our bikes, racing each other. We drove through the sand dunes like we used to this summer.
We began to enjoy our break, finished the night off by drinking together in an old junkyard I found was familiar.
The same place Johnny Lawrence trained his class of Cobras to become the champions.
I sipped the beer Shawn passed to me from an ice chest and realized something.
The upcoming All Valley, was Miguel Diaz's tournament to win during the show. There was a reason I walked in so comfortable into the last one.
I was focused.
There were no girls, no trophies already won, no title to uphold.
All I had done for a year up until then was train. All I did that whole year was train.
Robby noticed the look on my face. "Luke you okay dude?"
"Why are you always asking that?"
"Because you're always. A little off you know."
"I'm fine."
"You always say that when you're not." Robby chuckled. "As far causing trouble goes. We didn't cause that much."
We both watched as Hawk round kicked empty beer cans Shawn and Doug tossed at him and they goofed around.
"Spent too much time racing each other and practicing some moves on our bikes I guess." I noticed Robby was drinking. "Thought you hated beer."
"I know you're having a tough time this past week. So I'd actually hate not being here for you more."
The Bobby Brown to my Johnny Lawrence indeed.
"Thanks." I smiled and so did Robby.
"What is really going on with you?"
"Ever since I've had my arm broken I've lost what made everything click. Punching. So I started caring about all the wrong shit when the semester ended. And it just made me mad."
Robby nodded. "But you're not an angry person. Not at all really."
I said nothing.
"Lucas I know Charlotte meant a lot to you. But before you two even met. I remember you last summer, as only wanting one thing now that I realize what you were training so hard for."
I kept listening as Robby spoke.
"You were happier. And stronger. And more focused than I'd ever known you to have been. In the months leading up to your tournament. Because you truly were ready to win it. You spent months and months doing nothing but train."
I nodded.
"The thing is Luke." Robby sipped his beer. "I know what you're worried about."
"Yeah?"
"You're worried you've lost that strength. Your touch. You might face me in the tournament. Maybe Diaz could have something up his sleeve. The thing is man. You never lost that."
I looked at him. "Really."
Robby nodded. "You're a fighter. You're a destroyer. You're a machine man. If there's one person I'd say for sure would win this All Valley. It's going to be you. So I'll goof off and drink beers with you. Cause as much trouble as you want. But if you want too. I'll help you train."
I smiled. "Thanks Robby. Let's do it. This winter break. It's the longest weekend of all year. We better make it count."
"Sounds good to me." Robby smiled too now.
That was exactly what I needed to hear to wake me up out of his angry funk. I had made friends and even a girlfriend between creating my original goal, but I still wanted one thing more than anything.
To be a three time All Valley Under 18 Karate champion.
…
Lucas Schwarber woke up the morning after his last day of finals and looked over at his bedroom wall.
On it hung the poster for the fiftieth All Valley Karate tournament.
He remembered by how much he won the 49th All Valley Karate tournament.
"Four months of summer. Four months in a cast. Four months to the next." Lucas muttered to himself.
It was May 19th, the date listed on the poster. Which meant that Lucas had just under five months to prepare and pick up where he left off when he broke his arm.
He walked past his poster. "Round two All Valley."
…
OST: Working for the Weekend - Loverboy
…
Lucas Schwarber returned to the exact same training schedule he had from December 7th to January 7th.
Because he didn't have school, Lucas focused harder on training than ever.
Lucas only mildly caught up on his kata. More than anything, he struck the white hanging punching bag the Cobra Kai dojo had to throw roundhouses, elbows, and punches to warm up.
Training in the exact same dojo as Charlotte didn't block his focus. He shut everything out, and struck like a Cobra.
Johnny and Kreese watched as Lucas led strikes wearing Johnny's headband.
"Aiya!" roared Lucas.
"Kiya!"
"Aiya!"
"Kiya!"
The entire class of Cobras roared and threw the one two straight reverse punch combination in perfect unison.
Lucas' guard and striking technique rapidly returned to its sharp power. He kept his body turned to the side properly and lowered correctly.
Lucas led warm ups, the entire class raising their hands over their head and jogging around the mat side to side.
He led bear crawls, army crawls, high knees, and high kicks jogging around the mat. Squats, punches from horse stance, Lucas took charge.
Then Kreese and Johnny began their classic Cobra Kai style training for tournaments after the first fifteen minutes of warm ups.
The Cobra Kais were all made to carry each other, and carry heavy iron weights across the backroom.
In the main dojo mat, there were hours of sparring, and Johnny and Kreese taught the class very exact combinations.
How to score with their rear hand. How to score with their front hand, how to score with their rear foot, front foot, the ridge of their hand.
How to sweep the leg, throw a roundhouse, counter certain attacks.
And despite most of it being review for Lucas, he fell back into his fighting rhythm strongly.
Lucas Schwarber returned to striking like a Cobra in combat.
Robby moved forward, chasing Lucas around the ring with strikes.
He dodged, and then used a combination Johnny found very familiar.
Johnny watched as Lucas used his rear foot, his right, to quickly lift Robby's front leg and before his right leg could settle Lucas did a switch kick mid air and the flat side of his foot caught Robby's nose.
Robby was surprised after he stumbled and Dieter and Tory raised the red flag for Lucas as Kreese nodded in pride.
His hands and reflexes gradually regained their speed and power.
During sparring and drills in the Cobra Kai dojo, Lucas shook off his months of ring rust quickly.
After class, Lucas trained on his own in an abandoned warehouse to blow off steam and practice what he could in private.
He developed katas that combined Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai strikes and counters.
Flying kicks, throwing punches and elbows through old wooden pallets.
Lucas had forgotten how good he was at striking through hardwood pallets from his training months prior when Cobra Kai was only him and Kreese.
He jogged around his neighborhood with his golden retriever Donnie Junior throwing hooks and uppercut punches with one hand.
When he returned to his house, he started sprinting at full speed around Encino Hills wearing a Cobra Kai sweatshirt.
Lucas twisted his whole body into uppercuts and hooks, moving his head off the center line bobbing and weaving.
When he got back to his house he hit his punching bag as hard as he possibly could. With jab punches, reverse punches, roundhouse kicks to the body and head, several nonstop combinations.
Lucas was improving and revitalizing his striking speed and power.
The twice black taped fringes on Lucas' blue belt and Johnny's old black headband on his head flicked in the air as Lucas proudly pulled off the same kick that had broken his arm.
The flying tornado kick.
It missed against Robby but Lucas landed cleanly on his feet.
Robby tried timing a leg sweep against Lucas the moment he landed right back on the mat but Lucas dodged and quickly followed it up with his classic jab punch.
Lucas loaded all of his weight into launching forward into a single blow, and threw all of his power into a controlled jab punch to Robby's face.
White flags were instantly raised for him and both Johnny and Kreese knew the score had gone to him.
After class there was still time for Robby and the other Cobras to train with Lucas outside of class.
They trained in Lucas' garage, in the abandoned warehouse Lucas found to blow off steam. They all trained together.
They pumped iron, they practiced sparring, strikes, counters and combination attacks.
Lucas practiced with Hawk, Robby with Shawn, and Doug with Hawk as well on occasion.
In Lucas' garage after catching an easy kick, Lucas swept Hawk right off his legs and kiai'd loudly holding a fist right in front of his face to make it clear he could've hit him.
Lucas smiled and nodded to Hawk before helping him up.
In the warehouse they found pull up bars in the form of old metal beams, and plenty of heavy wooden pallets and old metal parts to haul around to strengthen their muscles better.
Robby was on his back in Lucas' garage pumping a barbell.
He was wincing and made sure to use the proper weight. Despite being very muscular, they were always safe enough to use just under the maximum they knew they could push.
Doug, Hawk, and Shawn all egged Robby on as Lucas spotted him.
Finishing his last set, Lucas helped Robby by holding the barbell and metal weights on either end attached to load it back onto the hooks the weight lifting set had as Doug and the others cheered.
"That's right!" Hawk and Robby bumped chests as it was Lucas' turn.
He didn't have as much raw physical strength as Robby or especially Shawn, but still wasn't that much weaker even with a recently broken arm.
All five of them pumped iron together and spotted each other. They helped Lucas pump iron laying on his back with a barbell.
They used dumbbells, worked on their motorcycles together, talked about karate and Cobra Kai and the tournament.
For all of December, Lucas' training was almost purely physical to get back into the best shape he could. He ate properly, trained properly, and lived properly by spending hours with the Cobra Kais five days out of the week.
Besides the few minutes each day Lucas dedicated to kata, he was focused entirely on building stamina, muscle strength, striking speed, and making sure his sparring technique was always proper.
When school started again, Lucas was still focused entirely on karate and a bit on the necessary parts of his high school studies.
He didn't return to school as angry as he had left the semester before the start of winter break. Lucas came back more focused, calmer.
Lucas had returned to being Cobra Kai's champion and was in the physical and mental shape necessary to defend that title.
However, he knew he had to defend the other title properly in just a few months.
One day as the bell for the last period rang, Lucas was walking out towards his motorcycle where the other Cobras were waiting for him and spoke to Robby.
"You know." he exhaled quietly with the black headband around his forehead and putting on his leather red Cobra Kai jacket. "This is what I meant man. Making it all work."
"That's right man!" said Robby with pride wearing the same jacket but it was blue.
They gripped each other's hands as hard as they could, almost trying to crush each other with their grip.
Lucas had temporarily lost sight of his original goal. But even with the influence of the other four Cobra Kais, he had recovered from his four months of being out of regular training.
He had gotten his arm strength back, and his striking power in both of his hands had returned as well.
The fighter on the cover of Black Belt magazine and in interviews had returned to defend his title. He had regained his focus, and now Lucas just had to continue training until the tournament.
His fear of facing the person he knew would have become the 2018 All Valley Champion vanished.
To Lucas. Fear and defeat, never existed.
In the old abandoned warehouse they had used for weeks to train in on their own to give themselves a more open and private area, the Cobras had posed for a picture.
Wearing their white Cobra Kai uniforms, Lucas, Hawk, Shawn, Robby, and Doug all got a running start and leapt off the ground into a flying kick in unison.
Despite taking several tries to get right and properly aligned. When Lucas got the right shot on his phone, it ended up looking perfect.
…
It was late January after school where Robby was muttering to me near the library.
"See. What did I tell you? A strong return to real training, getting you back to your core. All that nonsense clouding your head." I smiled as I knew how right Robby was. "Gone. You hear me? Gone."
"Karate really is my center. I needed that man."
Robby nodded. "And you still do. Remember, that title defense of yours. We're gonna stay ready for it. And you're gonna be great."
We had four months now until the All Valley. And by the pace I was going I was sure I was going to be ready.
But it was Miguel. Both Miguel and Robby who were the wildcards, they both reached the finals in their first tournament, which was this tournament, the fiftieth All Valley. And while it would certainly be Miguel's first tournament, it was Robby's second as much as it was mine.
I had gone back to my roots. To what started my journey. Striking, learning to strike.
This was what I needed. Not anger, not all this drama. I needed to keep getting stronger and better with my karate.
Robby had helped me get out of a nasty funk and saved me from a few weeks of being useless. I owed him for it.
After so much training, we were all pretty much made of muscle at this point. And we would keep going.
…
Miguel was sitting down on a bench in a mostly isolated part of the back of West Valley High School drinking from a water bottle.
Suddenly, someone threw it away and shoved a piece of paper into his chest.
"Whoa what the. What's this?"
Hawk spoke angrily but didn't hit Miguel. "I checked the dojos registered for the All Valley this morning. Apparently your sorry excuse for a dojo. Miyagi-Do, hasn't signed up yet. You gotta get your mama to sign that, so you can compete with the guys who've actually been potty trained yet."
Miguel was surprised. "But this is a no contact tournament. What am I signing this for?"
"Accidents can happen. Soon as you and I are done on the mat. They have to have a morgue lined up for you." said Hawk.
Miguel sighed. "What's your point here man?"
"What?"
"You've got nothing to prove here. Yeah I mean. One on one you might have trouble. But you're the five biggest and toughest dudes on campus when you're in a group. What's up with your constant need to have a pissing contest?"
Hawk scowled and turned around. "Maybe because I like it!"
"I'm not afraid of you anymore man," Miguel said. "You acted all tough when you had your buddies around. But how about now?"
"You wanna throw down right now?"
"Just saying I'm not that weak anymore. But I have no reason to prove it right now. You on the other hand have to be loud and proud. And act all arrogant. For just no reason."
Hawk waved a hand and scoffed. "You're gonna get destroyed at this tournament. I just hope Sam's there to watch."
"She'll be there alright. To compete against the girls in your dojo."
Hawk didn't need to look at Miguel to know he had gotten in much better shape since they met almost seven months prior. As much as the Cobra Kais enjoyed working out very regularly and growing very strong muscles, Bobby had helped Miguel grow and train as well.
Physically it was clear Miguel had been training for nearly as long as Hawk and Doug Rickenberger had in karate.
"You're just pathetic you know that?" said Miguel. "Everybody thinks you and your crowd are bunch of bullies. A bunch of jerks."
"Whatever. See you on the mat wimp."
Miguel then laughed at this, shaking his head.
…