(53) Become Hectic

Tara breathed deeply, teetering on one foot as she struggled to stay balanced. Her arms wobbled at her sides as she attempted to counter her sway.

“Stack over the ankle. Do not concern yourself with your arms, child.

“Your foot contains a triangle of stability. It runs from the big toe to the little toe to the heel. Build your base over that shape,” Myra instructed, his disembodied voice somewhere near Tara within the void.

She focused on her foot and found the stable base he described, but he acted as if that was all she needed.

It was not!

When he had asked her to balance on one foot, she thought it a trivial challenge without purpose, yet closing her eyes had made the challenge impossible, and she still thought it had no purpose! When would she ever need to balance on one foot with her eyes closed?!

Whoosh!

“Mmm!” Tara whimpered, shirking away from the gust of wind that blew the hair from her face.

“Calm yourself, keep your eyes closed. That punch was not aimed at you, and you would not have dodged in time even if it was. Find your center, child. You should work to maintain balance in your core,” Myra chided calmly.

“Maybe if I knew what I was supposed to be learning, I would be more invested in this training,” Tara grumbled, all her restraint used to keep the comment cordial.

“My tenets, child: discipline,” he responded.

Tara bristled, her frustration mounting as she wobbled, her weight rolling from her heel to the ball of her foot.

“I can make my bed in the morning just fine,” she growled.

“Ah, this is exactly what you must learn, dear Tara. I am quite strong, you realize? What do you hope to gain by reducing my tenets to something so small? You risk yourself doing that with others,” he said, his voice calm, though Tara blanched as she realized the magnitude of her insult.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—” she started.

“Peace. I would be a poor teacher to rise to every challenge a student makes,” Myra chuckled. “Discipline is doing what must be done, and refusing what must not.”

Whoosh!

Tara dodged to the side, keeping her body in place, but shifting her head out of the way.

“Uh,” she grunted, smacking the side of her head on a wooden rod. She flailed her arms as her legs and core screamed, struggling to regain control. “I thought you weren’t gonna hit me!”

“I did not. This stick has not moved at all. You are the one who ran into it.”

Tara bristled again, reestablishing her posture and tightening her core. What an annoying contrivance!

“Not every action needs a reaction, child. This world was not created for you alone, and not all that moves does so in consideration of you.

“You must carefully determine which actions you respond to, for every response takes something from you. Nothing is free, least of all your time and energy,” Myra explained.

“Semantics,” Tara grumbled, rubbing the side of her head and immediately regretting it, as the movement once again made her wobble.

Myra chuckled.

“Discipline is similar to balance in many ways. Neither is static. They require constant effort and attention.”

Tara squeezed her core, attempting to hold herself in place directly above her foot.

“Focus on your body, child. You do not stand still while balancing. Your core makes constant corrections, your hips burn, and your entire body works to stay in the most stable position. In balance, like discipline, instinct will only get you so far. They are skills that must be learned.

“Though I tell you it must be learned, I tell you it can also be trained. Take comfort in this, for it means you can be sharpened ever further,” Myra finished, and though Tara’s eyes were closed, she could just imagine him with all four arms crossed in front of him, his eyes closed, and his head nodding sagaciously.

Tara could not deny the more literal parts of his lecture. Her hips were burning, her core worked constantly, tightening and relaxing as her trunk attempted to sway this way and that, as if a tree in a breeze. Had her body always been prone to swaying like this, or was it only because she was standing on one leg?

“Why is it you have decided to instruct me in discipline first?” Tara asked.

She found that occupying her mind, at least in part, with talk helped her maintain her balance. Although he had just lectured about balance requiring attention, she found that if she spent all her attention on it, she would overcorrect and lose her balance completely.

“As I said, I hope you will learn on your own where your strengths and weaknesses lie. However, as a new student, I will tell you that what you lack most right now is balance, and I do not mean the kind you are demonstrating at this moment.

“You have a tremendous will for determination, Tara. I have personally seen you commit to risky actions without hesitation after deciding you have no other choice. This is admirable, but as is written, no single tenet by itself is supreme. Even too much determination can be detrimental.

“If you commit to an extreme action immediately, you risk going overboard, missing details that could have led you to a different course, perhaps a more peaceful one,” he lectured pointedly.

A vision of the ogre’s eye exploding flashed through Tara’s mind, and her balance wavered. She stumbled over with a yip, trying to place her other foot down to steady herself, but finding only air below her.

Before she hit the ground, two meaty hands gripped her shoulders, lifting her fully off the ground and placing her gently on the small pillar raised a couple of feet off the ground. This was what she had been balancing on before, though she did not understand why she could not just practice on solid, level ground.

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“I see the question in your eyes. You are on the pillar because the ground is a crutch. Consciously or subconsciously, you will rely on the ground, the knowledge that it is there, to catch you when you stumble. The pillar eliminates such reliance,” Myra declared.

Tara stared at the pillar below her, taking extra time to get her feet under her. Yes, it was to make sure she was balanced, nothing to do with the color in her cheeks. Her fall had not even been that embarrassing, really.

“Peace, child. It is a teacher’s duty to pick his students up when they fall, and you will fall many times during my training. These are not failures; they are opportunities, for it is by them that you will improve.”

Tara sighed, his reassurance only making her dread future training even more. With an expectation to ‘fall many times’ more in her mind, she closed her eyes and once again raised her left foot. This time, she breathed deeply while bracing her core and crouching down.