The afternoon light in Ringo had a way of turning snow into quiet fire—pale and shimmering, drifting from the sky in slow, steady flakes. Mamoru stood barefoot on the packed yard outside the dojo, the cold biting at his soles, his breath fogging in front of him like a tiny dragon's plume. On the engawa, Onimaru curled his tail around his paws and watched, ears pricked, as if appointed the day's silent overseer.
(A/N : an engawa is a veranda ,stoop or a balcony basically)
Ushimaru stepped out beside his son and slid the shōji shut behind him. He wore a plain training gi, sleeves tied high on his forearms. There was nothing ceremonial about him today; the air around him carried the clean, disciplined stillness of a man who had sharpened his body the way others sharpen steel.
Mamoru gripped his bokken with both hands, knuckles white with excitement. "Are we starting with swings? I've been practicing—look!"
He raised the wooden blade and hacked at the air, feet squelching, shoulders lifting, the cut loud and ungainly. The sound startled a pair of crows from the pines beyond the wall.
"My sword strikes will be so fast , I'll be able to hit my enemy front and back before they even notice "
Ushimaru just watched and didn't correct him right away. He waited until the echo of the boy's enthusiasm died against the snow. Then he set his own bokken on the rack and clasped his hands behind his back.
"Mamoru," he said, voice even, "before a child can run, they must first learn to walk. This applies to our situation now. Before you can swing a sword, you must know the basics."
Mamoru straightened, chastened but unhurt—his eagerness was resilient. "The basics," he echoed, trying to make the words sound weighty.
Ushimaru's gaze swept the yard. He stepped forward and drew a line with his heel in the snow. "We will build on four pillars today. Posture and footwork. Balance and stance. Grip and control. Speed and timing." He lifted a palm. "These will be your companions long after I am gone. They will keep you alive. They will let you protect what matters. If you get these right you'llbe able to go even further ."
Mamoru swallowed, suddenly solemn. Onimaru flicked an ear, as if approving the order of operations.
"First," Ushimaru said, "posture and footwork."
He took position with no sword in hand, feet shoulder-width apart, knees soft, spine long. The stance looked simple, but Mamoru could feel the steadiness of it, the way his father's weight seemed to settle through him into the earth.
"Do as I do."
Mamoru mirrored him. The snow was cold, but it grounded him; he felt the hard-packed crust against his heels, the give beneath the ball of his foot.
"Head tall," Ushimaru said quietly. "Chin level. Shoulders down. Hips under you. A straight line through the crown of the head to the soles. Your body is a tower. A tower that can move."
Mamoru adjusted. Something clicked in his back; the stance became strangely easier.
"Now," Ushimaru continued, stepping along the line he had drawn, "sliding steps. Suri-ashi. The feet never leave the ground. The front foot glides, the rear foot gathers. No hopping. No crossing. We are not dancing—we are erasing distance without surrendering balance."
He moved like a shadow over ice, feet whispering on snow. Mamoru followed, clumsy at first, toes catching, knees locking. His father's hand landed gently on his shoulder.
"Relax. You practice balance when you play with Onimaru. You noticed its importance yourself. Good ,Now borrow that same attention. Feel the ground ,Glide."
Mamoru tried again. This time the movement felt less like a stomp and more like a push. Onimaru, ever the critic, gave a soft chuff from the veranda.
"Spacing," Ushimaru said. "Every step should be small enough to recover, big enough to matter. You must be able to stop at any instant, change directions without toppling. Again."
They traced the yard in a slow rectangle, then a circle, then a figure eight. Wind brought a flurry across their faces; Mamoru tasted snow and grit. His calves began to burn. The burn felt like progress.
"Turn," Ushimaru said. He pivoted around an invisible point, front foot anchoring, rear foot drawing a crescent in the snow. "If you turn with your feet too close, you tangle. Too far, and you lurch. Learn where your body wants to be."
They turned until the first rough circle of steps had been ground into the yard, a pale ring of practice. Ushimaru stopped and nodded once, satisfied.
"Balance and stance," he said, "are the same coin. If your footing is firm, you can absorb more than your size would suggest."
He stepped close and placed two fingers on Mamoru's sternum. "Ready."
Mamoru set his feet as he'd been shown. Ushimaru pushed. Not hard—just enough to test. The boy wobbled but did not fall. He felt the pressure travel down his spine into the earth. His eyes lit.
"Again," Mamoru said.
Ushimaru pushed from a different angle, then lower at the hip, then from the side at the shoulder. Mamoru adjusted, knees softening, toes spreading, breath settling. The push no longer made him panic. It made him listen.
"When a large enemy strikes," Ushimaru said, "your footing turns his power into nothing. When your stance is weak, even a child can topple you." He stood behind Mamoru and, with two light taps of his foot, adjusted the boy's heel and toe by a finger's width. "A house does not stand because it was built using the best materials. It stands because of its firm foundation."
He stepped away. "Hold."
Mamoru held. The world narrowed to breath and bones and the faint ache of legs. Flakes gathered on his hair; he resisted the urge to shake them off.
"Good," Ushimaru said at last. "Now we place a sword in those feet."
He handed Mamoru the bokken. The boy grasped it the way he always had—tight as rope, the wood digging into his palms.
"Grip," Ushimaru said, moving in. He took the boy's hands and rearranged them: left hand near the butt, right hand an inch below the tsuba, thumbs relaxed, wrists not locked. "Light but firm. Your fingers hold; your wrists guide. Imagine a sparrow beneath your palm—hold too tight and you crush it, too loose and it flies away. You are not strangling the sword. You are conversing with it."
Mamoru loosened. The wood felt different—uncomfortable but alive almost , it felt right.
Ushimaru lifted his own bokken, mirroring the grip. "Heavy strike," he said, and tightened his last two fingers, forearms coiling. "Light strike," and the grip softened, motion traveling like water through bamboo.
"Control is not strength alone," he said. "Control is choice. You choose the line. You choose the depth. A precise parry beats a wild block. A clean cut beats a loud one."
He placed the bokken's tip on Mamoru's shoulder. "Move my blade off you with the least motion possible."
Mamoru swatted. The blade skittered, but his stance collapsed.
"Least motion," Ushimaru repeated, and flicked his wrist. The wooden tip slid off his gi as if guided by a whisper. "Your body is quiet. Your hands speak."
They repeated the exchange, small motions, tiny deflections, the snow recording each foot's correction. Three times Mamoru over-corrected. Twice he forgot to breathe. On the fifth try, the tip slid free without his shoulders lifting.
"We'll practice more of these later "
"Now," Ushimaru said, "speed and timing."
He stooped and picked a brittle pine needle from the yard's edge, held it at shoulder height between two fingers. "Do you know the difference?"
"Speed is… fast?" Mamoru ventured.
"Speed is how quick you move," Ushimaru said. He released the needle. It fell in a lazy spiral. "Timing is when you choose to move."
As the needle dropped past Mamoru's chest, Ushimaru drew his bokken. The wooden blade blurred and stopped, not quite touching the needle, the air itself seeming to split. The pine shard twirled into two pieces and settled on the snow.
Mamoru gaped.
'He did that with a bokken?' Mamoru looked at the sword on his dad's hip , it never left his hip.
"Iaidō," Ushimaru said calmly, re-sheathing in one clean line. "The draw is the cut. It is not only speed that matters, but intention. You strike not before your opponent knows they are open—but the instant they become open. Its all about timing and speed .To do that, your body must be prepared, your posture and feet aligned, your grip ready to communicate the choice to strike."
He handed Mamoru a wooden saya and short bokken designed for practice. "Until you master the basics no killing draws . You will learn readiness."
They practiced the kata slowly: hand to the scabbard, thumb to tsuba, hips settling, breath rising, a single smooth pull to the first inch of draw, then return. Over and over. The snow marked time with them. Mamoru's shoulders wanted to help; Ushimaru reminded them not to. The power belonged to hips and core, not scrunched muscles.
"Again," Ushimaru said.
"Again," Ushimaru echoed.
When his forearms began to tremble, Ushimaru called a brief pause. They stood side by side and looked out at the low sun sliding behind the pines. Onimaru yawned, as if he had been the one working.
"Father," Mamoru said, voice small in the open yard, "when will I learn to cut like that?"
"When the cut is no more interesting to you than the stance that makes it possible," Ushimaru said. "When you would rather correct your foot by an inch than make a show of your arms. When noise stops impressing you, and clean beginnings do."
Mamoru groaned at that , lips pressed together in thought. He nodded, eyes setting with the stubborn light .
Ushimaru lowered his bokken. "This is only the beginning. We will add more as time goes on. With desire and repetition you can be amongthe greatest swordsman in the world " He turned toward the rack at the yard's edge and unrolled a thin lacquered board. On it, a schedule had been brushed in clean, even characters.