„Katana, tanto and ninjato are the most commonly used swords",, Shisui started another segment after a winding three hours talking about the basics of bows: „This is due to their low entry point. Anyone can swing a sword in the most basics of forms without any katas or knowledge about it. Point the sharp and stabby end toward your enemies and try to hit them. That is the basis of other weapons too, but due to the similarities to common household items it just feels more natural than thrusting a spear. Now that I think about it, farmers might say the same about spears due to their use of hey forks. Anyways, as with all other weapons, the skill ceiling is very high and true mastery is not easily reached. Without external means it has a limited range, losing out against spears and cannot be used to block or even just parry a war hammer or mace. It is superior to a simple kunai though, as your range and power is amplified by the length of the blade. Flexibility is lost though, so you could be overwhelmed by a lot of fast attacks or even some simple feints. The most common metals for these swords are…", Shisui continued, talking about the forging process and a few of the most basic techniques used in it, before continuing with maintenance and introducing different sword styles using these three swords.
The next few days followed a similar manner, though the subjects shifted to spears, hammers, maces, scythes and some examples of more unorthodox weapons like chains and brass knuckles. The amount of information Shisui provided was mind boggling even for himself, so it came as no surprise that everyone heaved a sigh of relieve as Saturday came around. They still had school, but it was finally time for another practical lessons as their theoretical foundation was crystalline.
The day started at six o'clock, with a huge amount of weapons positioned at the edge of the training ground. While some were only slightly different, all of them were a unique kind of weapons as even a single centimeter of length could make a worlds difference.
Shisui appeared and started without greeting his students: „What you see at the edge of this field are one hundred different weapons with enough of each one to fit all of you with them. This weekend we will go through every single basic kata for these weapons, after which you can decide to take some of them up or, if you are still not sure about it, continue practicing with any one of them. While they will not be yours, you are allowed to borrow them until the end of the school year, though I will keep them until you can open storage scrolls on your own as a hundred different weapons are no easy weight to carry, though it is possible or so I heard. We will start with kunais and daggers, followed by shuriken and senbon, after which we will look at bows and the first swords. Then we have the heavier weapons like hammers, war hammers, maces or the more flexible ones like spears and scythes. As we have already talked about most of them in depth I will not go over it again, though I will answer any questions after the lessons are over. Everyone take a set of kunai", Shisui said, before most of them rushed towards him to have the first pick. It would change nothing, as any set of official kunai was nearly identical in quality and quantity.
„Now, fall into the basic kata stances", Shisui commanded, before a silent simultaneous shuffling of feet was heard and all of the students fell into a better than average stance. This was graded per the genin standard, so their basics were solid. „For now we will completely disregard the placement of your weapons on your body. So that you do not take up a bad habit you will swap the position of them constantly, until you find one which fits, which will only happen a bit after the preliminary formation of your battle styles. Today I will choose the right hip for you. Now if you take out a kunai, it needs to be fast and if possible unnoticed, as you are either in a tricky situation already or need a bit of stealth to prepare for an eventual confrontation. If you attack, use short precise swings or if the chance appears, stabs, but do never go for a strategy where you will eventually use your kunai, except you can even the playing field right after. These movements need to be supported by your whole body, at least until you learn how to do perfectly conserve your energy which even I am no expert in yet", Shisui explained, slowly starting to show the most basic of basic katas for kunais, before he slowly upped the ante after most had grasped the reason behind the exercise.
And so it continued until the day ended with 31 sweat soaked persons on the field and a hundred less weapons to test out. „I am proud, and annoyed", Shisui joked: „That we could get through all the weapons today. This means, that we can practice another few weapons tomorrow, before I will leave it up to you to test all of them more thoroughly. Do NOT", he emphasized: „Take this lightly and slack off, as this is one of the best opportunities which most normal classes do not deign to give you. A weapon that does not sit right with you is the worst enemy on the field".
He continued to explain: „But you still need to be able to use the most commonly used weapons proficiently, as they are the most commonly available, if you are ever in a need for a weapon on a battlefield or even just a small skirmish. There are a few shinobi who perfected the art of using ownerless equipment with shocking efficiency on a battlefield, as you basically do not need to use your own weapon and are thus much saver. The only caveat is, that the quality of such weapons cannot be guaranteed, though you do learn to judge the quality of weapons, as it is one of your most important tools. Dismissed, same time tomorrow morning", he said, before disappearing in the direction of the nearest library to read up on a few things.
A quite renowned book on weapons had a slightly funny sentence in it though, which brought a slight smile towards his lips: „Pointy things to throw, stabby things to stab and sharp things to cut", which is actually quite a good explanation, though at a less than satisfactory level for anyone else than a toddler.
The last thoughts before Shisui finally fell asleep that night were about that sentence and how he was near petrified by his not so good teaching skills. It was not about having all the information, but what how and when to share it. He had realized this quite fast but it was one of the very few topics were he was just stumped on how he could improve without practical experience, which he luckily had on mass due to his new job, where he was less than satisfied with his current performance.
The next day started with even more elan than the day before, so they had gone through another hundred weapons before lunch, though most of those were slightly rarer variations of the more common ones of their type. The most problematic by far was the ninja wire, as the foundation in the weapons to use it was not yet at a useable level, which ended in quite a lot of tangled up ones. At least all of the weapons were blunt or a few arms would have cut the carrier of some students short.
Injuries were actually a quite serious problem in even the less than violent peacetime curriculum, so Shisui was baffled that no other teachers insisted on blunted weapons. Did it serve any purpose that some students left the academy with quite a lot of scars? It was not like there were other ways to build character, resilience and pain immunity. Shisuis normal training was way more effective and even had safeguards against both those types of injuries and hidden ones.
But no, you could not change tradition. The scholars knew better since aeons, but you would not listen to them. Old fossils were sometimes troublesome and even the former hokage still tried to meddle in these things, as he still had a lot of his supporters which silently did his biddings. It was one of Shisui's more annoying jobs to have an accurate read on the current politics as it was very much possible that his head would roll with a single misstep.
At least the Uchiha had finally allowed other shinobi to join the police force, which was something quite troublesome to do, though it had only benefits for both the village and his clan. Politics were so damn frustrating after all. Once upon a time the hokage was the one single shot caller in the village, but that was one of the rare traditions which had to be changed as soon as humanly possible as that was too much power in a single hand. While Shisui did agree with that, a single voice could do both a lot of good or bad depending on their competence, though that potential of good had taken a massive hit due to the current political landscape.
The next day, as frustrating as politics and a strange dream about flying cats were, Shisui still went back to teach his class. And the day after, the next one too and so on. After all this time, his students theoretical level skyrocketed and he finally deemed them ready to take the next step forwards in their weapons training as well.
Each and every one of his students had surpassed his expectations once again, as anyone had solid basics in at least fifteen major weapon categories. But over all this time, their peculiar styles also manifested as well. Due to this, their basics could no longer progress further, except they were allowed to spar, which Shisui had forbidden up to now.
If they did not even know why they did what, it was of no use to wildly hit each other in a sparring match. It would neither be educational nor a real contest. Depending on their respective skills, it would be a one sided beat down.
So, on a sunny midday Sunday, Shisui gathered all the training students: „Today, we will start sparring. We will still use blunted weapons and for now we will only have a single match at a time. I will narrate these fights, so each of you can learn from it. As soon as you can see a few of my observations yourself, we will go on to all of you sparring and after you have a solid grasp on fighting against each other, we will go on to group battles and more. At any point of this new plan it is important, that you fight with or against anyone, which means that I do not want to see four students constantly rotating with each other. I also want any one of you to always give your bests, as the training would be useless otherwise. As motivation I will only say one thing. Once you reach acceptable levels of group combat coordination, we will finally start with chakra, until the whole cycle closes and you once again practice, spar and so on, just with chakra this time."
„Toyoka, Ayaka, you are up. This will be a very enlightening one as it is bow against senbon. You will se the limitations and advantages of both of them in a real fight for once. Toyoka starts with a defensive stance, whereas Ayaka is still undecided, as you can see from the placement of his feet. Now he fell into an offensive one, after seeing what his opponent choose..."
The following fight was … child's play for Shisui, but for the fighting students it was one of their real battle experiences and the highest adrenalin rush of their lives. They lost themselves completely in their own world, with quite a good fighting sequence materializing in front of everyones eyes.
But fluidity was not given at the moment.