Martial Arts 201.1 - The Mental Game (CLASS/OPEN)

"This being a 201 class and all," Grandmaster Samurai Brown said to a cameraman who was recording him, "We'll be exploring different tactics and approaches to defeating an opponent. I'm expect a class with a bit of combat experience already, but by far from a experts status. A class full of scrubs I guess you could say."

This 201 class, just like his previous class, was full of men from Atlesian Television Network (ATN) who were busy setting up studio recording equipment all over the room. As a part of his new reality television series, "The Teachings Of A Grandmaster", what went on in this classroom was to air on TV across Remnant.

Waiting for the class to begin, Grandmaster Samurai Brown sat atop the professor's desk in the classroom, crossing his legs under each other as he did, and placed his palms open on his laps. Closing his eyes and humming to himself, Grandmaster Samurai Brown began to assume a state of meditation as he waited for the class to begin.

Floating down the hallway of the building Layla was in route to her next class of the day. Martial Arts and from what she have been hearing from other students this would likely become one of her the weirdest class she had here. An academy teacher who went around filming his classes for a tv show, or something along that line. It sounded like something you see in a tv show, not real life. Then again she remembers being asked more than once to host odd shows like this for reality tv back in her bad days. There was no shortage of these things. She just hopes this guy was one of the few who knew what they were doing with these shows.

Reaching the door of the room Layla pushed it open and just stared at what she saw. The teacher really did have a film crew in the room. For a second the girl thought about turning about and skipping this classes as it had been a long time since the last time she been on Tv. During her short Rock n Roll career, it was a common thing and she wasn't sure she wanted to step back into that. However, a quickly looked toward the teacher desk cause her re-rethink this. There sitting was Grandmaster Samurai Brown! Layla knew the man at once having been a big fan of the man many Martial Arts movies. "Well... Now I got to do this." She thought with a sigh as she floated in and placing her bag on a table.

Thankfully she didn't wear her uniform today since this was a martial arts class. If there was actual training she didn't want to be caught in a skirt. So she wore a pair of training short along with a underarmor shirt. Her long black hair tied back into a ponytail. Looking around at the people working she couldn't help but feel a bit nostalgia of her time with her band as they stood off stage waiting for a show to begin. As for the teacher she wanted to say something to him, but from the looked of it, he appeared to be doing some sort of meditation. She didn't want to Real or not, she felt that she shouldn't disturb him just yet. So floating in place she pulled up her legs and sat there with a smile as she watched the people work.

She soon jumped slightly as she heard a deep voice come from behind her making she spin in the air to look back at another older gentleman. At first, she thought he was part of the crew or with the teacher, but she spoke as if he was a student. Layla knew the school didn't have an age limit, but it was her first time meeting one of few older members. However, she really didn't know what to say so she went with the first thing that came to her mind. "You're not the only one." She said smiling and raising a hand up turning back toward the teacher. "Also, like to say, big fan of your work. And no that's not brown nosing."

There wasn’t much to do that day for Jet. He woke up pretty early for him, which means fairly late for any normal person, and other than a few random things he tinkered with, his day had been pretty unproductive. While he did go to class… sometimes… he had to agree that his activities at the school generally revolved around killing Grimms or playing around with technology. Maybe it was time to get back behind a desk, if only to fight boredom.

Shrugging to himself, Jet took out his scroll and browsed the classes that would be starting soon. “Chemistry? Meh. Dust theories? Too easy. Cook.. ing? There’s cooking classes? Weird. Oh! Martial arts 201! That sounds like it could be fun. It also looks like the second level of the class even though there aren’t any prerequisite for it, that’s great!”

Picking up his weapon just in case, Jet made his way to the class. He wasn’t expecting that much of the class other than maybe some old dude that was probably 100 times better than him and just as many times older. All in all, he was expecting a typical martial arts class.

This was not a typical martial arts class.

Cameras? ATN? As the black haired hunter in training was approaching the class, he realised that something was not usual. Too many people that weren’t students and weren’t school staff either were running around, preparing something. “What the…?” Jet felt someone bump in him, running past him with some clip board and shouting at others. All of that in front of the classroom he was supposed to enter, where he would normally learn to punch and kick stuff better. Tentatively, he entered the class and saw that only two other students were present. Possibly the others were dissuaded by the presence of the TV crew outside?

Jet finally spotted the teacher and … “Holy hell! Well that explains it.” If he had any hesitation before about this class, they were gone and replaced by a big smile of excitement. Grandmaster Samurai Brown was meditating on his desk so Jet decided not to bother him before the end of the class, but he had to shake the dude’s hand at some point. Just like many people, Jet had heard of the man and had watched pretty much the whole collection of his movies. He wouldn’t go and call him his hero or anything, but he definitely admired his new teacher.

With renewed vigor, Jet walked toward an empty seat. He recognised the floating girl from a while before in the arena as well as history class, so he sat down beside her. His smile not wavering, Jet leaned back in his chair and while not addressing anyone in particular, he let his thoughts be known. “Well, this is going to be pretty interesting.”

Man, how long has it been that Kristin's been in the school and not stepped foot in an actual classroom? She supposed that she was simply enjoying campus life that she somewhat... forgot! Busy with this or that through the past couple of weeks, she continued to promise herself that she'd finally go to a class that she actually thought matter. And for the longest time, it seemed like there wouldn't be a single thing that would come around to catch the blonde's interest. Dust was something she only had a passing interest in and tech was already something she was far better than most with. So that didn't leave many options. So what could possibly catch the flirty girl's interest?

Apparently, if you combine the phrases 'Martial Arts' and 'Atlesian Television Network' pretty much did the trick. As soon as Kristin heard that she could not only display her prowess in combat, but also have it aired on TV almost sent shivers down the girl's spine. She made it her goal to immediately check it out! Skipping the 101 class because she figured she could skip whatever basics there was, she immediately set out to the class that the teacher was currently teaching.

Dressed up in her most eye-catching - and of course combat capable - attire of a form-fitting green tubetop with a cute black skirt that could be removed to reveal the shorts underneath, she ensured that her appearance was nothing less than spectacular. Her hair done to give it that perfect volume and shine so that the cameras that were in the classroom would have no choice but to capture every moment of the blonde's spectacular image. Winking to herself in the mirror, if there was anything that would be Kristin's fall, a lack of confidence and pride certainly wouldn't be the cause. With everything all set, she was all set, she put on her heart-shaped pendant and set out to introduce herself to the world of televised entertainment~

It would actually be surprising if things went as well as she expected them to.

Barging into the classroom fourth, apparently, she took no time before looking towards one of the cameras and giving them a wink. Hopefully the not-so-literal stars and sparkles that followed the blonde wouldn't cause too much bloom for the camera. Without even paying attention to anyone else in the room (not even the people operating the camera) "Kristin Rossfeld, it's truly a pleasure to meet you all~" She was more talking to the audience than anyone present and then made her way towards the front row, setting down her bag and waiting for things to begin while she idly fiddled with the pendant with her fingers.

Although she was mostly absorbed in her own selfish desires to be on camera, Kristin did take the time to glance over towards everyone else present. One guy, while apparently handsome, seemed far too serious for the type of situation that they were in. The other two weren't that much better. With one being a guy that apparently decided to wear sunglasses indoors for whatever reason and the other being some goth girl, they were lucky that Krissy was there to actually add some liveliness and color to the room! And then came the teacher of the class, Grandmaster Samurai Brown. Who, if she were being honest, she had no idea who they were. Mostly because she never bothered with watching Martial Arts movies and shows when she much more enjoyed the thought of mastering her own fighting style.

With a faint grin, Kristin was ready for quite the fun class~

Grandmaster Samurai Brown opened one eye once someone started asking him in the midst of his meditation when the class would start. He saw amongst the desks of the classroom the student who the question originally came from. He looked very mature, much older then the average age of students who attended Syne Academy. He had very defined facial features, and gave off the appearance of someone who held great importance. Still, it meant nothing to the Grandmaster if someone looked important.

"Ya know what they say about disturbing a man in his meditation?" The Grandmaster said, clearly annoyed, "Ya don't do it! Anyways, class will begin when it begins. So just chill until then ya hear?"

At this point, before the Grandmaster could return to his meditation, another person joined in on the conversation. A bat fauness, something he had only seen a couple times before. She ended up stating how much a fan she was of his work.

"Yea yea, whatever." The Grandmaster dismissed rudely, still upset from being interupted from his meditation, "Just know that I don't do autographs, so don't be prayin for one."

A couple of more students made their way into the classroom as well. One of them wore sunglasses indoors and the other tried to put her face on camera, putting her face in front of one in which a one of the ATN camera men promptly shoed off. As much as the Grandmaster would have liked to return to his meditation, there was no time to. One of the men in ATN uniforms in the back waved at Grandmaster Samurai Brown, signaling for him to start.

Taking a quick sigh, the Grandmaster quickly composed himself. Then raising one hand, he made a loud snap with a his thumb and index finger. Quickly after, a hip hop/rap track began to play in sound speakers around the room.


The Grandmaster hopped off of the desk, landing in front of it on his feet. He stood crossing his arms, and said nothing for a few moments, as if to make the entire scene more dramatic. The Grandmaster looked over the class with a solid gaze as the song track filled the room with it's melody.

"My name," The Grandmaster spoke up, his voice matching the rhythm of the song, "Is Grandmaster Samurai Brown. Know it or not, it doesn't really matter. I could care less if ya'll know me or not."

The Grandmaster began pacing the front of the classroom, continuing to move in rhythm with the song as though he had practiced this in the past.

"What I do want ya'll to know is that this is a martial arts 201 class, so be prepared for it." The Grandmaster continued, "In these 201 classes, each of one of ya will be learning how to overcome an enemy stronger who is far stronger then yourself. It doesn't matter how capable ya think yourself to be, there is always someone stronger." He then added with a grin, "Hell, I'm still waiting for the day I find my stronger counterpart."

"Now," The Grandmaster continued, "Fighting a stronger opponent. Far more skilled then ya. Faster then ya. Overall more superior then ya. Now I have to ask, get ya'll thinkin, how do you fight, and win against such an opponent?"

The halls of the academy teamed with life. Like fish in a barrel, wall to wall humanity and faunuskind filled the halls, and Sol could not take one step without having to step around, or through someone, the air smelled of a hundred different perfumes and deodorants, each overpowering the last, and the air hummed and murmured like the inside of a beehive. The sights and sounds were so sharp that they cut, and his heart beat like a piston in his chest as he tried to scan every single face that passed, an impossible feat for anyone with two eyes, let alone his one, and all it did was make him nauseous and more anxious to escape the suffocating crowd. He tried not to imagine who might be concealing a knife, who might have a gun and a grudge, or who might just snap, but it was there at the back of his mind like an echo of every footstep he took, as was the knowledge that while he might stand an above average chance against such a person in a straight up fight, they could get close enough to kiss in this sea of people before he noticed.

Sol passionately disliked crowds, and strangers, or at least had come to in the last year or so, and here at Syne, there was no shortage of either. It was absurd, Bellmuse was tiny as was the academy, at least in comparison to his home of Atlas, and the world famous Titan academy where he had received the bulk of his combat training, but the secluded school seemed to team with as many students, or more, as Titan.

This was his second day at the school, (he still had an ugly swollen bruise beneath his eye to show how well the first had gone), but at least his arm had mended nicely, and he was en-route to his first class, if he could survive the current of other youths also studying to be hunters and huntresses.

"Martial Arts 201" it was called, with an instructor whose name rang a bell, but Sol couldn't place exactly where from, and that was good, because as it was, his nerves were frayed raw. Between the events of his first day, sub-optimal sleeping arrangements (as well as other complications, including the persistent night terrors that had whittled his success at getting any sleep down to a splinter), and now this tide of strange faces (most of which openly carrying weapons of some sort), it was just a matter of time before he snapped and hit something.Better that something to be a training dummy or sparring partner, than some poor random passerby who looked a bit too much like they might be getting ready to stick a knife in his ribs.

The doctors had advised against relocating to a strange place with strange people, but their prescription of rest and therapy, and absolutely no combat of any kind for the foreseeable future, would have been just as detrimental to Sol's mental stability, if not more so. Combat was the only thing he seemed to have left, and losing that might have killed him, (Sol rolled his right shoulder around in it's joint and grimaced), if he hadn't lost it already that is, and this anxiety, this constant vigilance to spy an incoming ambush, constantly expecting and at times (like right now) feeling danger just out of reach like a light shining over his shoulder, was just something he had to learn to live with, just like he'd learned to live with having but a single eye.

The door came into view, and relief filled him, or rather a thin misting of water vapor tried ineffectually to douse the blaze of anxiety roaring in his chest, and he steeled himself to enter.

His strong jaw, square and broad, set his lips in a determined line, and all at once his face seemed to become made of stone. His single golden eye, emphasized by the absence of it's neighbor, almost smoldered with a steely determination, as the rest of his face hardened into an unreadable mask. He took a moment to check his uniform, a grey waist-coat in the Atlesian style, over a long sleeved white shirt, tucked into a belted pair of dress pants, that seemed to struggle to contain the bulging shapes of his shoulders, arms, and chest, all beneath a tailed black blazer, that like the shirt, fit him very closely and highlighted his athletic physique, and finally a pair of white naval gloves to cover his hands. He could have been an officer showing up for inspection, but he still adjusted his collar to center it in line with his throat. He was not sure how Syne did things just yet, but Titan enforced a strict dress-code, and by now it was a deeply ingrained habit. Then he strode into the class, each arm and leg stiff in posture as he adopted a marching gait, only to freeze one step through the threshold.

Simultaneously he noted the other students, none of which wearing anything resembling a uniform, the instructor who bore an absurdly striking resemblance to some exploitative movie star, and a film crew, baring a logo that Sol immediately and accurately identified as that of ATN.

Though his face did not change, he could have given stone lessons in stoicism, his eye blazed at the sight of the film crew, and the logical explanation for their presence. He debated making a heel-turn and leaving right then, but he had already fled to some barely inhabited fly-speck of an island in the middle of the ocean to escape the media, and he literally had no where else to go. So he stood his ground, and glared daggers at the unwitting camera crew, and listened carefully to the instructor's introductions as he himself tried to remain as unremarkable as possible, despite the fact that between being the only one in a uniform, one styled in such a way as to mimic that of military rank and file no less, having one eye and a most conspicuous eye-patch, and on top of it all having arrived late, he stood out like a sore thumb that had just burst into flames.

He swallowed as another student answered the inquiry, and all at once his frustration and anxiety came to a head and he blurted out.

"You don't win." He spat, voice like the guttering rumble of a roaring furnace, and tone plenty hot to match, carrying like the report of a rifle in the nearly empty chamber, "If someone outclasses you in every area, you don't win. You don't fight him, he fights you, and you die. Then you get to be a rung on the ladder he climbs to his next real fight, or if you are lucky you get your name remembered in some book that only stuffy bookworms with crooked backs will ever read. So you give it everything you have, all at once, before he can whittle you down, and you pray to whatever mad intellect runs this show and you hope you get lucky. You don't let him kill you, you leave everything out on the battlefield and better to kill yourself first with the strength of your effort."

Sitting in her spot in the air Layla smiled as she watched the men work around the room. It bought her back as she remembers watching stagehands as they used to work before a concert. She could already tell this was a pro team that knew what needed to do and when. She was also thankfully she no longer had an agent of her own anymore as this would have turned into a nightmare for her the second she floated it to the room. Show business was a cut cutthroat world and was happy to have left it behind. However, she was a bit worried that being on tv again might bring unwanted eye on her once more, but then again she was most likely a forgotten shadow by now in the music world.

While waiting she watched at other enter the room. The first being the lazy guy she had met once on the training field and again in another class. Sadly she couldn't remember his name other than Shade guy, but that sounded rude. So she would just play the pronoun game with the guy until she heard someone say his name she thought as she nodded agreeing this would be an interesting class. The next one was a blonde who seemed drawn toward the cameras around them all. Quickly jumping in front of them and giving a quick shout out to them. Layla couldn't help but smiled at this as she watched the girl from the side as she seen many of her kinds in her day. A little thing she likes to call a Diva. A third man soon joins them this one giving off the vibes of a military man. A bit of a handsome one at that, in that rugged kind of way. However, he made no attempt to proceed farther into the room which only made him stand out even more to her.

It didn't take long after that for the teacher quickly jump into things, after making sure they knew his annoying for disturbing his meditation. The little bat held back her sigh as she had heard stories of the man for others in the both show business and media world. How he could be a bit of a hand full at times, but she also knew he could back out pretty much everything he said too so maybe he deserved the bosting. However, the girl frowned at the man question. "How do you beat someone stronger than yourself?" Well if you can you don't fight them then, but she had a feeling the man wouldn't like that answer. As she thought about it herself she also listened to the man in red. He gave a goon answer without really giving a real answer which caused the girl to think harder. He was right about adaptability, or at least she thought so.

"I have to agree with him...To an extent." She said crossing her arms leaning back in the air glacing at the military man. "That being you don't fight, if that possible. Why fight a losing battle? But if isn't possible then you have to use what you are better at against them. Outsmart them? Outmaneuver? If you have nothing at all then run! Some call it the coward way, but I don't agree with just tossing your life away without meaning." She said tailing off at the end. She wasn't the best strategies preferring most of the time to fight out of instinct than anything else.

The next two students that got in didn't really catch Jet's attention that much. Well, the blonde was cute and her antics were funny, but that was it for the moment. She actually seemed even more of a show-off than him, which was saying something. The second student arriving after him was actually late, something that didn't really bother Jet but it made him wonder how the teacher would react to this.

Back to the class though. He appreciated the showmanship of the teacher, it was definitly entertaining and the ATN crew seemed to love it too. Hell, Jet knew he'd love it from the other side of the screen had he seen it as a spectator. The chill groove in the background made him chuckle but it was low enough that no one save one very close to him would hear it. Not that he was laughing at the idea, he was just that much entertained.

The question came and the first to answer was the older guy in red. Jet scoffed a bit at his answer. He didn't mean to, but to him, that sounded like a bunch of pretty words. "Adaptability". "Finding the Weakness". "Teamwork!" Come on, teamwork? They weren't in motivationnal speech 101.
The second guy's answer made more sense to him, but it was too extreme. Even when saying you might as well die while trying, he sounded like he thought it was over and done and you might just as well give up.
The bat faunus was at least a bit more positive, but overal she sounded like the chances were slim on the weaker fighter. Which was true, but Jet was more confident that that.

"Fighting a stronger opponent isn't entirely a bad thing, each battle is a learning opportunity, as cliché as that sounds. Before even thinking about winning, you have to use this opportunity to learn and get better while fighting. Red guy here had one point I could really agree with, it's that you have to adapt. Don't search for a weakness though, chances are it'll be one of yours anyway. You have to play your strength and adapt on the fly, you'll survive longer this way than trying something you're not good at simply cause you think the other guy is also rubbish at it. Some could say you have to be lucky, but if you count on luck to pull you through difficult stuff, you won't go far." Leaning forward to rest his arms on his desk, the black haired guy continued. "There is one advantage you have over a much stronger opponent, though. If even you can see that he's that much stronger, you can bet he knows too and chances are he might be underestimating you, that's when you can really use your advantage over him. If an opponent thinks he's going to win easily, he won't go all fancy on you and take risks, he'll keep things simple. But you on your side have nothing to lose. Really, if you're going to lose anyway, might as well go ahead and take all the risks, be reckless and get a good hit from an angle he wouldn't expect because of the danger it puts you in. What do you have to lose? If he's that much stronger than you, you won't win with the basics anyway."