After gathering his energy, Qingto devoted himself to following Okita's instructions and practicing Suzhen.
As for Okita, he was holding his bamboo sword and walking around the apprentices, supervising their practice.
Every time his surveillance gaze passed over Qingdeng's body, the look of surprise in his eyes flickered.
——This man... is so awesome...!
Novices often make various small mistakes when practicing Su Zhen, such as swinging the sword downward instead of forward; turning their wrists or pressing their wrists when swinging the sword...
Generally speaking, it is very normal to spend several days practicing Su Zhen to the point where he will not make any more mistakes.
If you can practice Su Zhen to a standard in one day, you are considered to be an outstanding talent.
And this new junior brother... actually only watched him demonstrate once, and then practiced it once, and he was able to use Su Zhen with such a standard that he couldn't make any mistakes...
——This person's talent...maybe even higher than that of Kondo-san and Hijikata-san...
Uncontrollably, Okita cast nearly half of his eyes and attention on Qingto.
The training requirement given to Qingteng by this beautiful young man is to practice until he can no longer swing the sword. Let's see what Qingteng's current limit is.
For standard Su Zhen, you have to use your utmost strength to swing each sword, so it consumes a lot of physical strength.
When he reached the 32nd swing, Aomori felt that the muscles in his arms were extremely sore and it was difficult to raise his arms, so he had no choice but to give up the practice and loudly announced to Okita, "I can't swing anymore."
"Hmm... Not bad." Okita dragged his bamboo sword and walked slowly to Qingto's side, "I have been silently observing you just now to see if your movements are up to standard."
"You did far better than I expected."
"Except for the last few cuts, where the posture was a little messed up due to lack of physical strength, every other cut was quite standard."
"I feel a little embarrassed..." Qingdeng said with a bitter smile, "I only swung the knife 32 times and I can't swing it anymore..."
——This body is really weak!
Qingdendi complained about his new body countless times.
"Beginners don't need to pay too much attention to the number of Su Zhen." Okita smiled slightly, "Whether the movements of Su Zhen are standard or not is the most important."
"It's better not to practice than to perform a thousand substandard exercises."
"I originally wanted to use all my time today to teach you how to be calm."
A helpless emotion slowly appeared on Okita's face.
"But your progress... is far beyond my imagination. There is nothing else to correct on your Su Zhen, so let's move on to the next step of practice."
"Next, I'll teach you how to draw and put away the sword."
"Drawing and sheathing the sword are the basic foundations of swordsmanship. If you can't draw the sword well or put it away well, then there's no point in talking about swordsmanship."
"You should rest a little now, and then call me after you have rested. I will get you the tools to practice drawing and sheathing the sword."
"yes."
…
…
Qingdeng rested for half an hour before finally feeling that most of the pain in his arms had dissipated.
After informing Okita that he had finished resting, Okita ran out of the dojo and came back with two sheathed wooden swords.
"It's so heavy..." After receiving the wooden knife from Okita, Qingto couldn't help but let out a low exclamation due to the unexpected weight of the wooden knife.
"This is a wooden sword specially used to practice drawing and sheathing the sword." Okita explained, "It is specially weighted in order to perfectly simulate the weight of a real sword."
Qingdeng weighed the sheathed wooden sword in his hand - in terms of weight, it was really the same as the real sword.
"Okay, now you can watch me demonstrate it again." Okita put the wooden sword on his left waist, "There is only one key point in drawing and sheathing the sword - let your hand take the shortest path to touch the sword, and don't do anything superfluous.
action."
"look carefully."
After saying that, Okita suddenly raised his right hand, held down the wooden sword on his left waist, and pulled it out of its sheath.
call--!
The knife came out of its sheath, making a harsh sound of the air being cut.
After pulling out the sword neatly, Okita retracted the wooden sword with the same neat movement.
The set of moves Okita just performed was the same as Su Zhen's previous demonstration. It was clean and concise. Even people who didn't know how to swords would just want to shout: "Awesome!"
"When drawing a sword, remember to hold the sword with your right wrist in this way..."
Okita Yan briefly and comprehensively introduced to Qingnobo the details of the movements that need to be paid attention to when drawing and sheathing the sword.
After he finished speaking, he put his hands and the bamboo sword behind his back.
"Okay. Now you can try it yourself."
"yes."
Aoto spread his legs, lowered his center of gravity, imitated Okita's action just now, and slowly moved his right hand to the wooden sword on his left waist.
Looking at Qingto who was about to draw his sword, Okita said in his heart with anticipation and a bit of pride:
——Drawing and sheathing the sword...it can't be practiced in just one or two times, right?
After seeing Aoto's astonishing talent, a strange curiosity arose in Okita's heart - a curiosity to find out the depth of Aoto's talent.
Okita, with a look of anticipation in his eyes, looked longingly at Aoto who was holding the handle of the knife with his right hand.
The "high-speed camera" in Qingdeng's mind was turned on again at this moment——
call!
The blade of the wooden sword was quickly pulled out of the sheath inch by inch, and Okita's eyes widened little by little.
After pulling out the wooden sword, Aoto imitated Okita's action just now and put the sword back into its sheath.
——This person...has he really never received formal swordsmanship training before?!
Whether Qingdeng was Su Zhen before or drew the sword and put it away just now, Okita looked at it and felt that it was not an action that a beginner could make.
Even veterans of swordsmanship may not be able to perform such beautiful moves.
However, in the competition between Aomori and Suzuki that he just watched, Aomori's extremely childish sword-swinging movements clearly told him that this junior brother was indeed a newcomer who had not had much exposure to swordsmanship before...
——If...he really hasn't received any formal swordsmanship training before...then his talent...
Okita's eyes gradually became serious...no, it should be said that he became weird and "scary".
Qingto, who felt uncomfortable being stared at by Okita like this, couldn't help but say:
"Um...Okita-kun?"
"Ah." Okita laughed as if he had just woken up from a dream, "I'm sorry, I just got a little distracted."
"The action you just performed was good. It's quite rare for a beginner to be able to perform such a level of action."
"But there are still some things you didn't do well just now."
Okita stepped forward and carefully explained to Qingto what details he had not done just now.
After Okita corrected him and Qingto practiced on his own several times, Okita nodded.
"For the rest of the time, you should concentrate on practicing drawing and sheathing the sword." Okita ordered, "Let's practice it 40 times first. Remember to make the movements standard during practice, and don't neglect it in order to complete the number of exercises as soon as possible.
The standard of movement.”
After giving Qingto a new training task, Okita took his bamboo sword and went to supervise and check the practice of others.
After Okita left, Aoto began to follow Okita's instructions and concentrated on practicing drawing and sheathing the sword.
And at this moment - Uehara, who had been practicing Sozhen under Okita's order, finally completed a series of training tasks assigned by Okita, and sat down next to Aoshito to rest, sweating profusely.
.
While massaging the muscles of his arms, he spoke to Qingden coldly:
"Man, you are so awesome. This is the first time I have seen Okita-kun be so gentle and kind when teaching swordsmanship."
Uehara exudes a bold spirit both in his appearance and in his voice.
"Brother, where are you from? Where do you work?"
To be continued...