Fly Like A Hawk

Chapter 65 - Karate Styles Clash

"Ready, Fight!" Johnny Lawrence yelled, cutting his hand in front of Bert and Mitch. I stood with Eli, leaning against his side. Bert and Mitch swung for each other, blindly scoring hits to each other as if they weren't even trying.

LaRusso pushed between them holding a hand out in each direction as a barrier to each of them. "Your just swinging at each other!" He called, pushing them apart and staring back at Johnny, "you don't teach them any defence?"

Mitch piped up then, "the best defence is offence." As he spoke Bert took his chance, shoving Mitch backwards into the big rock behind him as Eli and I dived out of the way.
"Ahhhh...." Mitch groaned as he slid sideways onto the floor and I had to cover my mouth in an attempt to hold in my laughter.

"Why do you have a rock in the middle of your dojo?" Johnny asked, rolling his eyes at LaRusso and at that point I completely lost it and started cackling to myself. Eli and Demetri looked over at me and started laughing with me and soon we were all laughing.

We decided to try another approach, Sam and Demetri stepping up to showcase their fighting abilities. They moved forwards into a space then faced each other, getting into the correct stance then waiting patiently for Sensei LaRusso to tell them to begin.

"Fight!" LaRusso chopped his hand between them and they begun, moving in a slow circle as they kept their eyes on one another's moves. I watched them circle for a few seconds then frowned in confusion, they weren't actually doing any fighting just moving in the same sidestep motion. "That's it, keep circling." LaRusso chimed, watching them with careful but evaluative eyes.

I looked over at Eagle Fang's Sensei who looked bored out of his mind, he looked across the group of students and connected eyes with me, I gave him a confused shake of the head as Daniel LaRusso gave another direction, "Stay focused."

"Alright, one of you do something. What the hell is this?" Sensei Lawrence asked, looking between Demetri and Sam for an explanation.

"That's not really how this works, one of us has to be provoked." Demetri offered, flopping his arms towards Sam in frustration.

I watched as Johnny Lawrence raised his half empty water bottle and already I knew where this was gonna go, he threw it with force at Demetri and he grabbed his arm, "Oww!" He cried as he pouted.

"Hey!" Daniel shouted as Johnny ignored him.

"Provoked yet?" He asked Demetri and I sniggered a little at Demetri's expression, it was a mix of shock and disbelief and it was hilarious.

We tried something different next, Sensei LaRusso taking us out to his car collection and showing us what he called "wax on, wax off".

"That's it, wax on, wax off. It doesn't matter how many times you've done it. You always need to practise your fundamentals." LaRusso purveyed his students as they scrubbed the old cars that sat out front of Miyagi-Do. They gently polished the cars until they were sparkling.

"That's right, clean it good. I want it to look brand-spanking-new." I turned to speak to Bert who was scrubbing the floor of Johnny's car beside me.

"Why are we doing this again?" I asked, as I pulled a chip packet form beneath the front seat and winced.

"Wax on, wax off, I guess." He mumbled and I chuckled to myself, I glanced up to see Eli furiously scrubbing at the windscreen and Mitch cleaning the steering wheel, Miguel cleaning a seat and more Eagle Fang sorting through the boot. We weren't learning anything, Johnny was just getting a free deep clean for his car. I stood up and dusted my hands on my legs.

"How is this teaching us anything?" I asked, looking up at Sensei Lawrence.

"I don't know, ask LaRusso, he suggested it." I sighed and shook my head, not wanting to ask Daniel as he would probably over explain the whole thing. Instead I got back to work cleaning the floor.

Sensei Lawrence barked some more orders, "get all the cans off of the floor, oh and if you find any loose change, it belongs to me." I rolled my eyes and tossed an empty can behind me.

The next thing we tried was something entirely different, orchestrated by Sensei Lawrence instead of LaRusso.

"Come on, you maggots, faster!" Sensei Lawrence finished off the last of his beer and threw the bottle down onto the ground, it shattered into the pile of multicoloured glass beneath it from previous drinks.

We ran an obstacle course, first running between two oil drums that were on fire, then spinning round a baseball bat with our heads on the end of it, then when we were dizzy from that we had to progress onto using our karate skills against a huge tire stack.

I ran from the tire stack towards the flaming oil drums, overhearing the two sensei's conversation as I passed. "We're gonna get sued here." LaRusso started.

"Uh, sue me for what?"

Chris stopped in front of us, a line forming behind him consisting of Sam, then me and Mitch behind. "Oh god, I think I'm about to barf!" Chris wailed, standing up straight from the bat exercise.

"Let's go, move it. Move those feet!" Johnny encouraged as Sam headed to the bat but stopped as Chris started rambling forwards at high speed towards Daniel's boat.

"No, no! No! Not the boat!" LaRusso cried as Chris threw his head over the side and made vomiting noises.

"That was definitely chunky." Mitch mumbled, smiling to himself in amusement and I gave him a disgusted look.

"Ok, ok! Break for lunch! Go grab something to eat then get your asses back here in 30 minutes!" Sensei Lawrence announced and I headed over to Eli and Demetri to decide what we were doing for lunch.