The Ticking Contingent: The Countdown vo.2

Refocusing the target

When Po finally returned to the Jade Palace, it was late in the afternoon and his friends were starting to come back from their time spent in the village. They asked him what he had been up to all morning, to which Po replied that he had just been busy talking to people and having some nice relaxing tea. Monkey made a joke about him turning more and more into Shifu with every passing day, but Po just rolled his eyes and promised he was not going to become a Shifu 2.0.

"That would honestly be more Tigress' thing," he remarked, which the tiger master accepted as a great compliment. 

Soon everyone was fed, chatted themselves out, and went to bed. The following morning they ate and joined back at the training hall with a very refreshed looking Po. Po was surprised that Zhen was actually not trying to pull pranks, but Zhen stated she had been doing some thinking and decided to actually see if Po had anything useful to learn.

"Well, let's see," Po said, and immediately whipped out the training dummy. 

"Seriously?" Zhen laughed. "How bad do you think I am?" 

"I think you're amazing," Po admitted. "But that's not what I'm testing." He gestured to the dummy as a way of indicating to Zhen to take a couple of swings. Zhen cracked her knuckles and immediately darted over to the dummy and gave it a big whack, dodging out of the way multiple times before stealing a staff nearby and whacking it into the wall. 

"Not bad," Po said. "For going on the offensive. Why don't you try defensive?" 

"Uh..." Zhen said with a weird look. "That was defensive. Plus I clearly kicked your butt the first day here. That was defensive too, you know." 

"All I'm saying is to kick it." 

Zhen frowned, but pulled the training dummy back to the center of the arena. She then stood in front of it and swung around and kicked it. The dummy spun around in a circle, going past Po and over to the steps of the training hall doors. 

"Between you and Tigress, I am very scared to get hit by you two," Po remarked. "I didn't realize you could kick like that."

"I have a terrible aim, but I will take you down in milliseconds," Zhen defended bluntly. 

"Hey, easy. I didn't say it was bad. You just need a little polishing. That's the whole reason we train. You're this good on raw thieving skills. Imagine the kind of power you can wield with a more direct kick!" 

"If it makes you feel any better," Monkey told Zhen. "He's still terrible at stealth mode." 

"MONKEY!!!"

The primate started cracking up. 

"Alright, alright, that's enough tattling on the teacher," Po demanded. "Let's get down to training. Zhen, if you don't mind some directing from Master Big Fat Panda, I can help you aim your kicks better." 

Zhen shrugged nonchalantly. "Eh, sure, whatever," she said. "I suppose I'm in the mood for a lesson." 

"Great! We'll work on that here...maybe Tigress can help out. And everyone else can work on polishing your acupressure techniques." 

"Sure Tigress shouldn't be working on them?" 

"Monkey...." 

The masters bowed and immediately went off to do the exercises that Po had told them to do while Zhen, Tigress, and Po made their way over to the training dummy to show Zhen how to angle her feet and kick better. 

"It's all in the angles and where you kick," Po told her. "Now your feet are different than mine, so you'll need to learn those specific points with practice. But....here are the basics: a potent kick requires balance and force. Hitting the right points requires good angles and focus. The ball of your foot is your pivot point. The heel is your structure point. And the way you move your leg and foot is where you get the most control. So first let's work on actually standing right so you can get control of the second leg." 

Zhen sighed but agreed and let Po help her adjust her legs to better whack an opponent through the grounds. As it turned out, Zhen had a pretty decent standing position. However, she usually stood more in an offensive stance and took on the defensive ones later, which explained why she could deliver a strong blow with various instruments and the occasional adrenaline rush, but not consistently on her own strength. Zhen was admittedly very embarrassed that Po had discovered this, but she kept any remarks to herself and actually decided to listen to Po for a change. After all, everyone in the village was convinced she could be a good master. So why not actually try? Po was curious when he learned this, (mostly from Tigress making a remark about her being a fast learner), but he promised Zhen that, if she was interested, he'd be happy to keep teaching her, taking Zhen completely by surprise. 

Zhen and Po kept working for a while on the technique with Tigress giving various demonstrations on the various kicks and what to do and not do when kicking. Some of these Zhen already knew, but a lot of it was admittedly new and she was glad to have the opportunity to actually kick something through the wall. 

"I've made a few dents with some big guys," she admitted after several long hours of training. "But kicking people through walls sounds even better!" 

"And the more you practice, the better you'll get!" Po promised. He then let Zhen have at the training dummy where it almost hit the target at the other end of the training grounds. It had spun off at the last second, but Po and Tigress remarked that it was a great improvement from the last attempt. 

"Speaking of improvement," Zhen noted, flexing her feet to ward off any soreness. "What's up with you and this whole acupressure practice stuff." 

Tigress frowned and sighed. "It's just not my forte, that's all," she admitted. "I've been trying. But I can't seem to put my hands in the right spot." 

"Yeah, it's actually kinda' weird since you've gotten a hang of chi so quickly," Po admitted. "I thought you'd get the pressure points." 

"That's different," the tiger master explained. "Chi is feeling. Pressure points are more specific and precise." 

"Well, you'll get the hang of it. I'm sure." 

The Dragon Teacher glanced up at the door and said, "Well, we've done quite a lot of warm ups out here. Why don't we go in and switch to a different task?"

"Sounds good to me," Zhen agreed, cracking her neck. "I could use an activity where I can actually beat you." 

Po just rolled his eyes, but secretly smiled since, at the very least, she was being somewhat cooperative today.