|Good For You|

Chapter 79: Find Your Balance

(^Pretend Amy is next to Sam while Sam is in the middle)

*Amy's P.O.V*

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Imagine you're standing in a field of sunflowers and the sun is being pressed against your face, giving warmth from the horizon. Hand movements are in perfect sync as it'll go side to side with precision. Find your balance and once you do, it leaves you in control. You'll have focus and your mind is stronger than ever.

There's no distractions. It's just you and the wind. Move with it, maneuver in between. This is the calm that awaits.

"Amy, are you good?" I heard someone say.

I opened my eyes and I could see my cousin, Sam, standing in front of me. "I just lost focus."

"No, you didn't." She shook her head. "I just called your name."

"That counts as losing focus."

It's a really good thing that I woke up early this morning to come here so that I can relish in the peace before the lesson starts. Even though it's just Sam and I with Tory.

"You've always been pretty focused even when you aren't doing kata."

"Really?" I asked her.

"I believe so." She answered. "I'm sure my dad could say the same."

I nodded at her words before I grabbed my water bottle to take a quick sip. Now we were just waiting for Tory to show up. Who knows when that'll be?

So as my cousin and I would wait, we would end up stretching our bodies. We're basically just warming up even though it's just kata that we'll be doing. But this is our plan when helping out Tory, we're making her feel comfortable and more welcomed. Because maybe she doesn't feel like she is being welcomed even though she is. We just have to ease her in.

As we were stretching, we heard a noise coming from the entrance of the dojo. We could see Tory walking in with her own duffle bag and she seemed ready to go with what we had planned.

"Hey, you made it." I greeted her.

"I'm here." She gave me a small smile back.

"Do you wanna do some simple stretches before we begin?" Sam asked her. "Or do you wanna get right into it?"

"I did some warming up at my house so I'll be good to get right into it. I'm ready to get started."

"Sounds good." I nodded, "Let's get started."

Sam let me lead the lesson because of how I am with kata. But she also led by showing the movements that I was doing to Tory. We took it step by step so that she was able to understand each move that we were doing. We started with the deep breaths before we would move our hands with such precision and we even made sure her stance was perfect too.

We were in no rush to be anywhere else so we practiced kata for hours. Once Tory has gotten the hang of it, we'll let her do the movements by herself while helping her along the way.

This lesson went pretty well.

"Thank you for the help." Tory said to us as we were sitting on the sparring deck.

"We're happy to help." Sam smiled back at her.

"Amy, you're like the master at this thing."

"It's kind of my forte." I shrugged. "But I'm always practicing. It gives me a sense of mind if I feel off."

When I started to learn karate when I was younger, I first thought the whole kata thing wasn't necessary. I never understood why my uncle couldn't just teach me the moves. But then came the day where I finally understood why he was teaching me kata and having me wax the cars. It was to not only give me muscle memory but also give me a sense of mind. How it can help me have balance and have focus. Then after Alec died, I continued to get bullied but I was able to find the strength within the lessons that he taught me. And even what Mr. Miyagi had taught me before he passed away.