The training regimes for Mirage Dive were new and alien to him. For almost all the training he had engaged in prior, there were elements of it that paralleled the training on Earth, but the training for the feinting maneuvers of the Mirage Dive technique were truly different, he was no different from a normal Apprentice learning of the technique for the first time.
On Earth, feints were useful and effective, but the training for them was nothing beyond repetition and practice.
What truly surprised him was that the supervisor insisted that the feint, when done correctly, could create illusions in the mind of the target.
Rui frowned “How can a feint technique create illusions like that?”
“Because of how convincing the feint is, I suppose.” The supervisor scratched his head. “If you don’t believe me, I can show it to you.”
Rui was intrigued. He knew the supervisors of a facility had mastered all the techniques of the training facility they were charged to supervise, so he wasn’t surprised.
“Sure.” He nodded. “I’ll take you up on that offer.”
The supervisor nodded, putting some distance between them, taking a standard wrestling stance, Rui in-turn mimicked him.
The supervisor charged, lunging towards Rui’s upper abdomen and sure enough.
WHOOSH
The lunge faded away as Rui tried to intercept it!
The supervisor had not performed an upper takedown, but somehow Rui saw him doing that.
“See that?” The supervisor grinned.
Rui had requested him for a few more demonstrations before he finally deciding to begin the training. Illusion techniques were also not a real thing back on Earth, and it was an incredible experience to actually be subjected to one.
He also quickly learnt how effective the technique was. He had truly fallen for the illusion even though he knew it was a feint, it had created a huge opening which the supervisors could have easily exploited to execute a powerful real takedown.
The more Rui learnt about this technique the more he was impressed by it! He could hardly believe that this was a free technique.
He immediately started training, the first stage of training involved the feint, and he did put on the black bodysuit that the supervisor told him about. It was remarkably easy to stretch, reminding Rui of the suit the applicants were required to wear in the second round of the Martial Entrance Exam.
“Ready? Get in position.” The supervisor instructed, as he fiddled with a crystal looking object. “I’ll be freezing the suit at the right time so that you can physically feel the right timing.”
This was the part that confused Rui. How exactly would he exert control over the suit remotely? Did such technology exist? Was it possible to communicate remotely via technology too?
Rui glanced at the crystal suspiciously, that crystal was probably esoteric matter with strange exotic effects that allowed for it transmit signals in some form or the other that triggered some mechanism in the suit that caused it to freeze up.
“Ah make sure your center of gravity remains balanced, otherwise you’ll just fall down unbalanced when I do activate the freeze.” The supervisor advised.
“Will do.” Rui affirmed.
“Alright, just execute the normal upper takedown you learnt in your Foundation technique, it’s based on that technique after all.”
Rui nodded, before glancing at a wrestling dummy in front of him. He charged, before lunging at the upper abdomen, before suddenly freezing.
“You feel that? That particular instance in the trajectory, and that particular moment of body weight shifting? That’s the moment. You need to memorize this timing with your body, otherwise you’ll never nail it. This freezing stage is necessary to only give you a reference point for the right timing and execution of the technique. Once that’s done, you’ll get better at it with repetition of feint, trying to match the timing I showed you.” The supervisor explained.
Rui nodded. “I still haven’t memorized the timing and placement yet. But this training definitely helps, I don’t think I would get the hang of the it if I had to only watch you and train by myself.”
“That’s what the Academy is for, now, let’s try it one more time. You’re going to have to repeat this maneuver many times for you to completely remember the timing and placement of the transition.”
Rui acquiesced, resuming the training. Each time he performed a legitimate upper takedown, and each time the supervisor stopped him at the moment Rui was supposed to begin the transition to the real lower takedown.
The best part about this training was how straightforwardly the supervisor could directly convey to Rui when to stop. Without this strange technology, Rui would have had to spend a far longer time trying to even understand when the optimal timing was.
But this training allowed him to bypass extensive tedious training. No wonder the Academy was so vaunted. He had truly come to realize just how much for Martial Art and Martial Artists the Academy did.
The training continued for an hour, until the supervisor halted it.
“There’s no point in spending all your time engaging in only this stage.” He explained. “It’s best if you practice the feint after feeling the timing and placement of the transition, you’ll certainly fail no doubt. But we’ll get you back on the body suit next training session for an hour and then have you try and replicate it again after that hour. We’ll do these over and over until you’ve completely mastered the feint.”
Rui nodded. This certainly made sense. It was probably better to do side-by-side comparisons with his attempted timing in the transition and the accurate timing as dictated by the supervisor when he wore the body suit.
This way he could continuously get an understanding of how far he was each time as well as his rate of growth of accuracy over time. These are things that he would otherwise be entirely unable to do.
This in combination with his fearsome rate of growth, and he suspected he would master this technique much sooner than expected!