Sensei of Shambala. Anastasia Novykh

from his stupor.

      “Senior sempai! Why are there strangers in side?!” We heard the voice of Sensei behind us.

      During the warm-up I revised my thoughts: “How could I even allow the thought that this bum is able to help me somehow?! Well… But on the other side, in my desperate situation, all I can do is believe in miracles and hope for the best. Here you grasp at any straw just to survive. That’s why these silly thoughts arise, because of an internal, almost panic level of fear. No. I should control my self. Anyway, I will find a saving loophole. I’ll try to survive. I shouldn’t lose hope, and I will fight to the very end!” The most amazing thing was that my firm belief was based on some deep, subconscious feeling, on that something I was looking for so hard. But all this became apparent in vague guesses.

      Meanwhile, the warm-up ended up and we started to exercise the bases under the supervision of the senior sempai. Sensei was sitting on a bench discussing something with the gangly old man. “I wish I could hear what they are talking about,” I thought to myself. But evidently those curious thoughts were present not only in my head. During the training, despite the fact he was a man with grey hair, Dumpling was always trying, as if by accident, to take a place closer to the Teacher. And with each try he caused in me an indescribable feeling of envy and jealousy. And judging by the accusing gazes of our guys, I was not the only one who felt it.

      During the noisy and monotone basic exercises and loudly announced commands, I again got deep into my thoughts. “How did Sensei manage to bend the spoon? And why did he call that phenomenon simply a trick? If that were a trick, then, in my understanding, it should have been thoroughly prepared. But he just took the spoon and bent it with his gaze alone.”

      I could say that I believed and disbelieved it at the same time. I believed because somewhere I’ve read about people who possessed such abilities. I recalled that there were described people-magnets. But any objects, regardless what material they were made of – wood, metal, plastic – would stick to them. I remember that I was amazed most of all by the weight those people could hold up: more than ten kilos!

      It was a paradox, but I didn’t believe that I had seen all that with my own eyes, as they say, “live.” Or rather, this disbelief was caused by my reluctance to realize that this fact itself was real. Everything seemed so mysterious. I would have understood if our crowd had been hypnotized, had had it explained to use beforehand what we would see. But Sensei just took it calmly and did it. How?!

      Nevertheless, the fact that it was possible was very important for me. It was some kind of, not yet known to me, firm platform formed by Sensei’s knowledge. And my subconscious was intensively grasping it in every way possible, resisting those antagonistic thoughts. I don’t know why, but I started to trust that interesting man. At least, he obviously knew where there is truth and where there is fantasy.

      After the basics, finally came the moment long expected by our company. This part of the training we used to call “the free style program” because people, having split up into pairs, were exercising old techniques or some peculiar techniques from the previous trainings. Andrew picked up his nunchaku and being followed by our curious glances came up to the Teacher.

      “Is it possible to do something against nunchaku?”

      “And do you know how to use them?” Sensei replied with a smile.

      “Of course!” bragged Andrew self-satisfied. “I haven’t put them down for four years. One could say, I eat and sleep with them.”

      Andrew demonstrated a couple of, in our opinion, complex movements.

      “Not bad,” Sensei said.

      “And still, is it possible to do something against nunchaku?” Andrew repeated his question, obviously provoking the Teacher.

      “Of course… For every Vijai there is a Rajah.”

      “What?” Andrew asked again, not understanding the last phrase.

      “I mean, for every power there is a counter-power. Nunchaku is not an exception.”

      “Can you show me?”

      “I can, but then it will not be fair, you with nunchaku against me… Take somebody else with you.”

      We looked at each other with astonishment. Nevertheless Andrew went along to look for a partner, and our company to look for the second weapon. To our regret there were no more nunchaku. Instead of that, we found a lot of two-meter-long poles in the sports equipment room.

      But although we found weapons fairly easily, fin ding a partner for Andrew was more difficult. Senior guys flatly refused the proposal to take part in this fight and laughed: “No, thanks, guy. You’d better do it alone.”

      Finally, Andrew managed to convince a man among the newcomers. Meanwhile, Sensei was peacefully chattering with that skinny old man in the white kimono.

      “Here, I found one!” Andrew happily announced to the Teacher.

      “You have found one, great. Let senior sempai second us. At his clap, start to attack with full contact. Is that clear?”

      That was all Andrew was waiting for. He nodded with obvious pleasure. Sensei walked out into the middle. Andrew stood facing Sensei, and the man with the pole chose a position from the rear right of Sensei. It came to a thrilling moment. All participants were battle-ready, except Sensei. He was standing relaxed, thinking about something and slightly playing with the tips of his black belt, embroidered with gold hieroglyphs.

      At the senior sempai’s clap, Andrew zealously rushed into a frontal attack, spinning his nunchaku with the speed of the blades of a working propeller. Meanwhile, the other man jumped up quickly and started striking with the pole. What happened next happened in an instant. Sensei hadn’t changed his position from the moment the attack was begun but rather kept standing in a deeply thoughtful pose. As soon as his opponents achieved a critical distance with regards to his body, he, without changing his stance, quickly threw his hand forward… if “threw” is the right word because in reality his hand shot out like an attacking snake. The nunchaku folded, spun on it, and flew towards the second fighter. The Teacher accompanied them with a twist of his wrist, slightly changing the trajectory of the flight. The nunchaku made half a turn in the air, aligned, and like the butt-end of a stick, hit the exact middle of the forehead of the man attacking from behind. The second nunchaku’s stick, continuing its flight, hit the pole. And the pole, correspondingly changing its trajectory of movement, hit Andrew right in the head. As a result, two unsuccessful fighters clumsily fell down to the floor, not even realizing what happened. And Sensei continued to stand thoughtfully, as if all the turmoil around had clearly nothing to do with him. And then, having come to himself, he asked his “opponents” with care:

      “How are you, guys? Did you get hurt badly?”

      “No,” Andrew answered confused, intensively massaging a puffed out bump on his forehead. “It’s all right.”

      The other man also nodded.

      “I am sorry, I miscalculated a bit,” apologized Sensei. Coming up to his previous interlocutor, he said, as if nothing had happened, “You know, I have a great idea! What if…”

      Meanwhile, observing the fight, the crowd buzzed in discussion with noises of laughter and amazement about such a quick fight. And one of the senior guys whom Andrew had asked to help said with laughter, “Yeah right, Sensei miscalculated, aha! Don’t worry, guys, that’s all right. We went through such ‘miscalculations’ already many times, and all due to our own stupidity.”

      When Andrew realized what had happened, he simply tormented Kostya and Slava with the same question: “How can that be? One movement… not even a strike?!” Kostya perplexedly answered, “How can we know? Sensei is over there, ask him.”

      But the Teacher was always busy until the end of the training, first demonstrating new techniques, then showing complicated strikes to the senior guys, then answering endless questions, and at the end of the training talking to the old man. However, Andrew made up his mind to clear that up right then, no matter how.

      We got that chance only when the supplementary training was over. We quickly