Glieuaeiel's DJ

Frags:

• something about getting up on time

Sparring

I meet up with an old friend from high school for the first time in a while. I pretend to do some Tae Kwon Do moves at him, and suddenly he counterattacks while saying some words that I recognize from the dojang. "Where did you get those words??" I ask incredulously. He must have taken up TKD! We continue sparring for a little while. I am reminded of something my instructor once said: "Think of sparring as a way of saying hi to your partner."

Confidence

Someone is supposedly fated to slay a terrible dragon. But the person is a staunch supporter of free will, and hence has trouble believing in something like fate. So ze is very unconfident about the prospect of fighting this dragon, which clearly hurts zir chances of succeeding. [I don't recall whether this person was me, or somebody else.]

I Quit (8:00)

I'm at a sports club, where we're doing our warm-up workout outside. The current exercise involves teams of three. We lock arms in a specific way, then take turns trying to lift the people on our left and right using our core muscles. I'm the last person in our group to do it, so I wasn't expecting it to be as hard as it is. I try it once--try it twice--and then give up. With hardly a goodbye, I walk back towards the locker room to change and go home.

On the way is a swimming pool, and I accidentally trip and fall into it. At the last moment I remember that my shoes are muddy, and I hook my legs over the side of the pool so I'm hanging upside down from the edge. That way, the water stays clean.

After I pull myself back out, the club's head instructor is standing on the other side of the pool, looking at me. He commends me for my civic responsibility in keeping the mud out of the water, and as a reward, he says he's willing to overlook my embarrassing decision to quit the club. "We're back together," he says, and it's clear he's enjoying the double entendre. This guy seems kind of like a sleaze-bag, and I don't think I want back into the club. I throw an apple core at him and go into the locker room.

Inside, there are some students practicing Apparition. It makes me sorry to realize I'll never get a chance to learn it, now. The trick has something to do with having complete faith that when you turn around, you'll be looking at the new location; I never quite got the hang of it. Oh well.

I look over towards the secret door, which I also never figured out how to open. Then I see there's some kind of locking mechanism in the upper right corner. It's moving around, which must mean someone is trying to come through the door. Probably the head instructor trying to talk to me again.

Indeed, it is him. As soon as the door opens, we start fighting. It's a mix of Tae Kwon Do sparring and a knife fight. We end up back outside, advancing and retreating and circling around one another. I'm rather proud of myself for being able to deflect all of his attacks.

I am joined by a team of fighters on roller blades. They are part of a resistance group that has an ongoing feud with the sports club. Sensing my opportunity to cut ties with this place, I go with them when they leave.