“Right now, he trains a newly created special force,” Stas explained. He added, “A fine fellow indeed!”

Our entire group, under the supervision of Volodya, sat on the sides of the sports hall, forming a circle. Sensei walked into the center. Volodya blindfolded his eyes with a scarf, thoroughly closing every possible chink. After this preparation, he disappeared into the crowd. Meanwhile Sensei took an odd stance. He looked like a tired pilgrim who took a rest for a while leaning over an imaginary staff.

“Wow!” Eugene exclaimed with admiration, rubbing his hands in anticipation of something special. “Shortly we’ll see something very interesting.”

“That’s for sure,” confirmed Stas, attentively looking at Sensei.

“What kind of a stance is that?” Andrew inquired.

“If I understood correctly, this is from the style of the ‘Old Lama’,” Stas answered quietly.

“I have never heard of such a style before.”

“Hmm, and probably you’ll never hear of it. It is an ancient, dead style. As Sensei says, it was forgotten even before the birth of Christ. Today there is left only a poor remnant of this school. In China it is known as the style of the ‘Dragon’.”

“Not bad for a poor remnant,” Andrew was astonished. “As far as I know, the style of the ‘Dragon’ is the most powerful style, as it absorbed the wisdom and power of all of the martial arts schools…”

Looking once again at Sensei he added, “How do you know about this ancient style?”

“I had an opportunity to learn about it two years ago. Some tourists came to us. So Sensei, as a polite host, regaled them with the style of the ‘Old Lama’. That was quite a show, I tell you, we couldn’t tear ourselves away from it!”

After such an advertisement, we stared at Sensei in order not to miss something thrilling. Meanwhile, Volodya gave the signal, and our entire crowd started to make an unimaginable noise, chaotically clapping our hands and stamping our feet.

Making use of this cover, Volodya started to come near Sensei, going around him clockwise. His movements were soft and light. He stepped like a panther before the jump, getting closer and closer to the enemy. When Volodya neared Sensei’s right side, with a quick, light under-step, he started to execute a strike of mavashi-geri in the head. Practically simultaneously, Sensei moved his right leg behind and, rotating his right hand into an arch, slightly touched Volodya’s face with the edge of his palm. Sensei just touched him, like a light feather, and didn’t hit like I expected him to. Judging by what we had seen, it wasn’t an accident or a miss. All movements were executed by Sensei with ease, smoothly and with special accuracy. Volodya reacted to this light touch as if he had been hit by a cannon-ball. His legs sharply flung up, and he was catapulted backward, crashing down with force against the floor. Everybody in the sports hall was completely silent. Volodya moved, sitting up on the floor. People exhaled and buzzed, like a beehive, discussing what had just happened.

“How did he manage to fall down?” Kostya asked Andrew with curiosity, but he shrugged his shoulders.

“Maybe he just lost his balance. He was standing on one foot. Probably so, because it seemed like the strike was very light. And you can’t even call it a strike.”

Sensei, shedding the scarf, asked Volodya, “Are you alive, self-killer?”

“Alive,” Volodya drawled, holding his right eye. “I don’t understand, where did I make a mistake?”

“Your mistake is that you tried to get me from what you thought was my most unprotected side, in other words, from the most vulnerable point.”

“Of course!”

“That’s why you got into trouble! If you had attacked me from the front, you would’ve had more of a chance than attacking from behind or the right side. Had you attacked from behind left, you would’ve been hurt even more.”

“But why?”

“Because you think like a human, possessing vision and hearing. How many times did I tell you, you must take into consideration your opponent’s way of thinking. Since I see and hear nothing, you could logically assume that my mind is controlling the worst protected places a lot better and stronger.”

“And how about the front?”

“In front of me, there is weaker control because the body is already prepared for attack. A human, without natural perception, is more physically ready for the fight in front of him and spiritually from behind, and that’s a lot more dangerous. It means that the more vulnerable the side of the opponent seems to be, the more it is protected and, correspondingly, the counterattack can be more unpredictable.”

“And what if I had had a gun?”

“If you had had a gun, we would have greater use for you tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I’ve just said. We would have eaten at least soul pies.”

Volodya smiled in reply to Sensei’s black humor.

“Well, no need to, I will better bring pies to you myself…”

When Volodya took his hand away from his face, we were taken aback a little. A big bruise has swollen under his eye. The skin around his eye became dark blue and was covered with blisters, as if after a burn. Girls from our group began to bustle about and brought Volodya a towel, which they had wet in cold water. But even this compress didn’t help him. Nevertheless, it seemed that Volodya worried least of all about his eye. He stood up, shook his clothes off, and merrily joked with Sensei, while we were commanded to exercise our techniques.