66 – Rusty Skills

"I was trained in a mixture of striking and grappling techniques for a couple years, though it has been quite a few years since then," Dave admitted.

Don nodded slowly. "I'll go through a few things with you to get a better idea what level you're at. I don't know how much he told you, but I just do boxing so I won't be able to help you improve your grappling or kicking all that much," he said.

Dave shrugged. "That's ok. As long as I can brush up on my striking skills that will be a good start. I can work on my other skills with one of the other coaches," he said.

Don grabbed some gear and lead him over to one of the sparring mats. He tossed over some gloves and headgear. "Put these on first. We'll start with a very light spar," he said.

Don put on the same gear himself and stood across from Dave. "Don't worry. I'll go easy on you. Just show me what you've got," he said.

Dave squared up, guarding his jaw. He carefully advanced towards Don one half step at a time. He sighed internally. 'Although the knowledge is still there the muscle memory has definitely faded a decent bit. It feels so awkward. At least my body is better than ever which is helping some,' he thought to himself.

He suddenly accelerated sending a quick jab to test the distance. Don brushed it off effortlessly with his glove.

Dave was thankful that Don didn't seem to be pushing him too much and allowed him to do his thing and slowly get used to things a little first.

That only lasted for a little bit though and after Dave had manager to get a few jabs in here and there he was suddenly surprised by a lighting quick jab that slipped through his guard striking him square in the face. He went dazed for a moment before regaining clarity and tightening up his guard.

They went back and forth for a little longer. Don kept his word and went easy on him only dinging him a few times and never too hard. Finally Don made him stop. "Ok. I think I've got a good idea what I'm working with. It seems the basics are still somewhat in there, but we definitely need to work on brushing up on them and getting them fully integrated again," he said.

Don had him alternate between bag work, footwork drills and pad-work drills having him go through all the basics. Don made sure to watch him closely and correct him whenever he noticed something off.

Dave wasn't sure if it was his new abilities or simply because he was brushing up on what he had already learned years ago, but it went much faster than he expected as after spending the morning training he felt much more comfortable with his moves than he had anticipated to get to on the first day.

"Alright, good work. It looks like you've got some talent. Why did you stop practicing in the first place?" Don asked.

Dave shook his head with a bitter smile.

All his memories from learning these things the first time around were filled with frustration and failure. Both on his end and his fathers end. Nothing ever seemed to stick and his father kept drilling them in no matter what until they stuck. It was a horrible time, but eventually they did stick. That didn't make his father much happier though as even the most bog standard talents would have mastered the same in less than a quarter of the time it took him. The difference was too obvious.

His father even went through a variety of martial arts drilling the basics of each into him in hopes of finding one he was talented at, but in the end after drilling all the basics into him his father gave up on moving on to anything more advanced as he felt it was just a waste of time.

Don noticing he had possibly touched on a sensitive topic shrugged. "Well, either way if you keep it up we'll be able to move onto some more advanced training and techniques soon enough. I'm usually here on Wednesday and Friday through Monday. Will you be here tomorrow?" He asked.

Dave nodded. "Yeah, I should at least be able to be here most Saturday and Sunday mornings unless something comes up," he said.

Though he didn't think he would need these techniques to face Jeffrey or any of his goons, he didn't have much time until he would need to face his father though and he doubted just his physique alone would be enough. At least not by the time his father had his next match. After all even if his father's body degraded it was a slow process and he still retained his fighting techniques he had built up over the past couple decades.

Don smiled and pat him on the shoulder. "Great! I'll see you tomorrow then," he said.

He was walking off when he suddenly turned. "Oh right, let me get your number in case I need to reach out," he said.

After a quick and dirty shower Dave rushed to his usual gym to continue his apprenticeship. His first week was over, but he still needed to get through a few more before they would trust him to work by himself. Of course that would only be the case if he showed he was capable during the apprenticeship.

Between a few hours of brushing up on his boxing technique in the morning and then spending the afternoon and evening at his apprenticeship the weekend flew by before he knew it. He barely had any downtime at all.

He couldn't be more thankful to Jackie as he couldn't have done it without her. She made sure to prepare his breakfast and pack a lunch for him and she had dinner ready the moment he got home after 10 hours of exhausting work. She also helped him relax in other ways which he was even more thankful for.