Free Brooklyn's Baddest: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance by Susan Westwood Page B

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water.”
    Koichi breathed in slowly and breathed back out again, just as slowly. “He could have said that specifically of you. Remember it, and think on it as you do your kata. Focus on the water, and focus on yourself, and let everything else go.”
    Jake did the kata again, and he could feel his muscles begin to tighten and ache as he moved. He looked at Koichi, who had closed his eyes, and he spoke. “How many times do I have to do this?” he asked, hoping that the end was somewhere in sight.
    Koichi answered him without looking at him. “Again, I will quote Master Lee: “ “ I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who had practiced one kick 10,000 times.” It is repetition and practice that make your form so that it is more than second nature to you. It must be part of you; it must be like your heartbeat, like your breath, like every part of you that exists.... the same way that your body functions without you thinking about it, so too must be your kata; like breathing, like living.... it is a part of you.”
    Jake hesitated for a moment, but then as he watched Koichi and looked around himself at where he was, he realized that it might just be possible that he didn’t know all that there was to know, and that he could actually learn something from the old man. He took the kata water training as a challenge, and he told himself that he would do it, just to prove to the older man that he could do it, and that nothing was going to get in his way and stop him, no matter how crazy and ridiculous it was.
    After three hours, Koichi rose up and looked at him. “Continue. You are still splashing.” He said before turning and walking away. Jake watched him go, and he continued his movements, feeling frustration course through him again as he wondered how crazy the old man really was.
    Do kata in the water without splashing. It was impossible. There was no way to move in water without splashing. He thought about how he would like to tell the older man to get in the water himself and show Jake how well he could do kata in it without splashing.
    The more Jake thought about it, the angrier and more frustrated he became, and the more determined he was to use that anger and frustration to show Koichi that he could fight with fire in water and win. He continued to repeat the kata, over and over, each time growing more tired and sore, and each time vowing that he was going to do it without splashing.
    Koichi walked to a doorway behind the water garden, where Lisa was standing silently watching Jake from the back. He joined her. They watched together in silence for a while and she finally spoke, though she didn’t turn her eyes away from Jake.
    “Do you think he’ll be able to do it?” she asked, trying to keep the concern in her mind from reaching her voice.
    Koichi sighed lightly and tipped his head a little to the side. He did not answer her for a long time, and finally he spoke quietly. “He won’t be able to do it until he learns to let go of the past and focus on the future. That will be his own choice and it will not come until he changes it. Today, the answer to that question is no. He will not be able to do it.”
    She sighed and frowned in disappointment and Koichi looked at her and placed a light hand on her arm as he turned to go. “Ask me again another day. There may be another answer.” She smiled slightly at him and touched her hand to the top of his as he left her. Looking back at Jake, standing in the water, doing the