Dedicated to small martial artists everywhere.

Nothing to do.

She was tired of coloring and there was nothing on TV. She couldn’t go to the park without a grownup, and the only games she knew needed somebody else to play with her.

“Play with me, nee-chan?”

Nabiki was on her stomach on the living room floor, her feet crossed in the air. There was a little pile of coins in front of her and she was alternately flicking the counters on her abacus with the end of her pencil and making entries in a little notebook. Akane couldn’t understand what Nabiki found so fascinating about coins and numbers. “Go away, brat,” Nabiki said without looking up.

Nabiki called her a brat! They weren’t allowed to call names! “Ohhh! I’m gonna tell!” She ran to the kitchen door, and stopped. She wasn’t allowed in the kitchen either.

Kasumi was. She and Okaasan were in there, wearing identical frilly aprons. There was a funny smell, like something burning, and Kasumi was crying.

“We all make mistakes when we’re learning,” she could hear Okaasan saying to Kasumi. “The important thing is to remember what you did wrong, and then you won’t make that mistake again.”

Akane turned away. They hadn’t even seen her. Okaasan was spending more and more time with Kasumi these days, teaching her mommy-things, cooking and sewing. Everybody praised Kasumi because she was so good at mommy-things. Everybody praised Nabiki because she was so good at numbers. Nobody praised Akane for anything. And now there was going to be another baby, the boy Otousan had always wanted. The boy she was supposed to have been. Nobody had time for Akane any more. They didn’t care if she had nothing to do. They didn’t care if Nabiki called her names.

She didn’t even notice at first that she was shuffling down the passage that led to the dojo. She wasn’t allowed there either; Otousan said it wasn’t a place for little girls. But now that she was in the passage, she could hear a faint sound, different from the rhythmic shouts of the students. There weren’t supposed to be any students there today anyway. The sound made her curious.

She peered through the open door. Otousan was in there alone. She didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but it was beautiful to watch, smooth and patterned as a dance. She wished she had that kind of grace and power. Almost without realizing it, she began moving with him, trying to copy everything he did. She felt stiff and clumsy compared to his fluid movements, and before long she was confused and lost. She watched again, until he slowed down and she thought she understood what he was doing, and began to copy him again. Twice more she got lost, waited, then resumed when she thought she could follow again.

Soun Tendou finished his kata and bowed to the kamidana. Akane bowed likewise. Then he turned and faced his youngest daughter.

Akane was suddenly scared. Otousan had told her the dojo wasn’t a place for little girls, and now he had seen her peeping! Not only peeping, but trying to copy what went on inside! She backed away, eyes wide, afraid of what Otousan might do to her.

Soun Tendou was astonished. Akane had done amazingly well for an untrained beginner. It hadn’t occurred to him before to train any of his daughters. He knew that times were changing, there were women at the tournaments, some schools were even recognizing women masters. But to him the Art was still a thing for men. When he saw himself training his heir, the faceless figure was always a son… he had been so happy and proud when Kimiko told him the new baby would be a boy at long last. Still, it would be several years before his son was old enough to train. It wouldn’t hurt to teach Akane a little, and it would be good practice for training the boy. He smiled at her. “That was very good, Akane-chan. Would you like to learn?”

Akane couldn’t believe her ears. Otousan was offering to teach her? Teach her to move like that? He thought she was good at something? Good at what he did, that he said wasn’t for girls? She couldn’t even speak, only nod, her eyes shining.

“Then come.” He led her into the big, empty room. “What you just saw me do was a very difficult kata, a kata for a master. There is a lot you have to learn before you can do it like I can. Do you see that sign?”

“Hai, Otousan.”

“Can you read it?”

She shook her head. Reading was one of the mysterious things she was too little to learn, like cooking and numbers.

“It says I-ro-ha. That’s the first word of a song that children used to learn to help them remember the hiragana, so it means the beginning. The basics. You have to master those before you can do more advanced things. Now, the beginning of the Art is learning to stand. Can you knock a mountain over by hitting it?”

Akane giggled. “No, Otousan!”

“Then if you stand like a mountain, nothing can knock you over. You place your feet so… ”

---

NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.

When my daughter was very small, she used to watch her brother practice Tae Kwon Do and try to imitate him. She started her own training when she was five, and made 4th gup before their school closed. That’s what gave me the idea for Akane’s first steps in martial arts.

The forthcoming baby is my own invention. Soun is so adamant about having a male heir for his dojo… what if his wife had died in childbirth trying to give him one? (Soun usually comes off sympathetic in my stories, but there are times when he irritates me.)

Iroha is, of course, the sign on the dojo wall. Hiragana is the Japanese syllabic script, and iroha is the first word of a well-known poem that uses each syllable once and only once. It was used as a mnemonic for centuries, until the modern table arrangement came into use. Any good kanji dictionary will have the text.

Otousan, Okaasan, these are polite ways of saying Father and Mother. Nee-chan is big sis.