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Mara watched as Sensei Kreese and Sensei Lawrence sparred against each other. She was sitting next to Tory and Gia. Gia had been distant lately and Mara planned on asking her if she was ok, but for now, she was completely focused on the lesson.
"Ok, pay attention." Sensei Kreese had Sensei Lawrence trapped in a chokehold. "He's got my neck, I've got his elbow. If I try to break out..." Sensei Lawrence demonstrated.
"I dig in and I put him to sleep," Sensei Kreese explained.
"If I go for his ribs..." Johnny elbowed Kreese in the gut.
"He completely exposes his chest." Kreese demonstrated this by raising his knee to Johnny's chest. Both Sensei's got back into the chokehold position.
"Two difficult choices. What do you do?"
Mara looked at Gia who just shrugged. Mara turned back to Johnny and he kicked Kreese's foot and sent them both to the ground. "You damn the consequences and you power forward."
They both stood up and Kreese addressed the class. "You may get hurt, but nobody wins by doing nothing."
"You make a choice. You make a move. You go all in."
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"We're going to do something a little different for our lesson today." Mara and Kreese stood in the smaller dojo for her private lesson.
"Like what," Mara asked him.
"We're going to talk." He gestured for her to sit down and she did. He sat down across from her. "Now I want to know why you've come in here smelling like alcohol for the past few days." Mara looked down at that. She didn't realize he noticed. "Now you're not in trouble Ms. Abrams but I want you to realize the risks. You know my mother had an alcohol addiction."
"She did?"
"She did. She had trouble dealing with her emotions so she decided drinking was her solution. And do you want to know what happened to her?"
Mara nodded.
"She killed herself. Now I'm not saying that to scare you. I'm saying it because I don't want the same thing to happen to you. We're going to find a way to help you through this so you don't go down that path."
