The Avatar's Master

4. Lesson the First: Forget What You Know

Korra's eyes fluttered open and she braced herself for the day ahead. Her first task – getting out of bed. Despite rising early most days to train, Korra still had to will herself awake. Outside was dark; though her room faced west, she surmised that the sun would not begin to show its bright face for another hour or so. She counted down, three, two, one, and popped out of bed, rolling onto the floor and into the standard pushup position. She began pumping up and down, breathing in and out quickly to the rhythm of her pushups. Then she switched to chaturanga pushups, her arms held tight at her sides instead of wide. After a few dozen of those, she pulled herself onto a forearm plank until she felt a nice burn and began rocking her hips side to side to kiss the ground. She wanted more of an arm workout, so she used the archway leading to the washroom to do finger pull ups, alternating the width of her grip to work different parts of her arms. Next came jumping jacks and shadow-boxing followed by a cool down with light stretches, all in the first twenty minutes of popping out of bed.

Meantime, Kuvira was just finishing up her morning routine, a combination of stretching and using her core and muscles to balance in different positions for flexibility and strength. She then made her way to the outdoor gym in the twilight of the morning, to which Korra was already waiting, petting Moo.

"Good morning Kuvira, I mean Sifu," Korra bowed her head toward closed fists.

Kuvira bowed back, closed fist meeting upright palm.

"Good morning, Avatar. Do you know why I do my hands like this?" Kuvira asked, keeping her hands in the same position.

"It means something, but I don't know what," Korra said.

Moo groaned loudly asking for more pets, but Korra laughed and told Moo that's enough for now. The giant skybison slumped, a little hurt by rejection but just as quickly got over it at the prospect of finding a nice patch of grass to graze upon, and he propelled himself upward and out of the colosseum.

"Where was I?" Kuvira said, remaining focused, "Oh yes, to me it means I'm embracing creativity with conscious control, precision with accuracy, soft with hard, passivity with activity. The open palm represents the receptive, passive; the closed, active and creative. From now on, I want you to think about these principles as balancing forces until it becomes natural to you."

Kuvira's voice was stern but also nurturing, and Korra could easily see how she wooed an army to follow her. Kuvira continued, folding her arms behind her back and pacing lightly:

"Now, a few ground rules: I expect you to try your best, always. I expect you to be on time. And I expect mutual respect." She stopped to emphasize the next point. "I am what you would consider a master bender, but am I really? Only in that I've discovered something – once I reached a certain level, I learned there's a lot I don't know, and no matter where I find myself in my journey, I am a perpetual student. That was the most humbling and freeing lesson I've learned since losing to you."

Korra blushed, not in a romantic way but Kuvira's words stirred something in her. She was only understanding glimpses of what Kuvira said, but it appeared her sifu had acquired a new worldview. The philosophical stuff was never Korra's strong suit, but she knew that to reach her potential, she had to embrace it.

"Now," Kuvira contined, bending a blob of meteorite from a nearby podium to float in between the two, "I want you to bend this into shapes, like this," she said demonstrating.

Kuvira motioned her hand and bent the blob into a sphere, a star, a tetrahedron. Korra braced herself to give it a whirl, and when it was her turn, she tried and managed to mimic Kuvira's shapes, albeit sloppily.

"Not bad," Kuvira said. "But not good."

Korra knew this but she was determined to get it right. She focused on the Earth from the strange world from whence this meteorite came and bended it to her will and lo, she contorted it to near-perfect shapes almost as seamlessly as Kuvira. Her sifu smiled.

"Now, I want you to bend it into something more elaborate – into the design on my armor."

This was trickier, and at best Korra could only create crude approximations.

"How did you do that," Korra said finally.

"Because," Kuvira said, "metal is Earth, but not all Earth is metal."

"Um, wat?" Korra said, letting her himbo show.

"Lesson the First, Avatar," Kuvira said, as the rising sun stretched the light across the open-air gym, "forget what you know. For now, anyway."

Korra was still thoroughly confused. She placed her hand on her hip and considered for a moment but did not draw any conclusions.

Kuvira continued, "You were probably bending the Earth in the metal. Indeed, that's how the great Toph Beifong, inventor of metalbending, first learned the Art. But now I'm telling you not to bend the Earth within the metal, but the metal within the Earth.

Korra still didn't understand. She scratched her temple and jutted out her bottom lip skeptically.

"How is that... possible? You're saying to bend the metal itself?"

"That's precisely what I'm saying. The outfit and the trim I wore yesterday to dinner – it was copper plated, not quite gold yet, but I'm working on it. And this..." Kuvira grounded her feet into the Earth, gathering her chi, and lifted her hand, slowly curling it forward. The frame of the platinum colosseum bent toward her but then she bended it back in place before any damage was done, huffing and breaking a sweat while she did it. Korra was shocked, her mouth and eyes agape.

"Does Su know you can do this?" Korra asked.

"Not yet. To be honest, I'm still developing this technique. It was a semi-recent discovery, and an accident. I have Bataar Jr. and his microscopes to thank for it. After our last adventure, I thought perhaps we could make amends, so I visited his lab one day. He wasn't there – and incidentally still didn't want anything to do with me -- but I was distracted by one of his microscopes and the tiny metal shard beneath it. Looking in the eye piece, I saw the metal was moving, vibrating almost as if it were alive, and as I became aware of this fact, I also became aware of feeling the vibrations. The metal under the microscope then seemed to react to my breathing, rising and falling like the moon directs the waves, so then I tried my hand at manipulating the material – platinum – and it moved for me, though with much difficulty. But it was as if something had unlocked inside of me, and I've been contemplating it ever since," Kuvira regaled her story.

"And now, you think you can teach me this method?" Korra said, still reeling from Kuvira's confession.

Kuvira shook her head. "I'll teach you what I know. But like I said, I'm learning myself, though it's very much same principle as before, except a shift in perspective, of focus." She wanted to add that she wasn't in the position to take on any pupils, but when the Avatar showed up looking beat and sorry with sad polar bear dog eyes saying she had a vision, Kuvira couldn't turn her away.

"Now, Avatar... Korra," Kuvira said lifting up the meteor. "Bend the metal in this piece of rock."

Korra braced herself and tried to focus on what Kuvira had said. Kuvira let the meteorite go, and it dropped to the ground. Korra motioned her arm toward it and lifted up. Nothing.

"Ugh!" Korra said, already frustrated. "I can't get this stupid thing to move anymore. What have you done to me?"

Kuvira let out a sly smile. "So it begins. For our next lesson, we will tackle rhythm from another angle – through dance."