Junior Year Box Set

I read the specs; it was an airfoil, similar to a stealth bomber. You strapped your feet to the top of it as you would a snowboard. They had a handlebar for you to hold onto. It had been designed to be like the wingsuit. The advantage it had over the wingsuit was that instead of a glide time of only sixty to ninety seconds, you could use the wingboard for as long as the plane had fuel or until you got tired. It had a video of the creator and their test flights with models. I was fully on board when they showed the wingboard doing barrel rolls with a robot at the controls. I felt I could do better.

The only hitch was that I had to was get qualified to skydive. Kendal had to have my dad sign some paperwork, so she said she’d get him to sign off on the classes. I hung up with Kendal and then ran into the lunchroom to find Brook.

“Guess what we’re going to do,” I said.

I must have been a little excited because I soon had our table surrounded. I let Brook tap on the video to start it. Granted, it looked a little silly with the model behind a toy airplane. She gave me a doubtful look until she saw it do a barrel roll.

“All we have to do is take skydiving lessons and get qualified. Then Range Sports will let us play with it and make a commercial,” I said, bouncing up and down.

“Did someone give him too much candy?” Cassidy asked, walking over to our table.

“No, he just found another way to kill himself. I can’t wait until he tells his mother,” Wolf said.

“I’d pay big money to be there for that conversation,” Tracy said.

They weren’t going to ruin my fun with details. Mom let me have a Jet Water Board, after all. This looked perfectly safe, compared to that.

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Kendal gave me the good news that my dad had signed the papers for me to take lessons to qualify to parachute. She must have mixed the release in with other paperwork because he hadn’t mentioned it. My first class was on Tuesday, so I sent Brook a text with the details so she could take the training with me.

Kendal forwarded me the qualifications for skydive certification. Tuesday we would take a four-hour class and then do three jumps with instructors. Wednesday we would do three more jumps and learn to pack our own parachutes. That would complete Phase 1. Over the next few weeks, we would have to do another nineteen jumps to complete Phase 2 training. Once we had 25 jumps under our belts, we would earn our USPA A-license. Then, having our own equipment, we could skydive almost anywhere.

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Tonight, Fritz became the instructor at the dojo. He introduced Cassidy and me to the Bo staff. The first thing he did was help us pick out a weapon.

“The rule of thumb is it should be a few inches shorter than you are. How tall are you, David?” Fritz asked.

“Six-four.”

“Then you need one that’s six feet long.”

Cassidy’s was five feet to fit her five-five frame. A Bo staff is a one-and-a-quarter inch in diameter length of wood that resembles a spear without the point. Because we were going to practice on each other, we had padded Bo staffs. When we got onto the mat, I figured you would use it like a sword or baseball bat. Fritz found me amusing.

“I want you to hold the Bo in front of you. Hold the staff in thirds, with one palm facing up and one palm facing down. This will be the position you will hold the Bo the majority of the time,” Fritz instructed.

I did as instructed, and Fritz corrected me in that he wanted my right palm facing up and left down.

“You’re right-handed, so holding the Bo like that will make your right hand the dominant or control hand.”

He showed me that my thumbs needed to curl around the Bo like I would grip a baseball bat.

“As you spin the Bo to do different strikes, you’ll loosen your grip, but you’ll keep the Bo staff in the base of the V created by your index finger and thumb,” Fritz said as he demonstrated.

He then showed us the narrow hold, which meant holding the Bo staff with about a fist length between our hands. Fritz demonstrated how he did what he called “rowing figure eights.” He then showed us how to go from that hold to one-handed, and then how to twirl it like a cheerleader’s baton.

We then worked on our stances. What I quickly figured out was that the skills I’d learned to this point with the batons and my other martial arts were easily translated to the use of the Bo staff. Fritz didn’t let us practice on each other, but gave us a demonstration. I could imagine this used in a movie role. The Sith Lord’s apprentice in one of the Star Wars movies had used a two-bladed lightsaber. The moves he had were the same as we were using with the Bo staff.

Before we left, Fritz sorted through the practice staffs and found the heaviest six-footer. He told me he wanted me to practice swinging and spinning the Bo staff when I ran in the mornings. The heavier Bo staff was analogous to a weighted baseball bat. Once you got used to the weight, when you went back to the unweighted bat or staff, you were much quicker.

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