Then, what’s the matter? Why is this phenomenon inherent to human nature? What’s behind it? There were plenty of questions, but too few answers. That gave me cause to search further.

Gradually, everyday life was getting back to normal. Moreover, some unusual courage started to arise in me because in my case I had nothing to lose. Therefore I had to quickly realize all my desires. “If I could spend every remaining day effectively, that could substitute for my whole life.” Arming myself with such a motto, I started to look intensively for books on that issue, go in for sports, catch up with school, and attend different hobby groups. All my days were fully filled up, and I didn’t have time to think about the bad. Even though the headaches reminded me about the worst, despite it all, I kept eagerly searching and attempting to understand everything new that I didn’t know or wasn’t able to do.

While my parents were trying to find different loopholes in order to get into the Moscow clinic, my ungovernable strivings brought me to study Kung-fu. Our group didn’t miss any film about our eastern martial arts heroes, and with a sinking heart we watched triple somersaults, overturns, undercuts, and jumps of sportsmen. And when they started to open Wushu schools in our town, where they were actually practicing Kung-fu, our group got extremely excited. We visited one school after another. But in the first school, the teacher was too angry and ignorant; in the second, the teacher considered himself to be almost Bruce Lee, even though he was only teaching ordinary wrestling mixed with boxing; in the third, the guy was simply a cheater and a drunkard. We were looking for a teacher who would be like the heroes we had seen in the eastern martial arts films. And, as they say, the one who’s looking will always find. But what we found was more than unexpected because it surpassed our ideals even in our dreams.

After a few unsuccessful visits to several schools, we were told to try a school located in the outskirts of our town, near an old mine. We didn’t believe that we would see anything better than what we had seen in the town center, but something was definitely drawing us there. After spending half a day questioning a great number of locals, we finally found it.

“Indeed,” in a low voice confessed my friend Tatyana, “this place is, of course, quite scary. If we will be practicing here, I will die from fear. I already have goose bumps.”

I too felt a light shiver, even though the weather was quite warm. Approaching a dilapidated old building, blooming with moss, even always-silent Slava couldn’t keep quiet:

“Well, well! I think we’ve just wasted our time. Don’t tell me that someone is practicing in this out-of-the-way hole. I bet, only mice are practicing here at night.”

Andrew, whose face and figure were slightly reminiscent of the Russian Schwarzenegger, concluded significantly, “Generally speaking, the outside form always corresponds to its contents. It’s very likely that we’ll reinforce that saying.”

And having pulled the handle of a worn-out door, he heard crafty words cited by Kostya with regret: “I'll bet the doctor's in your body yet.”

With loud laughter, we rushed into the sports hall. But our cheerful mood quickly changed to mute amazement because inside there were around sixty people.

“Oho,” Slava whistled, “there you are!”

But I wasn’t listening to my friends’ puzzled remarks. My eyes were immediately fixed on a fair-haired man. Even though that man didn’t differ from the others standing in the crowd, something in him was definitely intriguing me. “God, his face looks so familiar,” I thought. His appearance reminded me of someone I knew well. But who? I started to dig intensively in my memory, recalling all my friends from different cities, my numerous relatives and their friends. But all my attempts were in vain. I was awaken from that wild stream of memories by the melodic voice of Sensei (the Teacher) who turned out to be that mysterious young man.

“So, newcomers,” he said with a smile, “why do you stand like a girl after her first kiss? Here you either practice or leave. It’s your choice.”

That voice!… I was so amazed. For sure I’d heard his voice once somewhere. But where and when?

Our small company went together to the locker rooms. And all that time, buzzing thoughts continued to demand satisfaction of their useless curiosity. Getting ready for the training, I tried to ask other people around me about Sensei, to find out where he was from. But it turned out that nobody knew anything clearly. This intrigued me even more.

Unlike slow Tatyana, I quickly put on a white kimono and went to the sports hall hoping to find more answers there. But there I got only more questions. What struck me at first was the fact that there were people of all ages, from fourteen to fifty years old, and that was strange by itself. I’d not seen something like that in any previous school. I thought: “What can unite so many people of different beliefs, ages, and life experiences? If it’s only the martial arts, then what kind of master and psychologist do you have to be in order to attract and interest all of them?”

When the training began, the second thing that struck me was the ideal discipline and friendly atmosphere that surrounded us. Nobody here forced anybody to do anything, but no one ever thought of breaking the discipline. Everyone sincerely tried to do his best, and that was astonishing in comparison with our previous unfortunate experiments. Our company tried to show ourselves only from our best side, intensively puffing, groaning, and sweating. But even during that activity (painful, as it seemed, for my badly trained extremities), one thought didn’t leave me: “How was it possible to create such a discipline without, as they say, carrot and stick? What have all these people found here for themselves that they train their bodies with such enthusiasm? And why do they all train in silence?!” My feminine mind finally rebelled. “Why won’t anybody say at least one word!” For my curious, talkative nature, this was a complete disaster. But I hoped to gain at least something during the training.

After the warm-up, we heard three strong claps of the sempai (senior disciple). It was a kind of a signal. People started to form a circle by sitting on their knees on the floor. When everybody sat down, the Teacher went out simply and easily to its center. He began to tell the history of the Tiger style as if he were telling it not to the crowd of silly disciples, but to his old friends. For the first time, I learned that the Tiger style is the only style that preserved its original martial spirit without any changes.

It appeared in China. One of the Shaolin masters observed the behavior of tigers and created his own style distinguished from the others by greater aggressiveness and danger. The style has no sportive roots. Its martial spirit was transmitted from Teacher to disciple, changing his consciousness to the level when he begins to feel and to think like a tiger. By its wisdom it’s only inferior to a more ancient style called Dragon.

“All right, theory is just a theory; it’s time to warm up a little,” Sensei said.

He called three fighters – strong, tall, athletic guys – to the tatami and demonstrated a couple of defense and attack techniques from this style. First he showed the moves at high speed, where the real blows were happening. Honestly, I, and probably many others too, didn’t even notice when the Teacher struck the blows. All that my eyes could record was the fact that Sensei passed by three fighters and waved his hands for a second. I didn’t even realize what had happened be fore they had time to fall. The same happened during the demonstration of defense techniques. The speed of the blows seemed to be unreal to me. And my brain, unwilling to comprehend that, suggested artfully: “Maybe they fell down on purpose, probably pretending.” But it was impossible that the men’s faces, distorted by pain, were faked. Sensei came up to them calmly and helped restore their breathing by poking his fingers into some points on their bodies. After that, the boys were able to recover from the pain and shock and continue the training. That entire scene was ac companied by silent contemplation of the amazed crowd.