The question embarrassed him.
“No.”
The blue belt smiled.
“Samuel got to you.”
Ryan pointed.
“Keep moving.”
Jacob returned too.
His shoulder healed.
For several months, he refused to train with Ryan.
Marcus supported that.
Then one evening Jacob approached.
“You want to roll?”
Ryan looked surprised.
“You sure?”
“Light.”
Ryan nodded.
“Define light.”
Jacob smiled.
“Thirty percent.”
“Okay.”
Ryan stayed there.
When Jacob said easy once, Ryan reduced pressure immediately.
Not for five seconds.
For the rest of the round.
Afterward Jacob said:
“Thanks.”
Ryan shook his head.
“You shouldn’t have to thank me for listening.”
Samuel heard about that later.
He nodded.
“Better.”
Three years passed.
Ryan won another regional title.
Lost two major tournaments.
One loss came in overtime after he gave up a late position.
Old Ryan would have blamed the referee.
New Ryan watched the video.
Then called Samuel.
“I chased the scoreboard.”
Samuel answered:
“You left.”
Ryan smiled.
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Over there.”
Samuel laughed.
“You’re learning.”
Samuel’s wife, Ruth, died the following year.
Sixty-eight years married.
She had been the reason tomatoes existed on Price Farm.
Samuel considered giving up the vegetable stand afterward.
Ryan showed up one Saturday.
Then Jacob.
Then Marcus.
Then six academy students.
Nobody asked Samuel.
They harvested tomatoes.
Badly.
Samuel shouted at all of them.
“You’re bruising them.”
Ryan held one up.
“It’s a tomato.”
“It was a tomato.”
“Now it’s sauce.”
Marcus laughed.
For the first time since Ruth’s funeral, Samuel did too.
Eventually Samuel agreed to teach one monthly fundamentals session at Lexington Combat Academy.
One.
He refused more.
Marcus called it:
Balance Before Speed.
Samuel called that “marketing nonsense.”
The class filled anyway.
White belts trained beside black belts.
Teenagers beside adults.
Samuel’s first rule was printed on the wall:
A HIGHER RANK MEANS MORE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE OTHER PERSON’S SAFETY.
Ryan asked:
“You steal that from somebody?”
Samuel looked at him.
“Probably.”
At seventy-eight, Samuel stopped getting onto the mat.
His knee had finally won.
He coached from a folding chair.
Ryan was thirty-six then.
No longer the youngest competitor in the room.
No longer quite as fast.
One evening a twenty-two-year-old prospect joined open mat.
Strong.
Explosive.
Very confident.
He caught Ryan in a scramble and immediately looked toward the crowd.
Ryan saw it.
For half a second, he saw himself.
The young man increased pressure unnecessarily.
Ryan stopped the round.
“Easy.”
The prospect frowned.
“I’m not going hard.”
Ryan sat up.
“I said easy.”
The young man looked toward the watching students.
Ryan followed his eyes.
Then smiled.
“Come here.”
“What?”
Ryan pointed toward Samuel sitting near the wall.
“See that old man?”
Samuel raised one hand.
“Do not make me part of this.”
Ryan ignored him.
“He taught me something.”
The prospect asked:
“What?”
Ryan said:
“The minute you care more about what the room thinks than what your partner is telling you, you’re no longer training the person in front of you.”
Samuel muttered: