Silver Starlight walks up to the gym wall and taps it. An enormous complex of formations appears at her touch, a tangled spiderweb of silver lines and symbols. 

"Supression formation. Using this I can reduce my power down to the first realm and fight both more fairly and more safely." 

She turns an invisible dial and the entire wall starts glowing silver. "There." She steps out into the gym. "Come at me. Any way you like. Please use your qi pills, this will be intense if we're doing it right."

"Right."

One goes in her mouth, held in the cheek like before.

She advances steadily and makes as if to punch directly, planning to Ring Dance to the side at the last moment and punch from there instead.

Silver Starlight lets her come, and uses Ring Dancer herself to move with Trys, controlling the spacing and timing. Her body sways to the side, dodging the punch, and while Trys is overextended she reaches out and gently touches Trys' chin. 

"Good tactics, but you need to work on your form so your jabs don't leave you exposed. Again."

"Well, I haven't had much time to-" Surprise jab! (Not actually that surprising, she tensed up.)

Silver Starlight catches it and laughs. "Spirited, I like that. But we were talking. Go on?"

She smiles and draws back. "Of course my form is pretty bad, I'm very new at this. I've been reviewing the instructions some and trying to pay attention when I do the exercises, but how do I improve my form without - feedback?"

"That's what I'm here for. For Canadian Fist it's important to keep your hands up at all times, like this." She takes her stance and holds it. "Adjust till you match me. It will be tiring at first to keep your hands up but it is a foundational skill and very necessary to good defense. You also need to work on your breath control. It's stressed in kendo that you are unable to move and react quickly while you're breathing in. It is the point at which you are most vulnerable to attack. The second most dangerous time is when you attack, because once you are committed to a strike it is difficult or impossible to jerk away. Most martial arts come down to timing and spacing control in my view. That is why I developed Ring Dancer."

Fists go up. "Ring Dancer is definitely a short-ranged technique, I noticed. Hmm." (Stance adjusts.) "If I'm vulnerable while breathing, am I even more vulnerable while Turtle Breathing because maintaining it is distracting?" (Fists stay up.)

"Yes, though you can reduce the vulnerability with practice." She jabs at Trys lazily to see if her block is solid.

Fairly solid. She also Ring Dances backward, a bit too late. Then forward again to counterattack.

Silver Starlight moves and spaces, demonstrating the same technique from earlier. This time she lands a gentle body blow. 

"Enough talking, let's just trade back and forth for a while. Stay light on your feet and keep your fists up, you'll learn the reflexes." 

She dances forwards and goes for a jab to the chin.

Oof. They spar.

Trys is clearly trying to think tactically and surprise Starlight. And push hard, aggressively. Attacking from unexpected angles. Sometimes the unexpected angle is straight ahead. It almost never works, though. She keeps her fists up, seems to mostly ignore the blows she lands unless Starlight starts hitting harder.

Starlight doesn't want to actually injure Trys. The purpose is to learn, after all.

She keeps up the sparring until supper. Trys has managed to land one (1) punch in that entire time. Senior Starlight congratulates her and tells her to meditate again for strands. They've gone through another two qi pills, and Starlight says Trys should be able to condense two more strands at least. "Lightly, like we practiced with Inner Breath."

She certainly feels strained enough after all that work. (She didn't even try for the kicks, knowing they were far too slow. Though she feinted towards trying one once.)

Okay. Slow and light, just like in the breathing exercises. Pull and draw, but - carefully. Efficiently.

She gets two this time.

"Alright, that's all for today. Practice your Inner Breath exercises after supper, but otherwise you can rest. You've done good work."

"Thank you for today. I still feel inadequate but if the master says so, who am I to gainsay it?"

But before dinner: Shower. And then maybe some playing Mario Oddysey if Cocoa isn't monopolizing the console.

Going sailing for a bit of a break is sounding better and better. Probably not while Senior Starlight is available to teach her, though.

She has dinner eventually.

Senior Starlight has settled in in the master bedroom of the house and isn't coming out.

Cocoa turns up again for a late dinner. "Hey. How'd it go?"

"Quite well, I think? She taught me a breathing technique, or the first part of it anyway, and we sparred all afternoon. Kind of exhausting. Got four strands. Though, I'm not sure how to feel about her lots liking me so much."

"Yeah, getting used to cultivator's luck can be a pain. You'll figure it out eventually."

"So some people are just... Lucky? Like Senior Red?"

Cocoa nods. "Or unlucky. Broken oaths harm your luck, virtue cultivation can improve it. And your luck can be surpressed by others' if you're in close proximity."

"...Hrmm. I don't suppose there's a Unified Field Theory of magic like there is of particle physics."

"Afraid not. Winter Rose is working on it though."