Chapter 7: The Art of the Unstoppable Roll
My confidence was a newly discovered muscle. For the first time in my life, I wasn't just soft; I was solid. The "Panda-Tiger" stance had become my anchor, my fortress. I could feel the power of it resonating up from the floorboards, through my thick legs, and into my core. It was a feeling of being unmovable, of being inevitable.
"Again," Master Shifu's voice commanded from the side of the dojo.
I roared—a real, rumbling roar this time—and threw all my weight and focus into a single, crushing blow against the wooden dummy. The sound was a deep CRACK-BOOM! that echoed through the vast, quiet space. The dummy's thick torso, already scarred and splintered from my previous lessons, groaned under the impact, another deep gouge carved into its chest. I stood back, panting, a grin of pure satisfaction spreading across my face. I had done that. The big, clumsy panda had done that.
Shifu approached, circling the battered dummy like a hawk examining its prey. He ran a small paw over the damage, his expression thoughtful. I stood up straighter, puffing my chest out, waiting for a word of praise.
"Your power is impressive, Po," he said, his voice quiet. "You have learned to stand your ground. You have become a fortress."
My grin widened. "Thanks, Shifu!"
"But a fortress," he continued, turning his sharp eyes to me, "cannot move to save a citizen trapped on the other side of the battlefield. What happens when the villain doesn't come to you? What happens when you are needed… over there?" He pointed with his staff to the far side of the dojo. "And you are stuck… over here?"
My smile faltered. I looked at the long, empty space between me and the far wall. He was right. My new style was powerful, but it was also completely stationary. I was a mountain, but mountains don't do a lot of running around. I didn't have an answer.
"The greatest heroes are not always the strongest," Shifu said, beginning to walk. "They are the ones who can be where they are needed, when they are needed. Your defense is strong. Your close-range offense is developing. But your mobility… is a weakness. Today, we change that."
He led me to a section of the dojo I hadn't used before. It was a long, wide corridor set up like some kind of nightmare obstacle course. There were low-built wooden ramps, barriers that were too low to climb over, and, hanging from the rafters above, at least a dozen thick, heavy sandbags.
"What is all this?" I asked, a sense of dread creeping into my stomach.
"This is your path," he said simply. He then did something that broke my brain. He crouched low, tucked his head, and launched himself forward into a swift, silent, perfectly controlled roll, gliding under the first low barrier with the grace of a river stone. He came up on his feet on the other side without a single wasted motion.
I just stared. "Rolling? You want me to… roll? On purpose? Shifu, the last time I rolled like that, I accidentally took out three bullies and ended up with my head in a trash can."
"What you did then was an accident," he corrected me. "It was chaos. What I will teach you is control. You have always seen your roundness as a burden. Today, you will learn that it is your engine."
My first few attempts were, to put it lightly, a complete disaster. I tucked my head and threw myself forward, and the world immediately dissolved into a nauseating, spinning blur of floor and ceiling. I had no control, no direction. I rolled sideways, crashing into a stack of spare floor mats. I tried again, and managed to roll straight into a wall with a loud bonk. I sat up, the whole dojo swaying around me.
"I think I know how Hebi felt after I spun him around," I groaned, holding my head. "This is impossible! My brain is sloshing around in my skull like soup!"
"That is because you are fighting your own body," Shifu said, unimpressed by my struggles. "You think of it as falling. Think of it as pushing. You are not trying to be graceful like a leaf on the wind. You are trying to be inevitable like an avalanche. Do not resist your shape. Use it. Become the cannonball."
His words made a little bit of sense, but my head was still spinning. I wasn't an avalanche; I was a dizzy panda. Seeing my frustration, Shifu sighed that familiar, long-suffering sigh. A moment later, he returned with the one thing that could cut through my confusion: a single, perfect, fluffy white steamed bun, a bao, nestled on a small plate. He walked to the very end of the obstacle course and placed it on a tall pedestal. The fragrant scent of the warm, savory filling drifted all the way down to me.
My focus sharpened instantly.
"The goal is simple," Shifu said. "The path is not." He walked over to a lever on the wall and pulled it down. With a groaning of gears and a creaking of ropes, the hanging sandbags began to swing, back and forth, cutting across the corridor like giant, brutish pendulums. "You cannot walk. You cannot stop. The only way to the prize is to roll through them all, without pause."
I stared down the corridor. The sandbags swung with a hypnotic, menacing rhythm. The first one swept past with a low whoosh that I felt in my chest. This was insane. But then, I looked past them, to the beautiful, perfect bao waiting for me. It was a beacon of hope in a forest of swinging canvas.
I took a deep breath, my heart hammering against my ribs. Become the cannonball.
I tucked my head, pushed off with my powerful legs, and threw myself into the chaos.
The world vanished. There was no up, no down, only a spinning blur of brown floor and grey ceiling. The first sandbag swung towards me. I couldn't dodge. I couldn't stop. I just braced myself.
THUMP!
The impact was jarring, a muffled explosion of canvas and sand against my side. But instead of stopping me, it just pushed me, altering my trajectory slightly. I was still rolling. Another bag came from the other side. WHOOSH.
WHAM!
Another impact, this one on my back, pushing me straight again. I hit the first small ramp, my body launching into the air for a heart-stopping second before I crashed down on the other side, the landing sending a jolt through my bones but not stopping my momentum. I was a pinball, a boulder, a force of nature. The sounds were a symphony of violence: the creak of the ropes, the rush of the air, the percussive thump-thump-WHAM of the bags against my body.
My mind wasn't thinking in words anymore, only in a single, glowing image: the bao.
I rolled under the final low barrier, my fur scraping the wood, and uncurled in a messy, uncontrolled heap, crashing right into the base of the pedestal. I came to a stop, the entire world spinning violently around me. I felt dizzy, bruised, and utterly disoriented. But I had made it.
I looked up, my vision swimming. There it was. The bao. I reached out a trembling paw, plucked it from its plate, and took a huge, triumphant bite. It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted.
As the world slowly stopped spinning, I saw Master Shifu standing over me, his expression calm.
"You have learned to move," he said, as I finished the last of the bun.
He looked down the path of now-motionless sandbags, then back at me.
"Now, you must learn to think while you move."