“And that is where I think I will start off this training session, with the basics” Kakashi spoke up as Airi took a step back. Already glad to see that his impulsive choice to add her in to his training was paying off.  ”But not with what the academy considers basics” he added seeing the looks of disappointment and outrage across all of his genin. “The basics I’m going to cover are what I consider the basics” He said with an eye smile.

And over the next six hours he lectured his team on his six basic tenets of being a ninja. Three were easily guessed; Ninjutsu, Genjutsu and Taijutsu, but he also talked about Awareness, Planning, and Stealth. In addition he broke down each tenet further in to what he considered the core principles of each basic tenet.

He started with Stealth, which he broke down in to three parts; hiding movement, hiding objects and hiding emotions. Hiding movement was obvious, moving from point A to point B without being seen. Hiding objects covered all manner of sleight of hand, with drawing tools from pouches unseen or pickpocketing being a focus. Hiding emotions was also self-explanatory, but he stressed the difference between hiding emotions and discarding them.

Awareness was next which he broke down in to internal and external awareness. Internal awareness was having a good feel for what went on inside, the feel of ones heartbeat, what kind of thoughts you tended to have and context for one’s own emotions. External awareness was paying attention to the world around you with all the senses you had at your disposal. 

Planning came next which he broke down in to short term long term and predictive planning. Short term planning, he also dubbed improvisation, dealt with patching together a plan with little to no information, or when you suddenly find yourself in an unexpected situation. Long term planning is self-explanatory, but predictive planning was the art of getting in to an opponent’s mindset and predicting what they were going to do, and how to work that in to your plans and fights.

He then moved on to Taijutsu, which he split in to weapons, unarmed, and physical health.  It was a rather straight forward segment in which he talked about the various ways one can fight both with and without a weapon, and the various benefits and drawbacks associated with each. He also talked about the need to keep in optimal shape, and various exercises and dietary methods to achieve such.

He then moved on to Genjutsu in which he coved distractions, imagination, and mental health. Distractions could be used to aid every and all actions and talked about the pros and cons of various techniques that could be used. Imagination was the key to keeping people from being able to predict you easily as well as opening up new avenues to use what you had in unexpected way. Mental health he talked about the importance of stress management, and knowing your own limits.

Lastly he covered Ninjutsu which covered control and adaptability. Control was using the right amount of effort to achieve the maximum result you were aiming for. With adaptability he covered the benefits of keeping ones skill set flexible and able to change to fit every situation.

Throughout all of this Kakashi was having his students exercising, be it jogging laps, sprints, pushups, sit ups, basic chakra control, accuracy, weapon drill, unarmed drills, or anything else he could think of that would be beneficial. Much of the time he would just be supervising them as he continued to inform them about his thoughts about the basic requirements to be an efficient ninja. Occasionally he would correct their posture, and near the end of each segment he would allow them to ask questions that had about what he had talked about, and twice he gave them a thirty minuet break to rest, get some water, and eat something while he talked about the more nuanced topics of predictive planning and mental health.

The question that Kakashi deemed the most important was “What about Chakra?” to which he answered “Nothing I have said, nor will say exclude Chakra. Chakra is simply a tool for a ninja, and all of the basics apply to it as much as anything else. And if you are asking about advanced Chakra techniques, will get to those later for now we are talking about the basics.”

To wind down he made three clones and sent each of the students off with one to a different side of the training area, explaining that the next hour was to be for more personalized training. This was to give each of them a chance to ask more questions if they wanted, as well as to get some idea about what each student wanted to learn more of.
[hr]
The original let out a breath as his clones lead the genin off. It had been a long, long time since he had talked so much, but hopefully it would pay off. He was also surprised just how painful it had been training them, everyone but Sakura remained him about his past in painful way, Naruto was the spitting image of his dad but his personality was a mix of Obito and Kushina. Sauske reminded the masked nin of himself when he was much younger and Sakura was nearly an insult to the title of kunoichi.

“So any observations for me so far Airi?” He asked as he leaned up against one of the post as he watched his students from afar. He attempted to sound like his normal self but a little bit of his mental exhaustion still bleed in to his voice.