Ann decided to leave Wendell behind, when she faced Adam and Josh, rather than risk him being seriously injured during her time at the martial arts class. The following Thursday, Mary took Ann in and introduced her to Josh and Adam. Ann had her exolimbs on under her gloved special uniform.

"Fall in with the rest today," said Josh, "and we will grade you as soon as we get around to it."

"I'll do my best," said Ann.

Adam called the class to attention and took them through a series of warm-up exercises:

"Nod your heads back and forth... now head side to side... wiggle your right wrist with your arm and hand out in front ... now wriggle it the other way ... and the left hand ... and the other way... roll your arms forward...now one arm forward and one arm backward. Start with one arm going forward, and then throw the other arm back.... Now swivel around at the hips, and then the other way ... pick a partner and join wrists, lock them together, stand in a forward leaning position and punch your arms out as hard as you can."

This was one time when exolimbs did not help. Ann's own arms were tired from initiating the movements. The other warm-ups were no problem, but this one taxed her energy.

Adam continued:

"Now climb onto your partner's shoulders, and have them bend their knees ten times ... then three cross steps to the right, then three cross steps to the left, and then swap positions and give the other partner a go at doing all those things....good. Now ten star jumps... ten sit ups ... ten knees to the chest jumps ... and ten push ups... Now down and do the splits if you can. That's it. Come on. Stretch as far as you can, and rise to your feet."

Ann and the class were then put through lessons in several techniques, and then some sparring between various combinations of people was supervised by the instructors.

Ann concentrated her efforts into avoiding any blows which she could not deflect with her exolimbs.

"If anyone ever strikes my chest or my back, I'll fall over and stay down, but they can strike straight at my arms or legs and do no damage. My kicks and punches will hurt, even if I am not using proper karate techniques, which is good," thought Ann, "because I don't really know any."

For a variation on free sparring, Ann was tied by her arm to the arm of her sparring partner with a belt.

"Now this is where I can use the exolimb to pull that girl with tremendous surprising force," thought Ann, and gave the belt a hard jerk, pulling the girl off her balance. She fell forward and Ann gave her a sideways kick to send her rolling across the floor.

Then Adam connected three people with belts, in a triangle. Each hand held a belt. Again they could only use their feet, or could they? Ann tried the same trick, pulling both partners towards her. They decided to team up against Ann, rather than also fight each other. Ann decided to stop one of them quickly and then concentrate on the other. So she used a powerful forward kick to knock over the girl on her right, and then blocked the approach of the boy on her left, while stepping out of the way. The two of them were pivoting and each trying to get in a good strong blow for a while, until Ann just aimed an exolimb kick straight at the foot which was attempting to kick her. The boy stepped back.

"Enough. I give up," he said.

"Okay, ease off, Ann. No need to kill each other," said Josh, "It's only light sparring."

Then Josh had the class sit down and take deep breaths.

"Any questions or complaints about the lesson?" he asked.

Mary could never remember a time when somebody had complained or even asked a question.

"I think you're afraid to grade me today, because you don't want to spar me yourselves," said Ann.