John Wick - Chapter 61: Joe’s Martial Arts: What Do Stats Plus Skill Equal? (Patreon)

“I know a little bit of everything.”

The atmosphere in the second-floor restaurant seemed to change.

An invisible pressure radiated from the towering man sitting at the table.

His words sounded modest, but Nate could practically feel the confidence pouring out of him.

“What a humblebrag,” Elena muttered quietly from the side.

Nate was sitting close enough to hear her and had to hold back a laugh.

Joe continued maintaining the imposing demeanor of a true martial arts master. His back was straight, chest raised, head held high, and eyes sharp.

Of course, the effect would have been much better if he weren’t still holding half a wrap in his left hand.

Nate cleared his throat and immediately played along. Lowering his voice, he asked,

“Close-range boxing?”

“Mastered.”

“Explosive close-quarters fighting?”

“I know some.”

“Long-range striking?”

“One of my specialties.”

And so it continued.

Nate named a style, and Joe answered.

With every question, the confidence on Joe’s face grew more obvious.

Nate was feeding his ego far too well.

Everyone else at the table silently watched the two of them go back and forth for almost a full minute.

“All right, enough!”

Winston finally raised a hand to interrupt them.

“Come on. Go show him.”

“But I haven’t finished eating,” Joe protested.

“Save some room for lunch!”

Winston looked genuinely exasperated.

“Fine. Then let’s hurry.”

...

The New York Continental, twelfth floor.

Panam remained behind the front desk with her usual professional smile, watching the entire group stream into the gym.

“What do you want to see?” Joe asked as he stood in front of a heavy bag.

Nate thought for a moment.

“That explosive close-quarters style.”

“Okay.”

Joe didn’t bother with any elaborate preparations.

He simply settled into position in front of the heavy bag, his stance as solid as a tank.

His left fist and left foot were forward, his right fist drawn back beside his waist. His right knee bent slightly as his weight settled onto his rear leg.

His entire body became completely still.

Just that stance alone seemed to change the atmosphere in the gym.

Everyone fell silent.

Not a single person spoke.

Then Nate saw Joe’s lead hand make a motion almost like pulling a rope.

His rear foot slid forward half a step.

Then he stomped hard into the floor.

As his entire body drove forward, his right fist exploded out.

The massive fist shot toward the heavy bag like a cannonball.

A driving straight punch.

The impact sounded like thunder.

Elena physically flinched.

Even John and Marcus looked startled.

Henry and Winston, however, remained relatively calm, as if they had seen it before.

Joe’s fist punched straight through the heavy bag.

Sand erupted from the other side and sprayed more than ten meters across the room.

Despite all the small details involved in the movement, the entire strike had happened in an instant.

“Well?” Joe asked, lowering his head.

Nate stared at the destroyed bag, rubbing his chin in disbelief.

“Holy shit. That was incredible.”

A man as massive as Joe delivering a driving punch with that kind of speed and explosive force was terrifying to watch.

“Can you do a crushing elbow strike too?” Nate asked.

“Of course.”

Joe’s fist was still buried inside the heavy bag.

He pulled it free, shifted half a step back around his left foot, then surged forward and drove his elbow into the bag.

BOOM!

The steel chain holding the heavy bag snapped under the force.

The already damaged bag flew across the gym and slammed into the metal fencing around the sparring area, bending the fence inward.

“That’s insane!”

Nate shouted.

That slightly awkward smile appeared on Joe’s face again.

“Can you teach John this?” Nate immediately asked.

Ever since they had been downstairs, Nate had been thinking about what kind of martial art would suit John.

Given John’s build and physical ability, something powerful and direct seemed like the best fit.

An explosive close-quarters style was the obvious choice.

When it came to explosive, aggressive power, this kind of fighting was hard to beat.

“Of course,” Joe replied. “But it’ll take time.”

“That’s fine. He doesn’t need to learn everything. Just teach him a few practical moves he can actually use.”

After all, hand-to-hand combat was still secondary for John.

Guns were his true specialty.

His fists and feet only became necessary when he ran out of ammunition or someone managed to close the distance.

“No problem.”

Joe looked at Nate.

“Aren’t you going to learn anything?”

“I already did. I don’t really need anything else.”

Joe stared at him.

“...What?”

Nate assumed exactly the same stance Joe had just demonstrated.

The towering man froze.

Elena’s eyes were already beginning to light up.

Henry, sitting beside her, smiled proudly.

“He really does have incredible talent.”

“Indeed,” Winston replied.

He nodded, a thoughtful smile on his face.

Nate already had Jeet Kune Do as his foundation.

All he needed to do was take whatever he found useful and incorporate it into his own Jeet Kune Do system.

“Anything wrong with my form?” Nate asked Joe.

Joe stared at him for a long moment.

“...It’s very accurate.”

The basic stance and power-generation mechanics of those two techniques weren’t particularly complicated.

With Nate’s enhanced vision, he could clearly observe the subtle way Joe’s muscles moved and generated force.

All Nate had to do was imitate what he saw.

He wasn’t stupid.

Once the basic mechanics were correct, everything else came down to practice.

Martial arts took time.

And learning too many different things wasn’t necessarily a good thing either.

As the saying went, it wasn’t the man who knew a thousand techniques you had to fear, but the one who had mastered a single technique.

“Oh, right.”

Nate practiced the movement twice more before turning toward Joe.

“John’s supposed to be rebuilding his physical condition, right? So why aren’t you having him lift weights instead of beating the hell out of him?”

“His physical condition isn’t the real problem,” Joe explained. “With his willpower, regular training will get him back into shape quickly enough.”

“Five years of comfortable living dulled his combat instincts.”

“That’s the dangerous part.”

“So Winston brought you here specifically to beat him up?”

“Pretty much. Anyone else wouldn’t put enough pressure on him.”

“You two fought before?” Nate asked.

“Of course.”

“How did it go?”

“Back then, he could last a little over three minutes against me.”

“And now?”

“Less than a minute.”

“Yeah, he definitely needs the training.”

Then Nate thought of something else.

“What about with guns?”

Joe fell silent.

“...Without bulletproof equipment, I wouldn’t last five seconds.”

Nate grinned.

“So John’s still stronger.”

Joe stared at him in silence, visibly annoyed.

“Oh, right!”

Nate suddenly remembered something.

“You use bulletproof equipment a lot. How much protection does one of these bulletproof suits actually provide?”

It was something Nate wanted to confirm, just in case.

“If it uses the silicon carbide plates that are popular right now, standard rifle rounds won’t penetrate,” Joe answered honestly. “But getting hit still hurts like hell.”

“It won’t stop armor-piercing rifle ammunition, though. And sniper rounds are out of the question.”

“Okay...”

Nate glanced toward Joe’s back.

After hesitating for a moment, he finally asked the question that had been bothering him.

“There’s actually something I’ve wanted to ask you for a while.”

“What?”

“How did you get all those scars on your back?”