It didn't take much research to learn which room was Tyson's. He had called ahead and checked with mansion staff. He was a friend. They'd been more than happy to help him out. He had been to the mansion several times, and done his fair share of exploring. That meant he wasn't lost when he started searching for the room. A few times, he had come and Tyson hadn't been there. He'd made sure to not waste the trip. Today, he had a good feeling about it.

The day plan was simple. He was going to give Tyson a lesson in meditation. It was a nice New York day, which meant it was sunny with only minor pollution in the air. He'd thought maybe the mansion grounds would be a good place to sit down and relax.

Some kids were out playing. Most weren't. It was a school day. That meant many were in classes. Elliott was always impressed with the whole 'free school, room, and food' thing at the mansion. But not THAT impressed. Other locations did similar things. Though those were largely halfway houses...

He walked through the halls towards Tysons room. Someone appeared ahead of him in a cloud of smoke, running his way. He jarred to a halt, waved, and they both walked around each other. Mutants were rarely predictable. He reached Tyson's room and gave a quick knock. He rattled off a drumbeat, shave and a haircut, and let Tyson either knock off the reply, or open the door. If nobody answered, he'd feel quite the ass. 

Tyson sat in his room, or what was left of it. Much had been destroyed in his earlier 'mood swings' else by accident with his claws. In either case, his bedding was in shred, his furniture scratched up, the mirror in his bathroom broken, and it pretty much looking like an animal lived there. It was pretty much how he was feeling at the moment as well. He wasn't doing so well in the stress department, weeks of dealing with nightmares and lapses in control were weighing on him. He was tired from lack of sleep, a bit grouchy and scattered. Even breathing exercises didn't seem to be doing much but leave him out of breath after a while. Elliot had taught him some basics, but he hadn't seen him for a while now. He had been to the cafe a few times, but hadn't had the luck of running into him again. Maybe he should have asked him where he lived, at least he may have had someone to talk to, or at least touch bases. Elliott had said he would teach him some meditation techniques, but it seemed so long ago now. That was probably because every day seemed so long now as he struggled through him mutation.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Tyson hadn't been listening for anyone, and jumped. Usally students gave his room, a wide berth, so he thought maybe it was Cafas checking in on him. Or another teacher. He wasn't sure if he was in the mood to answer more questions, but t would look bad if he didn't answer. He got up and went to the door, doing his best not to further damage the knob. He only opened it a crack to take a peek at his visitor, and was surprised to see Elliott standing there. For a moment he just stared, before his senses returned, "hrrr Elliot, long time no see." he said visibly surprised. His grammer had improved a great deal since they had last met, he was no longer getting his words slurred, at least until he tried pronouncing r's. He looked back at his destroyed room, now embarrassed to have a fried see it. He wasn't sure wither to invite Elliott in to see how badly his state of mind had become.

"Hey Tyson! Yeah, sorry about that." He rubbed the back of his neck. He hadn't checked I. As soon as he could have. That was awkward. Bad manners . "I've come by a couple of times, but you've been out. Is today a good day for meditation practice? I was thinking the mansion grounds would be a relaxing place today. The weather is good."

He had looked into the teaching side of things. He had never really been a teacher. Loners rarely teach, or so he had figured. He had kept to himself. But he'd picked up a book on teaching, and one on meditation. He had the meditation book under his arm. He figured after their lesson, he could give it to him. With his claws, Tyson probably wouldn't be able to give it back in the same condition he'd been given... But Elliott hadn't spent any money on the book anyways. Tyson could probably figure it out. Maybe Elliott could just scan a few pages and give him stapled handouts. The mansion had a library. They could probably do that. Stapled handouts would be easier to flip through than a book.

The book wasn't perfect. There was more to the meditation he had been taught. This book focused on things from a mystical standpoint... That was weird. Some people believed meditation could speed a body's recovery or do many other things. Sure. But he'd just been taught about basic no spiritual stuff. So whatever.

A gust of wind rushed by behind him, and the book suddenly wasn't in his hand. A split second later, it was back again. Mutants. Kids. They could pull pranks like nobody else. He was pretty sure there was an obscene sticker on the books cover now. He audilbly sighed.

Tyson didn't know if Elliott had been by or not, no one had told him anything, though considering his mood swings and temperament, it was understandable if no one had. Who would want to risk it after he tossed Cafas against his door when he delivered some bad news. That and Tyson was too tired to even try deciphering any motives or paranoid thoughts. His nights were more or less sleepless by now, as every time he fell asleep he was having nightmares about going on a animalistic rampage. It left him drained, irritable and not exactly the best of company. A few people had managed to lift his spirits now and again, but the way things were those good feelings generally got crushed afterwards by guilt and fear. So regardless of if Elliott came over or not, he was in a desperate situation and would not question him on it if he had any form of help that could improve his state of mind.

"Hrrr Now is as good a time as any," he said, the tone in his voice a little weary and drained. It was not like he had anywhere to be, he was not taking classes and his days were basically just trying to keep himself from losing his mind. He slipped out the door and closed it, hoping to spare Elliot the sight of his room. He was embarrassed enough about his issues without showing him that his room was more or less the same state as his mind. The plastic tips on his claws clicked as he pushed the door closed. After it had been mentioned to him that they made plastic claw coverings for pets, he had asked for some. They were tailor made to fit the claws on his feet and hands, blunting them so they didn't snag or rip into anything. They didn't improve his dexterity, but it at least kept him from clawing everything he touched.

"Sounds good," Elliott agreed.

The walk out of the mansion didn't take much time. A couple of students passed them in the halls on the way. One was blue and had fairy wings. The other one was chasing her on a ball of air. They were both chasing dj roomba, the dj roomba. The little robot vacuumed as hard as it could ahead of the hounds on its heels.

To reiterate, it was a beautiful day outside. Whether that was due to mutant intervention, or due to average weather patterns, the fact remained. It would have been pretty cool, to glance out at the sky beyond the lawns, towards the forest between the other mansions in the area, and to see black storm clouds entirely different from the sunny skies above. To casually notice an Asian mutant staring upwards, focusing his own personal rain cloud away from home. None of that was visible to Elliott, however. Maybe it was the case. Maybe not. Feel free to exercise your own imagination whenever you can, he might have said. But he didn't. He just made small talk.

"So, Tyson." Elliott said. " You seem to have a better handle on talking. It sounds like you're getting the hang of that side of your mutation. Have you been sleeping alright, though? You seem... Tired." The weariness in the wolf mans voice could have been anything, but... Imaginations could run wild and give instincts just as often as they gave wild ideas.

He walked them towards a nice spot of grass by the shade of a towering northern red oak.

Tyson walked besides Elliott, all but ignoring the antics of other students, who made sure to pass him well on the other side of the hall. The students tended to be wary of him given the incidents, but that suited Tyson fine right now. He felt he could snap at any sudden surprise, and students had keyed in on his stress levels and wisely decided not to poke the dragon to see if he would breath fire on them. He was getting used to the huge amounts of scents that came with his nose, it was slowly getting more bearable in the mansion while the students were out. When he had first arrived he was having panic attacks whenever the bell rung.

"You seem to have a better handle on talking. It sounds like you're getting the hang of that side of your mutation. Have you been sleeping alright, though? You seem... Tired."

"Hrr Yeah, I managed to get some pointerrrs," he said, glad at least to be able to hold conversations again. Cafas had clued him into some of the techniques earlier mutants had used in his situation, which had helped a lot. He wasn't sure if he should, or even how to answer the second half of Elliott's question though. Having nightmares about yourself that were filled with blood and gore would be off putting to anyone, and despite Elliott's unique perspective on things, he still believed it wouldn't go over well with him, and he was still afraid of being found out about his lapses in control that lead to more bloody outcomes. Still, he knew he couldn't avoid the question entirely, as silence would just confirm that he had not been sleeping well and prompt more questions. "Hrrr Otherrr students decided to have a parrrty," he said, hoping it sounded convincing enough, "Wall's may as well hrrr be made of paperrr forrr me, kept me up late." It was a complete lie of course, but he didn't want to let on how bad it was getting if there was a chance this meditation thing could help turn things around.

"Yeah?" Elliott aimed a sideways glance the wolf mans way. A party, huh. That seemed believable, except... For some reason, Elliott didn't feel like an uptight place like the mansion would let kids stay up late creating a noisy distraction for other students. Maybe Tyson could hear better, and what normally would not be a noisy distraction for some was for him. That could very well be. That didn't seem so odd to consider. There was also the possibility that Tyson could have been lying. Having told many, many, many, many (many) lies in his lifetime, Elliott was familiar with what a liar sounded like. And acted like. Behaved. It was great he was getting better about conversations, but--

"You know, if it was me and I was having problems adjusting to something new that was a lot more primal than I was used to, I might have nightmares or something. But then, having better senses than the average bear might keep me up also. I don't know. I've never been a mutant like that so things could be different, but." He arched a hairless eyebrow ridge at Tyson and stopped speaking. He felt like maybe he had hit a nail on its head.

If Tyson didn't want to talk about it with him, that was fine. He would have to talk about whatever it was eventually. It was possible he hadn't been lying and the kids really had partied. Elliott wasn't some sort of human lie detector. Those don't exist. Maybe mutant ones do, which is awesome, but not humans. And he certainly was fallible. If he just wanted to meditate and move on, okay. Elliott just wanted him to know he understood if something difficult was being dealt with. Also, Elliott had enough paranoia to expect a lie or a misdirection when he smelled one. In his line of work, if you don't have an eye for those sorts of details, you can wind up dead (yadda yadda). The whole paranoid, people might be lying, gotta keep secrets and never trust a soul shtick felt played out. Played out, but true.

Red eyes watched wolf mans face.

Elliott appeared to be seeing right through Tyson's attempt to keep his problems to himself. He still didn't want to go into it, mostly because he often had nightmares of killing his mother as a mindless monster. It was not something he wanted to discuss or get into. He was barely holding it together as it was, he could only imagine how much he would lose it if forced to talk about it, and he was afraid of how he may react, both Elliott, and his own touch and go control over his own actions when he got emotionally distraught. He didn't want to accidentally go off on Elliott because he worked himself up to the point of fight or flight reactions, he still remembered when that had happened out of fear and possibly killed people.

"Hrrr, I'm fine, rrreally," he said, "Some meditation will probably hrrr help me get a good night sleep tonight." He tried to be truthful without actually admitting anything, it was probably the only way he had a chance of Elliott not pushing the issue. He was hoping that Elliott's instructions would help him calm himself and get over some of these issues, so he focused on that more, trying to mentally prep himself for whatever Elliott would have him do.

No talky talk. Okay. He could dig it. Whatever it was, if anything, was personal. He got it. They could move on. "Okay," he said, and meant it. He wasn't going to keep asking. He wasn't a psychiatrist. Meditation might help him deal, it might not. If he wanted to talk, he could, but Elliott wasn't going to force him to sit on a couch and tell him about his mother, or what this ink blot looked like, and how that meant he wanted to have sex with his mother... Or whatever Freud had been getting at. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, dammit. And sometimes, silence is good.

"Let's sit down."

He found them both a good spot and sat down in the shade. He sat in a meditative stance, legs folded together, hands resting on them. He relaxed and focused on what he was going to say.

"in martial arts, awareness is important. You need to have an inner calm that allows you to focus. Martial artists train their minds to achieve that calm focus that lets them see a punch coming, and decide what they do in order to prevent it from hitting their face. Since I only know about meditation through martial arts, you'll have to excuse the lack of spiritualism. If you want that, I have a book by me about magical healing meditation mysticism that may or may not have a rude sticker on it now thanks to some mansion student. Any questions so far?"

He paused to let Tyson digest.

Tyson let out a small exhale of relief as Elliott let the issue go. He appreciated that Elliott was not trying to get him open up on those things. If he ever got to the point where he could deal with this issues, he may confide in Elliott, but he was far from doing that with anyone. He kept it to himself to prevent his world from crumbling around him until he found some way to deal with it. If everyone knew the extent of his lack of control, he could end up kicked out of the institute, in jail, or something even worse. He wasn't willing to chance that.

He followed Elliot and watched as he took a meditative position. He wondered if the stance was essential to effectiveness, since it seemed a bit stereotypical, something out of a film, but he wasn't going to question it. If Elliott told him to stand on his head and cross his eyes, he would do it as long as it got results. So he sat down and did his best to mimic his form. The structure of his legs were a little different, so crossing his legs caused a bit of discomfort, but not enough to complain about.

"Hrrr if I want spirrritualism," said Tyson in reaction to the comments, "I'll hrrr join a churrrch." he didn't care about any 'mystical' side of things. His experience had pretty much destroyed any faith he had in a higher power. He had considered himself a good person before he met his father, yet his life had been destroyed without warning, and his mind and body warped to the point that he could barely call himself human. Maybe he was just becoming bitter, but he couldn't help it, his hopes had been crushed too many times for him to believe anymore. "Hrrr whateverrr method is most effective hrrr to you is prrrobably the best way to go." He just wanted results, he didn't want experiments into new age mystic crystal hippie stuff.

Elliott liked that answer. He liked that answer a lot. He had a sudden urge to them the book across the mansion grounds and get rid of it once and for all, but he held back. He figured it would just get brought back to him by some anti littering teleporting Good Samaritan or something. He settled for telling Tyson "Good answer."

He spent a moment going over the breathing technique they had already practiced. They practiced that for a couple of minutes. An easy start. Then, he focused on explaining the embryonic breathing technique.

There were two polarities of the body. One was in the brain and the other was in the abdomen region. The brain being called upper Dantian and the abdomen being called lower Dantian. Lower responsible for the energy of the body, like a battery, upper more for the mind and spirit.

"We're not doing religious mumbo jumbo, I swear. This is just the theory behind it." Elliott cut in. "Because meditation is big into the idea of qi, chi, energy. Mana. Mind and body. Balance." Thus they could go into weird names and talks of energy without it being some new age religion. "I can call it The Force, if you want." He smirked at Tyson.

Tyson probably was going to give him a ' hrrr, that's alright.' So he just moved on.

"The abdomen stores the qi. The brain is connected to it via spine. Thus, they're two in one. In action. Not reality. But that still gets into balance." And meditation was big into that. Two acting as one. Which brought them to balance itself.

"Yin and yang is another big idea. Those two Dantians, working together as one, in balance, regulating the body. Yang being quantity and yin being quality." Quality gets better the more your focus grows. He explained that. Explained how increasing focus increases your ability to tune out outside distractions, but that it takes practice. Controlling quantity requires good qi control from the lower Dantian. The sea of qi. He explained how energy is generated by fat burning, and stored until full then distributed throughout the body.

Elliott broke off for a moment after explaining the two kinds of minds. "The Chinese believe in two kinds of minds. The emotional mind, Xin, and the wisdom mind, Yi. To calm the emotional side, you focus on breathing." Which brought them back to what they'd been practicing so far.

(( ooc : I'm literally paraphrasing this article so assume Elliott is basically doing the same when I get abstract. ymaa.com/articles/why-meditation-is-important-in-martial-arts. ))

Tyson listened to Elliott's explanations from the book. Honestly it sounded like a bunch of temple monk stuff, but he wasn't going to judge until he knew it worked or not. Thought, now that he thought about it, it was somewhat accurate to body functionality. "Hrrr, the stomach fuels the body, hrrr the brain contrrrols body function and thought, close enough forrr me." he commented. As far as he was concerned Elliot could call it pixie dust if he wanted.

With yin and yang he couldn't help but think of the yin yang symbol. It wasn't like you could escape that sort of common knowledge when the media went nuts over it. But what Elliott explain struck a little bit of a cord with him. Two minds was almost exactly what his problem was, his two halves, the human mind and the wolf body, if he was out of balance, metaphorically speaking, then it wasn't hard to imagine how that caused his bouts of... canine tendencies. It seemed obvious that his emotional side must be the one causing it, as his lose of control seemed aggravated when in distress. Tyson took a deep breath, trying to demonstrate his technique, which usually involved taking long slow breaths until he felt lightheaded.

They had practiced normal abdominal breathing. Now, Elliott explained reverse abdominal breathing. In normal abdominal breathing, the diaphragm drops down and the abdomen pushes out. As you exhale, the abdomen withdraws and the diaphragm moves back up to push air out. Reverse abdominal breathing was, well, the reverse of this. The abdomen draws in on the inhale, and pushes out on the exhale. "This breathing style builds qi better, and is the kind we prefer to use for meditation." Elliott explained. He explained how it happened normally, when people laughed or cried, and how it was a very energizing method of breathing.

"All this talk, just to explain good ways to get air." Elliott almost laughed. "The simplest thing, yet so complicated."

He explained a few more things. How meditation can be practiced anywhere, and how it helps you find your center. How forming routines is a good way to improve your meditation time. Setting aside time each day to calm yourself and balance. He talked about calming your mind by focusing on your breathing, and relaxing your body.

"If you get distracted by a thought, just focus on your breathing some more and work to push thoughts away. Release them, and relax. It may take some time and practice to find your center, but it's worth it." He hadn't explained finding the center. Now he did that.

"To find your center, Tyson. Visualize the area you want to find, be it upper or lower Dantian. That area of the body, mind or flesh." He explained how to exhale to find upper Dantian briefly first. It should help to visualize a line, he told Tyson. A line to your center, where you focus your energy. "If you want, you can put your hands over your ears, so the energy doesn't escape." Elliott said.

Tyson tried his best to follow Elliot's directions to the letter. For all Elliott's attempts at humor, Tyson remained focused on trying to find his center and do the correct breathing as Elliott explained it. Unfortunately all he could really get was a feeling that all he was doing was making himself look like a fool. It wasn't that he was try to think about that, but his breathing seemed to come out a few times as snorts rather then breaths, perhaps his airways were a little bit different. He even tried as Elliott suggested and covered his ears, but it didn't really do much to clear his mind or focus. He still felt scattered by the thoughts in his head and the part of him that was animal getting distracted by various sounds going on elsewhere on the grounds, and the deep breathing brought new smells to his attention and made it all the more difficult for him to keep his mind centered.

"Hrrr, is therrre any way to block out senses?" he said in a frustrated tone, not knowing how to keep it all in check while he attempted any form of self enlightenment. If he could just keep his instincts at bay, maybe he would understand better. Elliott probably knew better then he did, but he wasn't sure how well his monstrous form could even handle meditation since it was so affected by wild impulses. Maybe he wasn't built for meditation, just as he was no longer built for just about anything human.

"Oh, that's a good idea," Elliott exclaimed. Already, his mind was latching onto it like a drowning man to driftwood. So much potential, and so many possibilities. "I'd have to look into techniques for that in meditation. Some yogis can block out or focus pain, and have greater control of their bodies. They can walk on hot coals and temporarily break bones and connections to achieve flexibility many wouldn't think was possible. For us, we may just have to settle for blindfolds and earplugs."

That was one option. Elliott talked for a minute about things they could do to lessen input. The field, for example, was full of distractions, but a dark room with less going on might be better. Or incense so you have one focus scent. Stuff like that. He asked Tyson if he had ever heard of sensory deprivation and if maybe there was some sort of room at the mansion that might be a good place for that?

A room with virtual reality of something. Maybe a danger room? He didn't say danger room. That was something someone may have heard of however.