Orochimaru didn't have the time to mess up with his seal, so his chakra flow shouldn't be impaired.
"I'm guessing you already know how to tree-walk." I started again, enjoying the silence brought by Sakura's punch. And more or less quickly, I explained how to perform the exercise before going back to my team.
...
I watched them spar with a critical eye for a couple of minutes before jumping in, throwing a kunai towards Shikamaru's head, swiping away Ino's supporting leg when she was about to lunge and bumping my hip against Choji.
The first noticed something coming at him from one side and bent forward, turning his step into a leg-sweep, Ino slammed her palms on the water and used those to propel herself, while Choji simply rolled with my push, retreating and keeping up his defense.
"If you are out of balance you may as well kill yourself. Good answers, Ino, Choji. Shikamaru, always retaliate with a flurry of something unless you are benefiting from a stranger throwing kunai at your head." I lectured.
Half an hour later, I noticed that Sakura had managed to walk in the middle of the river, albeit unsteadily, and was looking around, clearly too shy to call me over and not enough interested in Naruto to try and coach him.
I reached her and gave her a series of drills, runs, jumps, push-ups. Basically, I forced her to use chakra from several tenketsus on her body.
"Try to use the least amount necessary." I coached.
"Walking on water is used to gain better chakra control. To do this, the user has to be emitting a constant stream of chakra from the bottom of their feet and using the repellent force to walk across the water's surface.
This technique is more difficult to master than Tree Climbing Practice, because of the amount of chakra that needs to be emitted changes constantly.
If you mold it skillfully enough, like I am doing now, you'll skate, basically moving faster." I reached the other side of the river and started skating towards her.
"However you can 'explode' a certain amount of chakra to suddenly change direction." When I was less than fifty centimeters from Sakura, I turned sharply on my right, dousing her with a small waterfall.
"If you get tired, go on the edge of the water and stretch, after 15 minutes go at it again, ok?"
"Understood, Daiki-sensei." Sakura answered, not daring to tell me off for dousing her.
"Hey," I added "cheer up! It is a very important skill to master, and you need to learn to do it without thinking about it."
I left her and skated towards Naruto, who was managing his first step but failing on the second.
"Try to gather your chakra with a ram seal. Then focus, do not think about Sakura, nor about your team, nor about mine. Focus. The only way to learn this is with practice."
I used a kind but decisive tone, and I was rewarded with two big blue orbs widening in surprise, before a determined expression fixed itself on Naruto's face. I nodded encouragingly and went back to my team.
"Ok, sit around ducklings, lesson time." I called them.
"By now you'll have understood that my training method is based on a casual dismissal of human limitations. That is because with chakra... well said limitations do not actually exist, so I want you to work smarter and harder in your training." I started my lesson once we were all seated.
"What is chakra?" I asked, eagerly waiting for an answer.
"A form of life energy that all individuals produce to some degree." Ino correctly answered without missing a beat.
"True, but it's more than that. Not only individuals but also plants and beasts, even bacteria, have an infinitesimal amount of chakra." I omitted the senchakra because not only it was a blurry topic and I didn't want to deal with the headache of explaining what actual life force felt like.
"It's an energy, shaped by shinobi through intent and hand seals in order to do something." I gestured vaguely my hand.
"We already went over the various natural affinities, think of them as a... colored version of said energy, each with its own perks, flaws, and whatnot. And I already spoke to you about Yin and Yang."
I waited to see if there was a hole in their memories, but I was lucky: "A warrior should balance mind and body. Too much of the latter, and you become nothing more than a tool for others, too much of the first, and you become detached from reality.
Now, training either mind or body does not change the ratio of yin and yang in your chakra. It's not about the ratio of Yin and Yang, it's about their quality.
Before you were put into my care, your Yang oriented chakra was paper, now, it's a very sturdy wood."
"It's a common misconception to pick up and an easy mistake to make, but training the body does not mean increasing the ratio of yang in your chakra, and even then, how to train yin? How do you train the mind?" I continued slowly, seeing them frown to keep up with the highly theoretical discussion.
I looked expectantly at Shikamaru who, after a few seconds of intense concentration, answered: "Shogi?"
"Shogi is a way to do it, albeit an unimaginative and not very effective one. Like every table game, it teaches how to recognize and develop patterns.
Which is great, and useful. It is something that forces you to focus. But I assure you, that your yin chakra grew more defined after I told you the story of the two brothers. Why?" I asked, looking at Choji, who had paled at the reminder.
"... it ... it made us think ... about who we are? Since you told us that Yin Release or Inton, is based on the imagination and spiritual energy of a shinobi?" The Akimichi slowly answered.
I beamed. Philosophy it's something that human can actually start thinking about once they reach 14 or 15 years of age, since their brains actually develop a way to properly process purely abstract idea.
But in the narutoverse chakra was the great game-changer, so that when forced to, it allowed for things otherwise impossible. After all I could remember my life since I was two, and even then I knew about my previous one.
Thought patterns and memories are respectively formed and stored with the formation of different neural connections. No way a two years old brain would be capable of holding my highly complex thoughts and extreme self-awareness otherwise.
"Exactly, Choji. It forced you to think, to move your thoughts in a way you would have never followed before. Your identity is the sum of your experiences, your experiences shaped your thought patterns, and as such your ideas and beliefs.
Much like surviving hunger, pain and light poisoning increased the strength of your yang chakra when I tossed you in training ground 44." I continued.
"Do you know the Yin and Yang symbol?" I asked, when the three of them nodded quietly, still very focused on my speech, I went on.
"It's made in black and white, and people who don't live their lives, but let the time pass by them, are more gray than black and white. Let's say, the Daimyō likely has a very white Yin, and a dull dark grey Yang.
That's because of whatever challenge he encountered he more than likely faced with planning and political might. He never suffered hunger, or burning muscles." I elaborated.
"A warrior should train both mind and body to the best of their ability, but when you must choose, train your mind.
Learn how to think, understand how your thoughts impact your choices, see how those dictate your actions and predict how what you do affects the world.
Like killing a missing-nin, or helping a fellow leaf nin who has difficulties. Like stealing from someone rich enough to not notice or helping someone you don't know." I lectured them, my eyes directing them towards still struggling Naruto and an almost exhausted Sakura.
"Why your face to face lessons are always a headache, Daiki-sensei?" Ino complained, gently rubbing her temples.
I smirked at her and chose to carry on: "History Time."
When they had recovered enough, I spoke: "There was a shinobi, a powerful one, Hatake Sakumo, also known as Konoha's White Fang. He was sent on an extremely delicate mission."
I saw them widen their eyes, clearly, having heard of the infamous shinobi.
"Long story short, he had to choose between saving his teammates or completing the mission.
Knowing that failure would throw Konoha in the Third Shinobi War, and that all of his teammates would die if he completed the mission, he chose to save them." I paused, taking notice of their conflicted feelings on the topic.
"He was despised, marked as a disgrace, hated, likely even by the teammates he saved. After all every shinobi would proudly give up their own life for the sake of a mission.
But I bet that the families of Sakumo's teammates were happy that he chose his team over the mission." I concluded, before gesturing them to pick up their three-way spar once again.
"Sometimes," I added when they were standing "there is not right or wrong, lives are not something that has weight, the impact of our actions can't be measured with numbers." I shoot them a serious glance.
"Food for thought."
I left my place and reached a nearby mangrovia tree, settling among its half-submerged roots and lighting up a cigarette. I already went through nature change, It was time to push my control with shape manipulation.