Page 1363 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

But Wiggin didn't take umbrage at Crazy Tom's correction. He just corrected him back, mildly. "There *is* no combat without movement. Now, with your legs frozen like this, can you push off walls?"
Bean had no idea. Neither did anyone else.
"Bean?" asked Wiggin. Of course.
"I've never tried it," said Bean, "but maybe if you faced the wall and doubled over at the waist --"
"Right but wrong. Watch me. My back's to the wall, legs are frozen. Since I'm kneeling, my feet are against the wall, Usually, when you push off you have to push downward, so you string out your body behind you like a string *bean*, right?"
The group laughed. For the first time, Bean realized that maybe Wiggin wasn't being stupid to get the whole group laughing at the little guy. Maybe Wiggin knew perfectly well that Bean was the smartest kid, and had singled him out like this because he could tap into all the resentment the others felt for him. This whole session was guaranteeing that the other kids would all think it was OK to laugh at Bean, to despise him even though he was smart.
Great system, Wiggin. Destroy the effectiveness of your best soldier, make sure he gets no respect.
However, it was more important to learn what Wiggin was teaching than to feel sullen about the way he was teaching it. So Bean watched intently as Wiggin demonstrated a frozen-leg takeoff from the wall. He noticed that Wiggin gave himself a deliberate spin. It would make it harder for him to shoot as he flew, but it would also make it very hard for a distant enemy to focus enough light on any part of him for long enough to get a kill.
I may be pissed off, but that doesn't mean I can't learn.
It was a long and grueling practice, drilling over and over again on new skills. Bean saw that Wiggin wasn't willing to let them learn each technique separately. They had to do them all at once, integrating them into smooth, continuous movements. Like dancing, Bean thought. You don't learn to shoot and then learn to launch and then learn to do a controlled spin -- you learn to launch-shoot- spin.
At the end, all of them dripping with sweat, exhausted, and flushed with the excitement of having learned stuff that they'd never heard of other soldiers doing, Wiggin assembled them at the lower door and announced that they'd have another practice during free time. "And don't tell me that free time is supposed to be free. I know that, and you're perfectly free to do what you want. I'm *inviting* you to come to an extra, *voluntary* practice."
They laughed. This group consisted entirely of kids who had *not* chosen to do extra battleroom practice with Wiggin before, and he was making sure they understood that he expected them to