Oh, Master Toph is my teacher here. She gives lessons on how to be... tougher. You may have heard her announce them over the journal before...

[Though if he ever did, it would have been manliness lessons for sissies, so hopefully he'll just take Ion's answer and roll with it. He's not going to give him too much time to ponder that, anyway.]

As for how she does it, I don't entirely understand it myself. But she's capable of controlling the ground using something called "earthbending". The fight couldn't have lasted more than a minute before I looked up and the only thing I could see was Sync's head sticking out of the ground.