backinthsaddle | Chapter Three: Combat Training

"Yeah, good. Your feet are the most important thing in a fight, because once they're out from under you, anything can happen. Always try to know where your feet are and what they're doing - it's not something you'll be consciously aware of after you get used to it. Kind of like... playing an instrument. When you start learning, you have to think about where to put your fingers to make each note, but after practice it becomes reflex."

"Okay," she says, thoughtfully, concentrating, thinking to herself, 'this is where my feet are.' She looks up at him, finally, eyebrows furrowed in concentration in a way that makes her look excessively solemn, and then she smiles and that seriousness melts away.

He smiles back, a little less nervous about trying his hand at this whole teaching thing now. "Right. There's some things you can try to help improve your balance, but we'll leave those for next time."

"In the event that you do get off balance and fall, there's a couple of things you need to do. Priority one is always try to keep your head up. That's the last thing you want to get hurt. If you're going over backwards and you can get your hand between your head and the ground, it helps. If you're going forward, turn your head so you don't break your face. Don't try to stop your fall by putting your hands out and leaving them there - slapping the ground with your palms helps absorb some of the impact, but if your arms are rigid, you can break them easily."

She gnaws down at her lip, nods her head. "That makes a lot of sense. I'll have to work on that. When I'm in a physical hand-to-hand situation that I can't talk out of... I tend to get squirmy, and panicky, and instincty, and then I just kind of flail and blank out. I think practicing it with you'll help a lot."

He nods. "It's a trick to get the hang of it. It feels like going against instinct, but humans are kind of stupid that way, evolution-wise. It gets better with practice, and don't feel bad if you don't get it right away. That's why we're practicing on mats."

"Breathing out before impact is another thing that seems a bit counter-intuitive. It makes you more relaxed, and less likely to get hurt. And if you can, it helps to kind of fold your body into itself." He demonstrates as he talks, in deliberate slo-mo of course. Bending ankles first, then knees, then at the waist, kind of a controlled collapse. "Doing this shortens the distance you have to fall."

"Like in kung fu movies," she says, with a smooth transition into a big grin, as she watches him, and goes to imitate, folding in at the waist like closing a book. It reminds her of interpretive dance, which she was never very good at. "So, breathing out helps. I'll remember that."

"Yep. The breathing thing also applies to if someone's about to punch you in the gut." He watches her imitate the collapsing move, watching limbs unused to this sort of thing trying to cope with the new ways they're being used. "This is something you can practice whenever you want, as slow as you need, and just try to speed it up until you're falling in real time. It might take months, but don't feel bad if it doesn't come right away. You're fighting instinct, after all."

"Okay. Okay, that sounds good." The muscles of her abdomen tremble a little as they move in an alien way, she pulls her arms in like the slow wilting of a flower, like she's protecting her middle.

((I think notifs are down.))

"Last thing is that if you're falling from any kind of height, try to roll as you hit. Like the folding yourself thing, only more. Use your fall's momentum against it to distribute the energy to the ground rather than yourself. Like this." He can't do this one slow-mo, but he deliberately throws himself at the ground, tucking a shoulder so he rolls over on his back and then back to his front again. It's a solid hit, but doesn't hurt one bit.

((Yeah, they are. Just got the notif for your tag before this one.))

Her eyebrows shoot up, concerned, and she says, "Gosh, are you okay?"

It's like watching a magic trick to her, and it's hard for her to conceive that someone can dive at the ground like that and not have it hurt.

((Darn. I'll just refresh every so often. When do you want to start Clarking?))

He pops right up again, right as rain. "Yeah, I'm fine." And he doesn't show any signs of really being in pain. "You might get a bit bruised up at first, and especially if you're in a real fight on a real hard surface instead of floor mats, though."

((That's what I'm doing too, yeah. And I dunno - with the notif problems, definitely not tonight, I don't think. It's hard when you gotta switch accounts.))

"Okay," she says, dubiously, circling him, giving him an assessing look, up and down. Satisfied that he isn't hiding some secret injury, she nods. "Can you do it again, so I can see?"

"Sure thing." He repeats the move, doing the tuck and roll, wishing there was a way to do this slower without wrecking the visual. He knows enough to be able to roll back into a fighting stance after a fall like that, but leaves that part out, since she's just learning.

She mouths 'wow' and breaks into a huge grin. "That's amazing! And I'll be able to do that, one day, maybe." She undoes her hair tie, reties it behind her, rolling her shoulders back.

"You should. Practice makes perfect, even when it comes to falling." He smiles at her encouragingly. "In a fight it's pretty important to get right back up as soon as you're done falling, but right now we'll just focus on the first part."

"Sounds good," she says, with a ghost of a laugh, stretching one arm over the side of her body, the other one, too. Then she kind of... gently lowers herself down to do a somersault. "That didn't count!" she chirps.

He shakes his head a little, smiling. "Same basic idea though. Try to go at an angle, sort of like you're rolling out of bed in the morning."

She does, lowering one shoulder before the other, curling to protect her neck, and around she goes! She glances up at him from the floor, uncertainly, wondering if she did it right.

"Good." A bit slow for if it was for real, but that's nothing bad at this stage, not at all. "It's okay to get your arms up a little bit more if you need to protect your head, but you did good."

She reaches up to clamp her hands at the back of her neck, elbows behind her, and she pushes off with her fit and spins again. That does feel better, and this time when she looks up at him she smiles.

"Very good. In a real fight you might not get the chance, but let's get you used to having everything in your favor first before we start taking safety nets away."

"That sounds like a good plan. Could we... could we practice, the hand-to-hand stuff? I'm a bit nervous of how I'll react in a situation."

"Sure. Where do you want to start?"

"I... honestly, I don't know where to start."

"Maybe boxing? It's focused on evasion rather than blocking a lot of the time, and it'll help your footwork. You won't have to try to hit me, just avoid when I jab at you."

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