Mab
April 18, 2021 7:21 PM
I'll fight you by Mab
Mab walked into the MARS Sports room. As it did every time she'd walked into it when it wasn't already occupied, it looked like the dojo in Boston where she was taking Tae Kwon Do. She bowed respectfully to the portrait of the grandmaster, before taking her position on the mats. Her uniform was still in her room in Boston, but she'd chosen a mostly white outfit to wear today, and had tied a yellow sash around her waist.She had not advanced to a new belt last summer - she had missed quite a few lessons between moving, her moms' wedding, and the rest of the craziness going on during the break, and so hadn't gotten enough hours or improvement in to take the advancement grade - and she was determined that she was not going to lose what progress she had made during the months away.
She went through her practice drills. Twin forearm block. Front kick. Double punch. Kick then block. Kick and turn. Forearm guarding block. She repeated each move a dozen times before moving on to the next, concentrating on getting her form right. Her form had sucked when she'd gotten angry at Bel at the end of the concert, and she did not blame her instructors at all for not thinking she was ready to advance. Next summer though, she would be. She would make sure of it by practicing properly while she was away. She would train herself until her form couldn't be sloppy because she wouldn't need to even think about it to do it right.
She was working on a turning kick that lands into guarding block when the door to the sports room opened. She finished the kick facing the new comer, and held the block.
"You probably don't know Tae Kwon Do, do you?" she asked, not really expecting they would, but stranger coincidences had happened in her life, and she really would have liked to have a partner to practice with.
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Mab
I'll fight you
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Leonor De Matteo
April 20, 2021 7:56 AM
You're not the one I want to fight. by Leonor De Matteo
Leonor spent a lot of time in the MARS Sports room these days, both to make sure that literally no one could say she didn't deserve a place on the Quidditch team and to give herself an outlet that was entirely not ladylike. She needed an outlet and if she could punch some stuff and call it self-care, then she was pleased as punch about it. Today, the room was occupied. Torn between curiosity and an urge to kick the person out, Leonor let herself in and was surprised to find Mab there. Her roommate looked like she was in the middle of some self-care of her own."No," Leonor answered automatically. "Girls don't get to learn that stuff where I grew up," she said sourly, although she was pretty sure Felipe didn't know any sort of martial arts either. In his case, it was a matter of personality more than right and that almost made Leonor more angry about it. If she'd learned martial arts, then maybe . . . well, that wasn't worth thinking about. "Teach me?" she said, only just remembering to make it a request.
She was dressed for a workout, although not anything like what Mab was wearing. She wasn't sure if that was a Tae Kwon Do thing or if Mab was just weird. Well, if it was the first one, then it was both because she knew already that Mab was weird. She was fond of her roommate, even if they didn't talk much. Neither of them were exactly given to friendly conversation, although Leonor thought Mab was hilarious on the whole and she did enjoy the girl's company. There had even been a time when she'd been smiley and happy about such company. That was a lifetime ago.
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Leonor De Matteo
You're not the one I want to fight.
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Mab
April 21, 2021 7:09 PM
I have no beef with you either. by Mab
The door to the MARS room opened to reveal Leonor, Mab's roommate.At the very beginning of their first year, Leonor had kind of terrified her. Firstly, she'd gone along with Theo in asking Professor Carter terrible questions that were sure to make their Head of House hate them, and otherwise seemed to encourage Theo to be more Theo. Secondly, they were roommates, and Mab hadn't yet had any idea how horrifically that was going to go. At a distance of three years later, Mab was pretty sure Theo was actually mostly harmless, but he was still on her Avoid At All Costs list because he made scenes and Mab didn't like being near the attention they grabbed. Rooming with Leonor had surprisingly not been a completely awful experience, and that lack of negative experiences while forced to live together had tentatively placed Leonor onto the Can Be Approached With Caution list.
Consequently, Mab lowered her blocking stance, though she remained on guard.
The 'No' in response to her question did not surprise her. But the reasoning behind it did. "That's stupid," she opined bluntly. She couldn't imagine not being allowed to fight. It was how she'd bonded with Bel at all, and even Mom absolutely understood the necessity of learning self-defense, even though she was more on the 'necessary evil' side of the spectrum as opposed to Bel's downright gleeful enthusiasm for fighting and training in every remotely combat related discipline. Bel had a freaking battleaxe on her wall, and it wasn't just for decoration.
(Bel had never said what her favorite TV show of all time was, but Mab was willing to put money on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)
On the other hand, she kind of thought Bel might have started out in a boat not too far off of Leonor's. From the broken hints dropped by various Pierces, Mab was kind of under the impression that Bel had gotten disowned from her first family because she was getting into a lot of fights at school and otherwise being some kind of violent creature of rage that made the current Bel seem diplomatic and well-adjusted, and they hadn't thought she was ladylike and proper enough to continue to exist. (Which, if that was what you needed to be to qualify to exist, Mab could totally see how Bel had washed out of her former family, even when judging by the matured version of Bel that Mab knew.)
At the request to teach Leonor, Mab shrugged. "Tae Kwon Do has a lot of discipline and philosophy going on that I'm not qualified to teach, but I can show you some self-defense moves that will help if you ever get attacked. Or I can teach you boxing, wrestling, or fencing, if you just want to spar. My foster m- er," Mab's expression drew together in confusion. Bel wasn't her foster mother any more. Mom and Bel were married. The adoption was just waiting for a judge to sign off on it. But what was she supposed to call her? 'Mom' and 'mother' were already taken. 'Bel' was the form of address she used, but what was her title in their relationship? Wide open vagueness it was, for now. "One of my parents has been teaching me how to fight in a lot of different ways. She's an auror."
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Mab
I have no beef with you either.
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Leonor De Matteo
May 06, 2021 8:56 AM
It's a beef buffet every where else. by Leonor De Matteo
Leonor wasn't in the mood to learn anything more about discipline or philosophy anyway, so she nodded. She might have screamed if her roommate had pulled out a book about centering yourself or some such nonsense, so she was glad that wasn't what they'd be doing next. Her skin prickled some at the idea of learning self-defense. Her first instinct was to jump at the chance and to make sure that the events of the previous year never happened again. To make sure that if they did, she'd be able to deal with it herself and she wouldn't be in this whole stupid mess. At the same time, acknowledging the want for self-defense almost felt like acknowledging the need for it and remembering wasn't high on Leonor's list of priorities. She couldn't quite imagine herself ever needing to box or any other such thing, but it might be good to get some of the frustration out of her limbs. It had been building there for a long time. Although that did sound like she was about to get punched in the face and that didn't sound fun exactly. It wasn't like she had any rage built up towards Mab to want to punch her in the face.The best thing about all of these options though was that none required magic. None required hurting people and making them go away with magic. That meant that they'd all be completely disappointing to her parents, which made the most disappointing option the most delicious one.
"Wrestling?" she decided, making it a question since she wasn't entirely sure what that entailed. "Is that any good to learn if you're smaller than most people?" she added.
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Leonor De Matteo
It's a beef buffet every where else.
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Mab
May 06, 2021 7:11 PM
I'm not sure I want to wrestle with that metaphor. by Mab
OOC: Full disclosure: I know nothing about wrestling. BIC:
"Yes," Mab confirmed emphatically that small people could wrestle effectively. "At least, the way Bel teaches it, it's good. She's only five nothing," Mab held a hand up to about the level of her eyebrows, "but she's the scariest fiercest woman I have ever met in my life, and she's like sixty years old." Fifty-one, according to Mom, but Mab was still angry at her for not telling them it was her birthday the day she and Alexander returned to Sonora, so Bel had gained an extra nine years in the retelling. "I don't know if all the moves are totally legal in a formalized wrestling setting, but Bel doesn't learn or teach any fighting techniques to win tournaments."
"First thing about wrestling: no loose clothing or items attached to you. Anything like that is a grip that can be used against you." The outfit she'd chosen for Tae Kwon Do practice was entirely inappropriate for wrestling in. She removed the yellow sash and put it aside. She tucked in her shirt to limit the amount of grabbing edge dangled around her waist.
Then she spread her feet apart into a wide, staggered stance. "It's important to be balanced. The lower your center of mass is, the less able you will be able to be easily knocked over. The goal in wrestling is to pin your opponent to the mat before you get pinned yourself, so you don't want to be knocked down. Keep your feet apart, your dominant one a little bit in front with more of your weight, bend your knees, lean forward, hands out in front, elbows tucked in." She demonstrated the guarded stance that wrestling started in. "Oh, we should have a mat." With a thought, the MARS room supplied one under their feet.
"Okay, so when we come together, try to stay on the balls of your feet, so you can quick dart away from a grapple attempt. If you think I might force you down, you can drop ahead of time, to steady yourself on a knee or your hands. Extra points on the ground mean extra stability, and if you're stable, you're in a good position to counterattack." She dropped to one knee and a braced her weight on one hand as well. "See this hand is still available for grabbing, and pulling down your opponent when they're off balance and confused from you not being where they thought you'd be. Use your shoulder, too, because that has the strength of your whole body behind it, not just your arm."
She got back up onto her feet and resumed the original crouched stance. "For an offensive move, what you can do is a drop step to get in under their guard. From there, grab their legs," she mimed wrapping one arm around each leg of an imaginary person, "that's the double-leg takedown. Push your head at their hip, knock 'em off balance. Even if they're stronger than you, keep pushing your head on their hip, they will eventually lose their balance and fall. Single leg take down is harder, and needs some more strength, but if you can get them up on only one foot, they can be toppled. Pinning is the hardest part when you're smaller than your opponent, because you need to use your weight to hold them down, but it can be done. You just probably don't want to go wrestling bears or six feet tall body-builders or something. To pin you need . . . a dummy to show you." Mab looked behind her and found MARS had conveniently propped a dummy up against one of the wall at her mental request for one to be over there. "Great, here's one."
She demonstrated the double leg hold, the single leg hold, and the pin.
Then she stepped away from the dummy and gestured invitingly at it. "You should probably practice those a few times before we try anything together. Also, here we go," she turned and found the headgear and mouth guards she'd imagined into existence. "This is the protective equipment, we should probably be using so we don't give ourselves concussions." She showed her roommate how to put them on.
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Mab
I'm not sure I want to wrestle with that metaphor.
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