Coach Pierce
January 11, 2013 11:28 PM
Flying Lessons by Coach Pierce
Coach Amelia Pierce had given basically the same first lesson for the nine years she had been employed as Sonora's Quidditch Coach. There had been a few students who had never fully (or partially) mastered broom riding but, for the most part, the class was considered one of the easier ones taught at the school. Second years who had gotten less than an O were permitted to take it again to improve their performance, but most didn't need to. In a handful of cases, some students who had earned Os took the course again anyway, just for the extra flying time. She had no age limit for how long a student could retake their flying lessons, but she had yet to have anyone older than third year join the first years. It was, after all, a beginner class.She saw little need to change the curriculum; flying basics were fairly, well, basic and there was not a lot of variation possible. She also saw no reason to subject students who already knew how to fly to the tedium of those basics. So today's class started very much the same as every first flying lesson had for the last nine years.
"Hello, and welcome to flying lessons. I am Coach Pierce. Flying lessons are required for all first year students, so everyone will be participating. If you already know how to fly, you do not have go through the basics with the beginners, but you do need to arrive promptly and spend the period on a broom. Every class will begin with a roll call, and then the experienced players may break off for Pitch laps or various broom games. We have Quidditch balls and other equipment for your use." Muggleborn students would recognize several varieties of other sports balls. She had a few Quods in her shed that were available upon request outside of classtime, but the explosive nature of Quodpot was not conducive for the lessons going on with the less experienced fliers. "As long as you are not disruptive to the beginner class, you may play whatever you like in the air."
"So, I will take the roll now, then we can split into those two groups. "Ambrose, Rajid," she began. None of the names were particularly notable to her, though she recognized several surnames from possible older relatives. 'Boxton-Fox-Reynolds,' she expected, was not a particularly common one and must surely be Henny's younger brother. There was a Hernandez that she tried not to pause over, though she felt sure someone would have told her if a California Pierce was starting this term, so she was probably not Jose's sister. Perhaps a cousin on his paternal side? Squib families did sometimes produce magical heirs.
"We have brooms, here," she indicated the collection of brooms she had arranged before class began. "If you already know how to use one, go ahead and take one if you don't have your own. If I have to interrupt my lesson for any reason, the responsible parties will serve detention and spend the rest of the month down here hovering. So nothing dangerous or disruptive. Otherwise, go have fun. Everyone else, line up."
Once the experience fliers had launched and moved away, she turned her attention to the remaining group. "As I said, this is a required course. You need to complete it to graduate. With any luck, you will leave it knowing how to use a broom to transport yourself. With better luck and some interest on your part, you may be able to get a spot on your House Quidditch Team. Particularly this year, I encourage anyone interested in playing Quidditch to sign up when you get back to your common rooms. Due to the challenges taking place this year, there are no formal games, so your captains will be training you in how to play for a full year before you have to go up in a real match." As she spoke, she handed out brooms, one to each student.
"We begin simply. Place the broom on the ground beside you. If you are right-handed, put it to your right. If you are left-handed, put it to your left. Hold your hand over the broom and command it, Up! Be firm and confident or it won't work. If any of you have dogs or elves, use the same tone of voice as you would use with them."
She held her hand out over her own broom and demonstrated, "Up!" The broom leapt easily into her hand. "It may take a few tries so do not get discouraged. Keep trying. Once you have your broom in the air, please try a low hover. Either put one leg over to straddle the broom, or sit side-saddle. Please let me know if you plan to side saddle your broom. I'll have to adjust the cushion charm."
"Please begin."
OOC: Welcome to Sonora and to Flying lessons. You earn house points for your character by attending classes such as this one. The better your posts are (in both quality and quantity), the more points you will earn. Please be wary of writing for other characters (god-modding) without permission. For example, if you toss another player a ball, it is up to them to decide if they caught it or not, though you can qualify that it was a good throw or entirely off-mark so they know how difficult it should be. That said, you do have my permission to have Amelia change your charm to side-saddle if you raise your hand and ask her for it. Now go forth and write long detailed creative posts and have fun with it!
Subthreads: A pre-emptive strike by Francesca Wolseithcrafte with Malcolm Carey, Pecari, Mal Carey, Mal Carey, Pecari
Quaffle Toss Anyone? by Adam Spencer with Percival Everett Waterford II, Adam, William Casey
Flying around by Keme RunningBear, Aladren with Charlie B-F-R, Jeweliah Dyste, Keme, Omara Hernandez, Omara Hernandez, Pecari
Side-Saddle is uncomfortable. by Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus with Gemma Bennett, Teppenpaw, Ginny
Riding solo by Rajid Ambrose
I'm not really off to a stellar start. by Julian Umland, Teppenpaw with Jude Butler
I have to be confident? by Analea Thornton
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Coach Pierce
Flying Lessons
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Coach Pierce
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Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus
January 20, 2013 4:39 PM
Side-Saddle is uncomfortable. by Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus
Thus far, Ginny had absolutely no complaints about Sonora. She didn’t know her roommates, but figured as time went on, she would, and Percival seemed like a nice enough boy. She knew her interactions at the feast probably wasn’t the most proper. After spending so much time at the community with all the other children, Ginny had sort of forgotten how to be more refined. Her mother would have a field day with her and the moment she returned home, she knew there was a possibility where she might have to endure etiquette classes again. But, since it was only with Percival and she didn’t think she acted too terribly, she felt she was safe. Still, she would have to be more careful with how she carried herself going forward.Her first chance at this was with flying lessons. Her mother had tried to school her on paying attention to the names of her classmates, but it was hard to always remember which name was significant and which name wasn’t. She knew the name ‘Carey’ and she was pretty sure she had heard ‘Collins’ before as well. Wolseithcrafte rang a bell, but she couldn’t exactly remember why. If her mother tested her when she returned home for the holidays, Ginny would probably fail and then have to spend her entire vacation relearning all the important names. What a bore.
Standing around with the other first years, Ginny listened quietly as the Deputy Headmistress began the lesson. Ginny, being a girl, never rode a broom before. Never really cared to either. She was busy dancing, taking piano lessons, and vocal lessons. Her mother said that boys rode brooms and got dirty. Girls were meant to be pretty little flowers that you took extra care of. Not that Ginny didn’t go running around outside when her mother wasn’t paying attention, but that wasn’t something she was to talk about.
Ginny had heard about the Deputy Headmistress. She was disowned from her family or something like that. And she was unmarried and a spinster. Or so her mother says. There were other things said as well, but Ginny didn’t quite understand and therefore, allowed the information to pass through without giving it any thought. She called out ‘here’ when her name was called and then collected one of the school brooms when they were advised to.
She gave this broom a good long look as she thought about how to go about doing this. She was in a dress, so she would have to sit side-saddled. Ginny raised her hand and requested for the charms change and only began the lesson once the Coach and corrected it. Placing her hand above the broom, Ginny called ‘up’ in a delighted voice. The broom jumped, but not far up enough for her to grab it. Ginny sighed and tried again, still delighted because this was her first lesson and she was doing something her mother disproved of. Her second time managed a wobbling broom to hover to her hand. Taking it, Ginny sat side-saddled on it and then tried to attempt to hover.
This was very difficult to do as she felt off balance due to how she was sitting and nearly fell off because of it. Frowning, Ginny turned to someone beside her. “How do you do this? I’m never going to make it down the pitch without falling off.”
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Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus
Side-Saddle is uncomfortable.
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Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus
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Gemma Bennett, Teppenpaw
January 20, 2013 5:28 PM
Yes, it is. by Gemma Bennett, Teppenpaw
As she waited, feeling even smaller than usual against the vastness of the Quidditch Pitch, for flying lessons to begin, Gemma found she couldn’t stand still. Every time she caught herself rising on her toes, holding her arms a little away from her sides as though she were a bird about to take wing, and lowered herself back to the ground, she started looking around too much at the other students, and then was back up again in no time. Standing still just wasn’t working, but letting herself fidget all she wanted wasn’t an option, either. Finally, she decided on the compromise option of playing with the end of the single loose braid she had finally coaxed her curly chestnut hair into this morning, decreasing the chances of it holding together through the whole class even further.She didn’t know what to think about these classes. On one hand, she was excited about them just because she was excited about everything at Sonora. On the other, she knew she wasn’t supposed to enjoy this because she was a lady and it was a boy thing, so she was really in a class that she was going to have to take all year and not enjoy, so that wasn’t good, either. On someone else’s hand, it was a good chance for getting to know other people in her year, she thought, where things couldn’t explode, but on their other hand, they could all fall off from a long way up….
Plus, there was Professor Coach Deputy Headmistress Pierce, who she wasn’t supposed to like at all personally. That was a problem, or would be if they ever had to interact one-on-one. A lot of the finer points of etiquette could elude her when she was trying to remember them in real life instead of acting them out with her dolls, so Gemma had latched onto the rule about being polite in general, which was only easy when everyone around her was someone she was by default allowed to talk to. School wasn’t like that. Right now, though, she wasn’t thinking much about that, just hoping for the best.
No disasters happened during the roll call or the little speech the coach gave them, though, and Gemma was relieved to hear that the total and near-total beginners like her were not going to have to get their shaky first lessons on getting off the ground while the experienced boys were whizzing around their heads at top speed, so she settled on being optimistic about this in general, at least for now. When she called her broom and it came to her without any complaints, she decided that had been a good idea.
Getting on her broom, though, proved to be a little more interesting. The first time she tried to get on it – sidesaddle, of course – she rocked back and forward for an almost terrifying moment before both her feet hit the ground again with a thump. She looked at the broom with an almost accusatory look in her blue eyes. She had good balance, she knew, from all the dance lessons and ballet lessons and posture lessons where she had to walk across a room with increasingly unsteady and fragile objects on her head, but her performance just then didn’t reflect that.
On the second try, she did get on, but still didn’t feel steady. Another girl distracted her from that by having the same problem, though. “I really don’t know,” Gemma admitted. “My sister did it in her first year, though, so I’m sure we’ll…figure it out somehow.” She had a feeling this was a weak assurance, but it was all she could come up with, and besides, it was almost surely true. "I'm Gemma," she added, realizing they didn't know each other's names, though Gemma thought this girl had answered the roll call about the same time she had. "Gemma Bennett. It's a pleasure to meet you...even under the circumstances."
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Gemma Bennett, Teppenpaw
Yes, it is.
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Gemma Bennett, Teppenpaw
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Ginny
January 24, 2013 7:50 PM
Silly ladies being difficult. by Ginny
Ginny looked up from her broom handle to find another girl who seemed to be having the same side-saddle issue as her. Really, people had to have the best balance to be able to sit on a small stick for an entire class period all year long and not fall off while moving. She did ballet, so she knew her balance was just fine, she just needed to find her equilibrium of her butt to broom while moving. It must be possible to do. This was how the ladies were supposed to ride and she could have sworn that this was what it was like centuries ago with their poufy robes. She could totally do this.“Hi Gemma! I’m Ginn-er-Virginia Bellrose.” Ginny corrected herself. She wasn’t supposed to be improper. She told herself that she was going to present herself accordingly beginning with the lesson and she was already goofing up. She tsked herself mentally before giving Gemma a smile, “But you may call me Ginny, if you wish.” She knew that after spending the last couple of years outside of normal etiquette lessons and being around those who her parents deemed ‘worthy’ of their time had definitely cost her any social skills. She could only hope that as the year went on, she remembered her manners and all of her lessons that she had to go through for so many years.
“I do not think sitting like this makes flying any more lady like.” Ginny commented lightly as she tried to steady herself again. “I’m going to end up on the ground completely exposed. How embarrassing would that be?” Ginny question, although she looked rather amused at the idea. Although Ginny wore dresses, did her hair all nice and neat, and was an all around girly-girl, she was not unknown to bumps and bruises. Ginny was an only child and often had to find ways to entertain herself. Usually, that meant exploring outside and getting into a mess of things. So, the idea of falling didn’t bother her. The idea of everyone laughing at her because she had fallen did.
Having nearly fallen again, Ginny stopped trying to move for the moment. “Maybe I should stick to learning one thing at a time.” She mused. “First, learn to balance yourself on the broom. Once that is mastered, then you learn to move the broom.” Ginny said, instructing herself as though she were a small child. “Once we have that, we’ll be complete pros at riding brooms, even if it’s by side-saddle.” Ginny stated to Gemma. Ginny was still sure she might have preferred the other way of riding, but didn’t think that was the most lady-like thing to say to another girl, so she kept it to herself.
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Ginny
Silly ladies being difficult.
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Ginny
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Gemma
January 24, 2013 10:53 PM
We do make things harder for each other sometimes by Gemma
Gemma considered the other girl’s introduction. “Do you like to be called Ginny?” she asked, suspecting the answer was yes after Miss Bellrose had started to introduce herself that way, but feeling vaguely sure she should be sure before she took the permission she had been offered. “I think it suits you – but I’m just me.” Gemma was used to her opinions not seeming very relevant at home and didn’t expect anything to change here.She did think Ginny went better with Bellrose than Virginia did, though. Virginia Bellrose was a name like Gemma’s own, the first name and the last name didn’t quite balance in her ears. She, though, didn’t really have a nickname she could use, at least not which would make her name balance any better. She was glad for Ginny, if she did like to be called Ginny, because her name could be reworked in a way that worked a little better than her full first and last name really did when she used them both. Virginia was a pretty name, she thought, but the V was too wide to go with her last name.
“That would be awful,” she agreed when Ginny mentioned the possibility of their clothes not doing what clothes were supposed to do if they fell. “Maybe it’s supposed to be more ladylike because you can’t move very fast even if you do figure out how to get on and not fall?”
She tried getting on herself again, holding on with both hands so her torso was twisted uncomfortably around but she wasn’t at immediate risk of falling. At least not as long as her arms and back could hold onto this position. She didn’t think that was going to be a good long-term strategy, especially not when she had to fly all the way around the Pitch later on in the class. The Pitch was…big. She wasn’t big, and as she had just mentioned to Ginny, they couldn’t move fast riding these things sidewise while wearing skirts. She didn’t even really think she would be able to go very fast without being sick if she rode the broom the other way, but if they could make it stay even and not tilt so they slid off, the boys definitely did have an advantage here.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Gemma agreed when Ginny proposed trying to balance, then trying to fly. Gemma had no objections to postponing the part where they tried moving and came off again for a little longer, since chatting was much more pleasant than falling or feeling like she was about to fall at any moment. She laughed at the idea of becoming a broom-riding pro. “Oh, that would be nice,” she said. “At least one of our classes would be easy for the rest of the year.” She was excited about learning magic, but a little nervous about that, too. That seemed to be the theme of her first year so far, she thought, but she thought it was probably the same for lots of the others, too, so she didn't feel bad about it.
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Gemma
We do make things harder for each other sometimes
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Gemma
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Ginny
January 27, 2013 9:32 PM
We should learn not to do that. by Ginny
“Yes, I do.” Ginny commented with a smile. “And thank you. I’m only ever called Virginia around relatives or if my parents are trying to get my attention.” Ginny stated only realizing after that she probably shouldn’t make it sound as though she didn’t listen when her parents were talking. “Virginia is a pretty name, but it seems more like an older person’s name and not, you know, mine. I do like Gemma though. It seems different. Is your sister’s name equally fun?” Since Ginny didn’t have siblings, she couldn’t really offer much beyond that. The other children at the community though, some of them had fun names. She was told that most parents named their children names that represent elements. There was Fintan and Ardea, both fire names, or Talise and Dover, water names, or Keanu and Ora, both air names. Ginny loved it. But since she could not talk about the Community, she could not offer these very different and fun names to Gemma.Ginny took some consideration into what Gemma said. From her lessons, Ginny understood that ladies were never to be on a broom unless absolutely necessary, which Ginny didn’t see when it was ever necessary. Adults apparated or used the floo and Ginny had no reason to travel on a broom by herself. And, if a lady had to sit side-saddled this way to travel, what was the point? It would take forever just to get to where they were going this way. “It’s ladylike to move slowly on a broom?” Ginny asked, making sure she understood what Gemma was saying. “I can’t imagine males finding it all that impressive. Wouldn’t that be an irritation to them? Especially if they actually have to get somewhere?” She wasn’t really asking these questions, just thinking out loud. Her parents hated it when she questioned things.
Ginny giggled, she did that when she was over excited but also when she was nervous. She liked Gemma. She didn’t seem judgmental about the little things that Ginny accidentally let slip nor did she seem too arrogant to have fun with a lesson that was otherwise not.
Having thought things out had made Ginny pay less attention to what she was doing and nearly slipped off the broom. “Whoops.” She said, blushing a bit at her misstep as she pulled herself back up again. She felt like she was trying to push herself onto a floaty in a pool. She lowered herself down to the ground (as gracefully as she could figure it out to be) and then slipped off of it to stand up. “Round two.” She commented, taking a deep breath. She turned around so that the broom was behind her and then eased herself back onto it. “You know, if the handle was just a little bit wider, this would be so much easier to ride side-saddle.”
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Ginny
We should learn not to do that.
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Ginny
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