Flying lessons for first years on Quidditch Pitch

Coach Reilly

August 21, 2018 8:58 PM

Flying lessons for first years by Coach Reilly

"Good morning," Coach Reilly greeted the assembled first years. They were a few weeks into term and the new coach was starting to feel settled. She would not yet have said 'at home,' but she had a routine, she knew the names of her students and her colleagues... It was going decently enough.

It was a brisk day. The sun was still out but, as the climate of Sonora mimicked Ireland rather than its desert environs, that was no gurantee of warmth. It was not yet cold but it was verging on the inbetween with a stiff breeze that would only feel more intense once they got into the air. Or would have done if they were going high up. There was a range of equipment hovering a very small way above the pitch that hinted at what they would be doing today. She had kept things deliberately low so that fear of heights would not factor into people's perfromance on today's task.

"Today, we will be running agility drills," by now, even the most novice of the flyers should have been capable of getting airborne, staying airborne, going around the pitch and landing. "The poles are to allow you to work on horiztontal movement." she gestured to a set of large poles that were suspended a couple of feet off the ground, "You will weave side to side to get through them," she explained, demonstrating the movement with a wiggle of her hand. "The hoops are for vertical movement," she gestured to a set of hoops whose height alternated between two foot and five foot up. "You will fly through each hoop," she explained, again indicating the motion with her hand.

"You are all expected to complete each drill three times, to the best of your ability. After that, we will be having a little competition. After that point, if you touch any of the obstacles, an alarm will sound and you will be out," she would put this enchantment in place after everyone had been through the drills - she had no wish to embarrass or fluster them when they were trying to practise. "Once everyone has been through, the obstacles will move closer together, and the remaining flyers will go again. And so on, until we have a winner for each course.

Right, let's do a lap to warm up, and then you can wait on the ground until it's your turn to fly the course." She supervised as they warmed up before demonstrating both courses, then called the first person up to take their turn.

OOC - welcome to flying class. Your post can cover any element of the lesson. E.g. you can post about your character doing their drills or, if you feel that would be uneventful for them, skip ahead using something like 'Once the lap and the drills were done, it was time for the competition, which sounded like the best part...' You can even just post about them doing their lap and talking, or waiting nervously on the ground.

We don't often have competitions in class, so ranking will work like this... Most of you can either keep it vague ('near the top' or 'somewhere midpack'). For those at the extremes, i.e. who feel their character is likely to come top (or if anyone wants to claim dead last) then post on the OOC under the class announcement and we will then let chatzy decide who wins. In the meantime, you are free to tackle other parts of class in your post.

As noted, this is a few weeks into term so your character should have basic control, and it is not their first time on a broom. They are also not going high enough during the obstacles to get much more than bruised by falling. If anything is going wrong for your character, tag Coach Reilly and give us time to respond. Your character is being supervised by a professional who would not allow a situation to get out of hand.

Subthreads:

Let's do this thing. by Evelyn Stones, Pecari

Flying? Easy-peasy. by Malikhi Hill, Pecari

My worst non-Topaz related nightmare. by Allegra Brockert, Crotalus

13 Coach Reilly Flying lessons for first years 1483 Coach Reilly 1 5

Evelyn Stones, Pecari

August 21, 2018 11:46 PM

Let's do this thing. by Evelyn Stones, Pecari

Evelyn was irritated. Tuesdays and Thursdays were good days: after getting Charms and Transfiguration out of the way, first years went to Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, and Flying Lessons. Evelyn should not have been irritated. However, she was utterly ill-suited to a cheery mood when her friends were not getting along and so many of the other first years seemed obnoxious. To be fair, several of them seemed great. But Evelyn had been in too sour of a mood trying to wrangle Ness and Malikhi these past few weeks to take much note of them, and she'd mostly missed opportunities to socialize.

Because she was irritated, she was determined: today would be different.

It was not different.

Indeed, Ness was still Ness. Malikhi was still Malikhi. And Evelyn was still irritated.

So if she lingered a bit after Herbology, insisting Ness and Malikhi go ahead... and if she walked a little slow on her way to the Quidditch Pitch... and if she waited until the last minute before Coach Reilly began her lesson... then was it really so surprising? She felt bad when she realized that there was certainly room for her with either Ness or Malikhi, although whether it had been intentionally left for her or not she didn't try to think about. Instead, she took her place between the closest first year she could run to without causing any sort of weird scene.

The lesson seemed straightforward enough and Evelyn was confident. This was rare, something else she tried not to think about, but she was feeling good about this and didn't want to give that up for some grumpiness that might be lingering. Instead, she set her jaw, lowered her eyebrows, and went for it. It wasn't until she'd already finished her lap that she spoke to anyone else-- the other first year she'd stood by-- and she was flushed with excitement and with anticipation. If her practice laps were anything to speak of, she thought she had a good chance at the competition.

"Isn't this great?" she asked the other student with barely restrained laughter. She felt freer than she had in a while. Her white hair was windswept and ratted and she liked to imagine that her purple lipstick was bright against her pink skin. Except that she wasn't thinking too much about how she looked today, except for one particularly fitting feature. "My socks! I wore Quidditch socks!" and pulling her robes up to make a reveal, she showed off knee-high blue socks with gold snitches.

22 Evelyn Stones, Pecari Let's do this thing. 1422 Evelyn Stones, Pecari 0 5

Malikhi Hill, Pecari

August 23, 2018 2:12 PM

Flying? Easy-peasy. by Malikhi Hill, Pecari

If there was one lesson that Malikhi had been looking forward to all week, it was this one. He'd been flying on a broomstick for as long as he had been able to stay upright, much to his mother's worry - she had a terrible fear of heights and had a tendency to fret about things like her son falling from his broom and landing hard on the ground and breaking several bones. Malikhi always insisted that such a thing would never happen and it hadn't. Sure, he'd fallen off but had never really sustained more than a few bruises.

So, when he walked out to the Quidditch pitch - as far away from Ness as was possible and also without Evelyn who had told him to go on ahead - he was relaxed, confident and had a wide grin on his face.

He took up a spot in a line with the rest of the first years but left a gap beside him for Evelyn as and when she would arrive. She'd said that she'd meet him out there so it seemed reasonable for Malikhi to assume that she would also like a spot saving for her. That's why he was very confused when she was one of the last ones out onto the pitch and didn't not hurry over to join him but instead stood next to a first year that Malikhi hadn't really talked to. He shot a curious look in her direction but she was not looking at him. He frowned deeply which was an expression that felt foreign on his face as he much preferred smiling. Had he done something wrong? If so, what had he done?

He tried to push the thoughts out of his mind as Coach Reilly began to explain what would be happening during the day's lesson. Everything seemed simple enough and Malikhi couldn't help but think that it was actually rather trivial. He'd signed up to be a Chaser on the Quidditch team. The maneuvers that she was asking they do were ones that he was already familiar with. He was much more interested at the competition at the end. He had told Evelyn that he was a good flyer and the competition seemed as good a way as any to prove it. With that determined thought in mind, he mounted his broom and set off to complete the drills assigned.

His confidence, coupled with his comfort on a broom as well as his determination to show not only Coach Reilly that he was a good flyer but also to prove that to Evelyn, allowed him to speed through the drills with ease. On a broom was where he belonged, the wind pulling at his already messy blond hair and whipping up his robes, the feeling of being almost like a bird soaring through the sky which caused a thrill of exhilaration in his stomach. It had become second nature to Malikhi to trust that his broom would take him where he needed to go and in return, he gave it all the care that was required - clipping the twigs of the tail, waxing and polishing the wood and storing it carefully when not in use. His mother had bought him his broomstick and Malikhi thought it right that he should show it the same amount of care and love that she showed to him.

When he had completed the drills, slightly breathless, he made his way to the start of the weaving poles though still made sure to keep out of the way of anybody else still going through the obstacles. He took a moment before the competition was to begin to close his eyes and breathe in deep through his nose and out through his mouth. He was doing this to prove himself. He was doing this to prove to everybody but especially to Ness and Evelyn that he wasn't just a stupid boy with no talent and a big mouth. When he opened his eyes, the grip on his broom tightened with a grit and determination that Malikhi had never felt before. He was ready.

20 Malikhi Hill, Pecari Flying? Easy-peasy. 1423 Malikhi Hill, Pecari 0 5

Allegra Brockert, Crotalus

September 28, 2018 6:29 PM

My worst non-Topaz related nightmare. by Allegra Brockert, Crotalus

Flying lessons was easily the class Allegra liked the least. Like most of her family, aside from Uncle Eustace, she was not athletic. Okay, she did have relative besides him that were passably decent at things like flying but she was not that good.

And the thing was, there were those in the first year class who seemed to be totally into it.Maybe not to the level of Angelique's class but it still made the young first year a tad anxious. Okay, a lot anxious. Even though Allegra was not nearly as social as her cousin, she still didn't want to be the odd one out, with no friends. Not accepted by others. Or worse, openly mocked and laughed at.

She should have at least been comforted by the fact that Topaz thought sports were a waste of time and that they weren't worth being good at. Except that her cousin delighted in being better than her no matter what the subject.

Coach O'Reilly announced the lesson and Allegra's stomach dropped. An athletic competition was definitely not her idea of a good time. What if she-and there was a pretty good chance of this-came in last? People who were the worst at sports were often bullied,usually by people like Uncle Eustace, though as she was a girl, she wasn't worried that he'd bully her because he thought girls had no place in sports though of course he thought that made them inferior anyway.

Maybe she'd get lucky in that way and they'd be like her uncle in so far as not bullying her for being bad at sports because she was a proper pureblood girl who wasn't supposed to be good at sports. Which Allegra knew was sexist, but would work in her favor if that was the case. Unfortunately, she doubted it would be because there were only a couple of purebloods from the same kind of family as hers and one of them was Russian which was another whole culture just like the Muggle one some of her other classmates had been exposed to was, and while Allegra didn't know about Russian wizards, she knew full well from Angelique that Muggles-even the girls-were extremely into sports. Plus, the Crotalus had already been in class with them and knew that some of them were exactly that as well as being significantly better than her at flying.

Even Topaz who thought sports were for those with inferior minds was competitive enough to, while not wanting to win and look like she was one of those or even look improper, did not like to lose . Besides, Allegra wouldn't put anything past her cousin including knocking someone off just so she wouldn't come in last.

Maybe the Crotalus would get lucky and Topaz would do just that before she went out, but more likely, she'd just try it on Allegra, despite the fact that doing so was completely unnecessary.

She went through the drills-slower than most-and stood back, her stomach doing flip-flops. The first year wanted to cry, though of course she didn't as that would elicit torment from Topaz if nobody else. As it was Allegra felt she might vomit.

11 Allegra Brockert, Crotalus My worst non-Topaz related nightmare. 1426 Allegra Brockert, Crotalus 0 5