InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Yeah. Up your ass!"

zaria (bravely) wrote in mirage_rpg,
@ 2008-07-04 10:30:00

Entry tags:

complete, day 6, katara, xena

Day 6
Who: Xena & Katara
What: Training
When: Morning
Where: Training Room
Rating: PG
Status: Complete

Xena had risen early, as was her habit. She showered and dressed, grabbed some light breakfast from the kitchen and headed for a room she had seen during her exploration of the resort. It was a big room, with several weapons on racks along the walls. There was a thick pad on the floor, and she assumed it was for sparring. If someone fell, they wouldn't get hurt too badly.

She entered the room and shut the door behind her. It was mirrored, as well, so that you could watch yourself as you trained. She looked around her for a moment, noting that the room was void of any other persons. She unstrapped her scabbard from her back and leaned her sword against the wall. She also unhooked her whip and chakram and set them next to the sword on the ground. She wanted to warm up before she started practicing with her sword.

While she and Gabrielle had been in India, they had discovered yoga. Gabrielle had been more into it than Xena had been, but Xena still did it sometimes to appease her friend. She was doing it now because some of the positions were good stretches and she had to admit, however reluctantly, that it was kind of relaxing.

She went through a few positions, watching herself in the mirrors. She'd grown used to mirrors. They hadn't existed in her time. The only thing she could rely on for a good reflection was some highly polished metal, or a still pond. When she felt sufficiently loose, she returned to the wall and pulled her sword from its scabbard. She turned and found a sparring dummy in the middle of the room. It hadn't been there before and it was slightly eerie. But, since no one else was still in the room, and she would know if there was, she chalked it up to a quirk of the planet.

She began her dance, because that's what it was. It was an elegant display of her skill. She slammed her sword into the dummy time and time again, stabbing and sweeping the blade through the air. The dummy never seemed to display any damage, but a thin red line would appear each time she struck it somewhere. By the time she finished, she was slightly out of breath and the dummy was covered in thin red lines.

She smiled, satisfied. But her smile vanished when she heard the door creak open.

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k_waterbender
2008-07-06 05:53 pm UTC (link)

“Oh,” Said Katara, “I didn’t know that.” She had never had to deal with bracing her arms against a blow to a weapon. She had only had to brace her body against a blow from a weapon. It all made sense, though. She didn’t want to hurt herself badly just because she couldn’t hold her staff correctly. The young woman allowed her elbows to bend slightly. That actually felt better, too, more natural than the stiff lock she’d had on them. Katara moved back into her starting stance, then tried again with the defensive stance- this time heeding Xena’s advice and keeping the elbows bent slightly, though the rest of her body was much the same.

When they moved on to actual blows with the staff, the vibrations throughout it as it was hit was a bit jarring. Katara was ready, though, and retained a tight grip on it. She felt each blow getting harder and understood the reason. The vibrations, if started out on a severe level of hitting would probably make the staff too difficult to maintain a grip on it.

Katara was actually good at anticipating attacks. Waterbenders often turned a defensive attack into an offensive one by using the attacker’s strength against them. “Move my hands? Like this?” She asked and turned away from Xena to demonstrate what she thought might be what she meant. She moved into a defensive stance, then turned back toward the other woman while she slid her hands from their positioning to the opposite positioning on the other end of the staff. It was a bit rigid as it was her first attempt, but she thought she might have done it all right. “I know that was a bit stiff, but that was the basic motion, right?”

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bravely
2008-07-07 09:46 am UTC (link)

Xena nodded at the demonstration of the turn. "Yes, like that. It will be stiff until you get used to it. But after practice it will become a fluid motion and second nature." Xena watched her continue to practice the defensive stance, turning and dropping, turning and dropping. She nodded her approval and knew the girl was a quick learner.

"We are going to focus on defense before we go into offense, and we probably will need to spend some time on defense before you're ready, but you are learning quickly. Still, there is no point in carrying a staff if you only know how to use it against someone. If you come up against someone better than you with the staff, you will end up hurt most likely." Xena explained things as she saw them. She had learned a lot of defensive moves herself before she ever knew how to attack.

"I think you have the first defensive stance down, do you think you can try to block some of my offensive moves?" Xena held her own staff ready. "Remember that the area between your hands is the best for blocking attacks, it's more stable and less flexible, but you can still use the open end as well." She moved toward her and began to rain a series of blows down. She aimed for the staff instead of Katara, but different parts of the staff at different angles.

Her blows were not strong or very quick, but they would cause the vibrations through the staff that had been demonstrated before. Xena mostly just wanted to know if the girl would be able to anticipate her attacks.

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