"Defense against the dark arts." Richard shrugged. "Dark Magic and how to counter it. When I was a younger it was a... a time of war, wizard against wizard. None of the formal rules; battles of magic and mayhem, one side against the other. Not something I'm all that proud of. Probably a story for one evening over dinner or something. Maybe a lesson or two to be learned, so probably a story worth telling. But, since it is a sad story, definitely not for today. Today is for flying."
He waved a dismissive hand. "It would bore us both to fiddle about with basics at your stage of expertise. I've seen you fly. Here's a compromise for you. I'll show you the three elements that make up the stunt, the stunt itself, and then you tell me where you are at as far as understanding how to do it. Follow along beside me; I'll do this first part slow."
"In this case, since we are talking about throwing the stunt in level flight, lift will always be away from the ground. Our direction of travel will be," he pointed to the open meadow that stretched away from the house, "that way in a straight line, in this case we'll do a steady five miles an hour. The first, and easiest element is a slow roll, left or right, you should be able to do either direction." He suited action smto words. "The only fussy bit is smoothly transitioning lift around your broom so you aren't bobbling up and down in the air." He stopped the roll when he came around upright again.
"Next element is a flat spin, again, either to the left or right. Steady lift is easier, keeping your speed steady in your direction of travel is what you are watching carefully." Still flying along at five miles an hour, he did four slow rotations to the left, then three to the right.
"Last is sometimes called a Tumbling Pigeon. Relatively easy on the vertical. Doing it dead level in horizontal flight takes some practice. Again, you should be able to do it either direction." Still keeping his altitude and speed steady, Richard tumbled his broom slowly around first several turns forward, then backward.
"Where it get to be fun is when you put them all together. "Without saying anything else, he went into the tumbling, spinning, rolling maneuver the British broom jockeys had come to refer to as a 'headache'. His height above ground and speed did not vary as he did several iterations with various different direction rolls, pitches, and spins.
Richard recovered into straight and level flight. "Stay stationary here, and I'll come back around past you. Because when you've mastered all three elements and doing it slow, then you do the stunt at full speed." He pulled away from his student a short distance, then did a tight pylon turn back, accelerating quickly to about 75. When he was about 25 feet from passing Arcturus, he threw the stunt; pitch, roll, and spin so fast he and his broom almost seemed to blur while his height and speed remained constant. Recovering into normal flight he slowed and turned around again, coming to a stop near the young man.
"There you have it, young sir. A headache done at seventy. Any of the individual parts you would care to have me break down further?"