Summary:A friendly martial arts instruction to Eve by Junko Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Eve is still Goth.
Even dressed in gym clothes, she's still goth. Sports bra and tank top and sweat pants are good enough for her, right? Right. She's rich enough to get some private time at the gym when Junko invited her after she said she didn't know shit about fighting. And she doesn't. Oh, sure, she can fight, and she relies on her 'natural gifts' so to speak, but even in this get up, she's still goth. It's all the eyes and skull motifs on her clothes. She's still got entirely too many piercings that make her vulnerable, but she sure as hell isn't taking those out for a friendly spar, not that she seems concerned about it in the first place.
Her hair? Still done up in bunches. "Okay. Ready," she tells Junko.
A moment later, she's on her back with the wind knocked out of her.
"Okay. Maybe not ready," she says.
Junko on the other hand has opted for a much more traditional training cloth: an aikido gi, the long, blue hakama almost looking like a skirt. She sighs as Eve claims she's ready, showing her how not she was. But she also offers her a hand to help her up. "Then always remember lesson one: stand firm. Whatever you do, stand firm. You saw how a light shove got you down."
"It's not just a lesson about martial arts, it's everywhere. Know where you stand and what spot you won't moveaway from."
"Sure," says Eve, "I know. But isn't that a bit easier said than done?" She brushes herself off and is ready to go again. This time, she'll be harder to move.
…a little.
"It's a question of Balance." Junko says before she steps closer, using a short shove against Eve's shoulder to show her before she instructs. "Plant your feet to the ground flat, keep them shoulder width apart and one in front of the other. That way your center is over the quare from your heel to the other foot's toes."
"Oh, no. Not talking about balance," says Eve with a wry tone. She flails a bit before getting herself back into place and then smiles.
"Try that again," she says, planting herself. This time, she won't even budge a muscle.
But then, she's cheating.
Junko eyes Eve, checkint the feet and using one of hers to push one a little further forward. Only then she tests the stance again, gently shoving the shoulder. But if she didn't budge, she'd grin, pulling with a sudden rip at the shoulder.
Eve doesn't budge then either. She is, perhaps, proving a point, but then the next time wshe'll relent and allow herself to be moved! The third go around, that is.
This time.
As an instructor, Junko smiles, slowly stepping around Eve, circling her before she suddenly uses one leg to swipe at the legs of Eve, planning to kick them forward. She's ready to catch Eve should she fall though.
This works! Eve had, after all, powered herself down from what she was doing before. Down on the ground she goes with a solid 'whoof!' "OW, ow, ow," she groans.
Junko chuckles as she catches Eve, helping her up right again. "Where's that stance you had just a moment ago?" she asks as she sorts her Hakama with a shake of the fablric, stepping in front of her again. "What was lesson one?"
"I was showing off," says Eve. "I Won't learning anything that way. She takes a moment to get her self back to her feet and then sorts herself as well. "Okay. Let's try this again. How do I avoid getting swept like the karate kid?"
"Oh, like I just showed you? Awareness and a good stance. The basics of fighting is knowing how to stand… but it is an entirely different matter to know when to move. A good stance is solid when it should be, and yet flexible enough to avoid having that used against you." Junko chuckles as she takes stance herself. "Try yourself."
Eve does indeed step in to do just that. To trow her as she's been thrown. She's been in a few scraps before, after all, and thus has some idea of the mechanics of motion.
It's just not likely to work here.
On contact of the legs, Junko's stance seems to sway for a moment, but then the contact is gone, the japanese rescuing her standing by what constitutes a short jump, followed by a fast grab to Eve's shoulder. Not exactly to steady herself but to keep her in the low position. "Remember that others might read your intentions."
"My intentions are 'not get owned'. Or in this case, to not make too big a fool out of myself," she adds with a wry smile. Still, she's impressed enough for the time being to lean back onto her heels to observe her,.
Junko chuckles. "I meant as in what is going to be your next move. If you learn how people move, you learn how to read their moves and intentions." She steps back some, slowly going into a basic stance again. "I'm going to show it a little. Try to see what I am going to do as I move."
"All right!" Eve settles in to observe. Closely, eyes locked on every muscle of Junko's. She doesn't even blink.
Then again, she hasn't for some time.
The loose clothing on Junko makes it hard to actually see the muscles as she starts to move slowly, a typical routine of shadow boxing, a Kata that is missing the opponent. Slow strikes that speed up over time, occasional kicks, the feet moving cautiously but quick, hidden under the hakama. And she accentuates her strikes.
Eve observes. That's all she /does/.
"HUh," she says after a long moment. "Okay. That seems like a whole lotta muscle memory." She puts a finger to her lips, thoughtfully playing with the ring through it.
"It is." Junko confirms, continuing her dance with the invisible partner, the non existant one. Her movements speed up a little more, strikes flowing fluently one into another. It's a flurry of blows, but not an inhumanly fast one. Just well trained. But as the actual starts of movements are barely visible in how the cloth reacts to th emuscles below, her face shows an almost tranquil stance, not changing, showing kind of off how many years of training are behind those movements.
"Awk," says Eve, looking impressed still.
"I have no idea how you do that. I know its all a ton of practice but I just… don't think I hvae that in me. The precision, the control. I mean. My mind is… elsewhere." She makes a face.
Junko slows and finally bows to the nonexistant enemy before stepping over to Eve and offering her a hand. "Comeon, that's why you're here. To learn. Even if you have trouble to concentrate, you can learn at least the basics. You don't need to learn how to strike to learn what to look for to evade. How clothing moves as muscles shift underneath. How people tell what they are going to do. It can give you the edge to strike… or the chance to block them."
She takes her hand, of course, accepting whatever help is on offer. She has little definition, Eve, no obvious musculature, really, and a slender frame. She's probably not done a whgole lot of exercise.
"I could suggest you to a couple classes to learn the basics, if you want. It's not so hard if you learn with others that know as much as you," Junko offers, smiling before looking around the sprts hall they had taken a spot in. "It gets easier as you do it. Or, if you just want to learn what to look for, there are a couple classes in the university sports halls, where one can wath from above. You might pick up some common tells just from looking at them, but it's hard."
"Yeah, but that's less fun," replies Eve with a laugh. "And I don't get to know interesting people and get my butt kicked byu them. I mean, interesting like you're interesting." She flashes an amused look, though.
Junko chuckles as she offers a hand. "Well, you could beat up people once you get trained enough." She stretches a moment, shaking the head a little. "You like getting beat up? Then you'd go out like that to some back alleys. But nobody likes getting beat up. But if you take training seriously, you'd want to remove your piercings before you get better.
"..ugh, I don't want to do that. I like my pierciings!" Eve makes a face at Junko's mentioning of that. "It took forever to get used to all of them. I'd feel weird without them." She has a lot of them! "It's all part of the aesthetic! The mystique!" She throws her hands up in faux-despair.
"Well, each piercing is a spot that could snag and snatch in training, which is whyy some piercings are pretty much banned in training. It's a liability." Junko explains, shrugging. She has not a single piercing herself, not even earrings.
"Well, sure. But I think I'll be okay," says Eve, firmly. She brushes herslef off again and says, "Ready to go again!" She's expecting that Junko might try to mafke the point. She has a plan to make one of her own.
Junko shrugs as she slowly moves into a basic stance again, beckeoning Eve to come at her. "Then bring it."
ANd so Eve makes a move. She's expecting the counter, of course, waiting to feel where Junko is going, her body braced for impact.
She wants to see what's going to happen next!
Junko blocks the strike, but instead of striking forward into the opening, she takes hold of the arm that Eve used to pull her past herself, working mainly to go for the goth's footing.
THis time, Eve's ready for it. She was expecting her to go for a piercing, of course, to put a point on it but she's heightened her reflexes all the same. A leg comes down to block her movement forward at the knee, her body now impassable mountain despite her slender size. She interlocks with her, raising a hand to grab her by the hair.
"I may not know how to fight, she says quickly, but I've not been in /zero/ fights."
As Eve goes for her hair, Junko grunts, but she has her one hand free, using it to slam to the left of Eve's lower back. Going for the kidneys. And almost simultanously she slams her head forward to try a headbutt against the over-eye piercings, despite the fact that Eve rips at her hair painfully.
She's not ripping. Just holding. This can /lead/ to ripping but it's not really her goal to harm her or pull out a clump of hair. Instead, she lets go after the head butt.
The headbut sends her head back, but it doesn't…really slow her down and, worryingly, the kidney strike had no real effect on her. Which is…definitely /not/ normal. For all that her body is perfectly normal seeming she doesn't seem to be easily slowed down at all. She reaches down to grab around Junko's waist. There's no finesse. Just speed and power.
Junko groans as she hits, repeating the strike to the kidney several times even though Eve works on getting a different hold on her. She lets go of the wrist she held and tries to slam her fist into Eve's upper temple. She could have gone for the throat, but that she deemed unfair in a sparr.
Eve is hit, again, but while she reacts to the impact as phsysics would dictate, the actual damage or pain of the strike is of limited impact on her. She's just in a different sort of place, isn't she? She aims to lift Junko and then bring her down to the mat on her back with her atop her.
Junko squirms as she tries to evade getting pinned, turning her body to try losening the grip, but she'd end on the ground anyway. She's not superhuman strong.
"Soooo, still worried about my piercings?" says Eve, as she manages to stay where she is. Keeping her there on the ground. She seems amused, of course.
"If you don't feel pain at all? That makes taking them out more a thing for other people's safety. They're hard after all." Junko reminds as she works an arm between her and Eve to keep some breathing room for herself.
"Oh, I feel pain," says Eve, firmly, leaving her the breathing room while doing her level best to keep her in place. Purposefully staying in place for the time being.
Junko grunts a little as she nods sideways. "Well, then I at least did something to you. What makes you such an immoveable mass at times but easy to throw down at others?"
"I honestly thought you'd go for the piercing sooner or I wouldn't have done that," admits Eve, "But I was already in at that point." She begins to lift herself off of Junko. "It's not so much immovable as just strong."
"Never do the expected." Junko lectured as she gets herself up. "Raw strength can only get you so far without tactics, but tactics alone only goes so far without skill and strength. It's the balance one needs."
"Well yeah but that's why I grabbed your hair." I HAVE TACTICS, SULKS EVE.
Junko Saito says, "Yea, but I took the pain to deliver the headbutt. You didn't expect it that moment, you had my hair after all." Junko chuckles as she sorts her clothes with a shake. "You're more than meets the eye.""
"Just call me Optimus Pride," says Eve. It is, after all, pride month. She leans down and goes to boop Junko's nose. She does have a snoot.
Sometimes.
Junko flinches a moment. "Optimus Pride? Rainbow Robot Car? You don't have his weight. I think heis in the 20 tons range"
"YEs, but you said I was more than meets the eye /and/ its Pride month," says Eve, sticking out her tongue.
"Ok, you got that on the counter…"