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Read the Room: Practical Self-Defense (Thursday, 9/12, First Period)
Thursday, September 12th, 2019 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brat_inslayageThis week, students would have received advance notice -- via email,text, voicemail, or whatever means was most likely to reach them -- that class was going to be meeting in the gym, and that everyone should wear clothes they felt were comfortable and suited for free movement.
Look, Kennedy had known Buffy for years. If you felt comfortable and mobile in six-inch heels or a skirt or whatever, rock on with your bad self.
Upon arriving in the gym, students would find it set up with mats laid out on the floor -- and a second figure, in blue and grey monastic garb and a general air of crankiness, standing up front near Kennedy with her arms crossed and looking extremely annoyed about all of this.
Kennedy, for her part, had an amused smirk on her face.
"So like I said," she began when she was reasonably sure everyone was present, "don't underestimate the importance of just getting the hell away from something that's trying to attack you, eat your head, that kind of thing. Less interesting, maybe, and definitely less fun as far as some of us are concerned, but seriously. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is survive. Maybe you have some vital message to deliver, maybe you've got people depending on you, maybe you just don't have the time to go a full ten rounds. Like a friend told me years ago, if your instincts are telling you to run? Run."
A brief pause while Kennedy huffed a soft laugh and her apparent assistant rolled her eyes.
"Not a blanket statement, by the way. Useful rule of thumb, though." And she grinned at them. "But enough with the deep-and-kinda-heavy. You didn't sign up for a whole bunch of long-winded speeches, so we're gonna get a little hands-on today and work on some basic escape moves for if someone's trying to grapple you. And Beauregard here --" she gestured toward Beau and appeared to ignore how promptly she got flipped off -- is going to help me demonstrate."
"Can't believe you talked me into this," Beau grumbled, rolling her eyes.
"Here's the thing," Kennedy went on. "How strong you are? Doesn't matter. If you're quick and know how to make gravity work for you, you can absolutely get away, and Beau's going to help me show you a few different ways to make my Slayer strength totally irrelevant."
With that, Kennedy walked them through several different basic ways to break wrist grips, choke holds, and attempted tackles: first at quarter speed, then half speed. And then at full speed, with thirty seconds or so of sparring as a leadup to each demonstration because Kennedy couldn't resist showboating a little bit and Beau really couldn't just let that go unanswered.
"Now pair up and give it a try. Do not try and hurt each other, is that clear? Anyone who has concerns about breaking classmates by accident can come work with me."
Look, Kennedy had known Buffy for years. If you felt comfortable and mobile in six-inch heels or a skirt or whatever, rock on with your bad self.
Upon arriving in the gym, students would find it set up with mats laid out on the floor -- and a second figure, in blue and grey monastic garb and a general air of crankiness, standing up front near Kennedy with her arms crossed and looking extremely annoyed about all of this.
Kennedy, for her part, had an amused smirk on her face.
"So like I said," she began when she was reasonably sure everyone was present, "don't underestimate the importance of just getting the hell away from something that's trying to attack you, eat your head, that kind of thing. Less interesting, maybe, and definitely less fun as far as some of us are concerned, but seriously. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is survive. Maybe you have some vital message to deliver, maybe you've got people depending on you, maybe you just don't have the time to go a full ten rounds. Like a friend told me years ago, if your instincts are telling you to run? Run."
A brief pause while Kennedy huffed a soft laugh and her apparent assistant rolled her eyes.
"Not a blanket statement, by the way. Useful rule of thumb, though." And she grinned at them. "But enough with the deep-and-kinda-heavy. You didn't sign up for a whole bunch of long-winded speeches, so we're gonna get a little hands-on today and work on some basic escape moves for if someone's trying to grapple you. And Beauregard here --" she gestured toward Beau and appeared to ignore how promptly she got flipped off -- is going to help me demonstrate."
"Can't believe you talked me into this," Beau grumbled, rolling her eyes.
"Here's the thing," Kennedy went on. "How strong you are? Doesn't matter. If you're quick and know how to make gravity work for you, you can absolutely get away, and Beau's going to help me show you a few different ways to make my Slayer strength totally irrelevant."
With that, Kennedy walked them through several different basic ways to break wrist grips, choke holds, and attempted tackles: first at quarter speed, then half speed. And then at full speed, with thirty seconds or so of sparring as a leadup to each demonstration because Kennedy couldn't resist showboating a little bit and Beau really couldn't just let that go unanswered.
"Now pair up and give it a try. Do not try and hurt each other, is that clear? Anyone who has concerns about breaking classmates by accident can come work with me."
