fandomhigh | Read the Room: Practical Self-Defense, Thursday 11/21 (Period 1)

Today, the Danger Shop was set up to look like the salle -- but with a kind of industrial aesthetic to it. There were exposed wooden beams everywhere and some scaffolding up against one wall, as if the space was in the process of being renovated. (That part was unintentional. Kennedy might have gotten some of her apartment redecoration plans mixed in with everything while she was programming today's setting.)

A rack built into the lower portion of the scaffolding held a variety of sticks of various lengths and a few different diameters; Kennedy was standing in the center of the room holding a pair of eskrima sticks in her hands, and next to her was an extremely irritated-looking Beau, leaning on her staff and drumming her fingers against it like she just wanted to get all of this over with. Kennedy, for her part, looked entirely too amused, and maybe a little bit smug.

"So, stick fighting," she began once the class was assembled. "I'll spare you the whole lecture about different traditions and styles of stick fighting throughout history, but it's a versatile and useful skill, in no small part because it's pretty easy to improvise a weapon with whatever's on hand. One of my former trainees had an incident the other week, as a matter of fact, where she ended up using a plunger and a toilet brush to deal with a vampire because it was 3 AM at the coroner's office and the cleaning crew was about to start working when they ran off because someone had this whole brand new fangy condition she just couldn't wait to play with. Plus it's pretty flexible as far as working in really close quarters or at a little bit of range."

(Beau had not perked up a bit and looked interested when Kennedy mentioned the different traditions. She was just impatient to get this over with. Really.)

Kennedy twirled the sticks in her hands with a smile. "One of my friends, when I was a student here, was really into it. I kinda didn't see the appeal at first -- I'm really more of a swords and sharp-pointies kind of girl -- but the more time I spent training with her, the more I got to appreciate it. Plus eskrima, specifically, translates pretty well into unarmed combat techniques, so that's a bonus."

She spent a few minutes going over the basics of proper grip and the different defensive options you could take: being able to dodge, parry, block, or attempt to disarm or incapacitate. Then, she spent a few more minutes demonstrating several attacking techniques, slowly and then at full speed.

"Here's the useful if slightly unexpected: you're not actually at as much of a disadvantage as you might think, if you're up against someone with more reach than you."

Beau sighed loudly and rolled her eyes. "Is this the part where you try to kick my ass again?"

"No," Kennedy replied smoothly, "it's the part where I succeed at it." She demonstrated ways to neutralize Beau's staff attacks long enough to get in close quarters, where the staff wasn't as effective, before she narrated Beau's demonstration of a few basic staff fighting moves.

And yes, in the brief sparring session that ensued, she absolutely did kick Beau's ass.

"So there's two things for class today," she finally said. "First off, I want each of you to think for a minute and name me two or three items you might find in a totally normal setting that you could use as fighting sticks. Second, pair off and practice what we just went over, got it? Cool. Good luck, and have fun."