Summer Offensive

[Morgan Bellanar]

Morgan spoke slower and louder then normal, trying to stay comprehensible: "Leh-like Gregory, I am not-not a fighter. I prefer flight to fight and-and stealth. But-but I've learned the heh-hard way that that don't always work. Ssso I hath learned how to throw things," she flicked her left wrist, then brought her left arm up twirling a knife in her fingers, "With sssome skill. Knee-cap plus knife means sssslowed pursuit. I can-an and heh-have previously inssstructed others in the style of throwing. And this time-time there are proper targets," she points at the area set up for ranged weapon practice.

Then Morgan knelt down next to the gym bag, and opened it up, exposing the contents, "Ano-and I heh-hath a variety of object-weapons for folks to try."

Whats in the gym bag

12 Kitchen knives, 8 baseballs, 6 throwing knives, 2 bricks, 2 hatchets, 1 hammer

[InvertedMonkey]

She nods, "Alright, great. I won't claim that I have much experience at teaching, but let's see how this goes. We'll start with hand-to-hand techniques, since they're the basics and everybody should learn 'em, and even if you already know them, practice never hurts. We'll move on to weapons a little later."

She raises a finger, as if to draw attention to what she's about to say next. "First thing I want to say, and this is especially true for Morgan and Gregory who have mentioned that they're new to fighting, or at least to fighting up close; like learning anything, you're going to get a lot of information today. Some of it pretty complicated. It'd be hard to remember everything. So don't. We're going to show you a lot of things, and we're going to practice a lot of things, but you don't have to remember all of them. But you do have to try all of them. What I want you to come away with today is three things we've practiced that feel good to you, that feel natural, that feel like you could do them again." She holds up three fingers, "Three things. Whether that's a punch, a throw, and a kick, or two kicks and an eye-gouge, or three different throws. You try them all so that you can find your three things. You're going to take these three home, and practice them as much as you can, and if you're still interested, we can meet again for more lessons."

She claps her hands together, "So! We'll start by warming up. Most of the time, if you're in a fight, you won't have time to warm up, but for our purposes, it'll help. Five laps around the Hollow," one finger makes a circle in the air. Then she... turns and walks away. While the others run, Ramona drags out a sandbag and stands it up, getting into position behind it. "Line up in front of the bag," she tells them as they come in, in whichever order they finish their laps, fresh and warmed-up, heart beating and lungs breathing, blood flowing to the long, skeletal muscles they'll need. "Hit the bag," Ramona tells whoever is first, bracing herself behind it so that it won't swing too much. "Make a noise," she tells any who are timid. "Pop. Bang. Zoom. Like you're a superhero in a comic book. Or shout. Fuck! Die! Shit!" Noise gives you power, and breath. Helps you forget that a situation might be a little ridiculous. She encourages them to hit the bag as hard as they can, with a closed fist, and relies on Tally and Nathan to help provide good examples for Morgan and Gregory. Everybody knows how to throw a fist. Some people might need some slight correction though. "Change it up. Try standing closer, or leading with the other leg. Move your hips. Hit it five times as fast as you can. Don't think, just hit. Find out what feels good!" After a brief series of hits hits, Ramona sends whoever's hitting the bag off to run another lap while the next person comes forward, then to the back of the line, so that movement is near-constant

So it goes, trying to keep everyone active, everyone present in their body. Letting Nathan and Tally help make good examples, but generally letting Gregory and Morgan figure out what it's like to throw a punch. What works for them, what doesn't. Letting them experience the power in their bodies when they make the bag swing. Anybody can do it. It just takes a little experimentation. My name is Aud Torvingen. Aud rhymes with crowd. She thinks to herself, amused. What would these folks thing if they knew Ramona was getting so much of her teaching method from the hero of a noir novel? "There are seven basic points to remember about striking," she says, lining them up after the bag has been thoroughly walloped. Now that they've warmed up and gotten a taste of punching, they can start getting into the details. "One, strike from a firm base, because Two, most of your power comes from the torque generated by your hips. Stand with both feet firmly planted and swivel your hips as you punch. Three, strike on the out breath, preferably with a good yell. Four, strike hard and fast. Power comes more from speed than weight. Five, strike right through the target, don't stop on the surface. Six, you always need to be closer to the target than you think. Seven, be prepared to strike more than once."

It was a damn good thing that the Summer Offensive began relatively early, as Ramona spends hours on hand-to-hand. Tally and Nathan are regularly dragooned into being the subjects of demonstrations, or brief sparring matches, except where Ramona can get Morgan or Gregory to feel comfortable trying something themselves. As promised, Ramona takes them through multiple different techniques, but they only have to remember three of them. Punches, stomps, knife-hands to the larynx, eye-gouge maneuvers, techniques to slip out of or reverse holds. She sprinkles it all with words of wisdom that she remembers like the back of her hand. Don't hit bone with bone. Be the hammer, not the nail. If you're inside their reach, that means they're inside yours. If they want one hand, give them both. Protect your neck. Don't kick higher than the knee if they're still standing. That last one is mostly applicable the beginners here. Those with more experience and training are more likely to get some effectiveness out of higher kicks, rather than make an obvious telegraph of an easily avoided move that places them off-balance. When Gregory or Morgan find something that feels comfortable, they practice it several times over until they'll be able to practice it on their own time. When Nathan or Tally find something new or interesting, or want to share something, they go over that too.

Eventually, Ramona calls for a break. Bottles of Gatorade or water are distributed, along with some packed sandwiches. The Summer Court provides. As they munch, Ramona speaks. "So, I definitely want to take a lesson from Morgan here about throwing knives and shit, but I heard weaponry mentioned and fencing joked about. What did you guys have in mind about that? Like, found objects, improvised stuff, or serious weapons, axes and swords and such?"

I'm willing to elaborate on anything described here, upon request. Ramona's training methods are inspired by one of her (and my) favorite novels, Always by Nicola Griffith, book #3 in the Aud Torvingen series.

[Morgan Bellanar]

For her part, Morgan had little trouble with the warm up laps. She ran plenty for work/fun so it wasn't that hard for her to end up in the front of the group. As a result, the raccoon was the first in line for the sand bag. Which she didn't like but cutting to the back seemed to be discouraged. At the command to attack. Morgan tried for a punch, yelling "Puh-puh-pow," though it wasn't much of a yell. She kept the lack of volume going, her strikes tending to be random in location. She didn't find anything that felt right and actually missed the bag completely a couple of times. Morgan felt a better when, more natural, when she was sent for another run. Hit and run felt quite correct to her mind.

The others did better as people switched through. Morgan had little trouble in quickly completing the laps to return and watch to get a better notion of what to do. Ramona's explanation of the "rules of punching" were very helpful in clearing things up. The explanation about hip rotation reminded her of the time that one norman stoner had floored her with a single punch.

As far as sparring went...that was more difficult as Morgan's instinct to dodge made her a frustrating student. Granted, backflipping away from a strike looked impressive but Morgan tended to do it after her own attacks too. Eventually Ramona got the jumpy raccoon to stop jumping about and spar properly. She got the basics of punching quite well, though the dirtier tricks like eye gouging appealed to her mind more. Holds were certainly interesting for Morgan. Slipping out of holds was extra easy for the raccoon the first time: she'd just slipped right out of her padded jacket. But this took away the cushioning Morgan had had as Ramona didn't let her put it back on. Still, wriggling out of holds was something the raccoon proved to have a knack for.

The other thing she was good at were tackle holds. The hold Morgan was best at was simply jumping on someone's back and latching on. The combination of momentum from impact and her extra weight was enough to make her sparring opponent unbalanced and fall down a couple of times. Once down, it was simple for the flexible Beast to position her arms and legs to pin her foes. These were the only times she won a match. The rest of the time Morgan was losing, or outright lost, her sparring matches. Save for one spar where she tried a drop kick to the shout of "Dynamic entry!" That actually worked into a draw.


Folks would find throwing Morgan to be A: easy given her small size and B: less then effective thanks to her acrobatic lifestyle. Normally when someone gets thrown, they get the wind knocked out of them and need a moment to recover. Morgan however just rolled after she got tossed to get right back up again. This made her an excellent go-to-person for people who wanted to practice throwing others: she needed no recovery time.

After the breather Morgan easily, and eagerly, goes over the basics of overhand throwing and aiming things properly with Ramona and anyone else interested in using her bag-of-fun at the target range. The baseballs will also be used to demonstrate alternative throwing methods.

Throwing Mechanics

Thrown object short range is determined by the foumula: Strength + Dexterity + Athletics - Object Size. Medium range (-2 dice) is short x2. Long (-4 dice) is medium x2. Aerodynamically designed objects double the ranges. Kitchen knife, baseball, throwing knife, hatchet, and hammer are size 1. Brick is size 2. Baseball and throwing knife are aerodynamic. You add a weapon/objects damage value to the dice pool for the attack. Aiming is a full turn action that increases your attack pool by 1 for ranged attacks, to a maximum of +3, as long as your target doesn't move. Overhand, underhand, and other throw styles have no mechanical effect...I included this because I'd worked it all out last month.

[Nathan Griffin]

When Ramona called for a brake Nathan sat down on the floor next to her and ate... ravenously, from his sandwich. He would help the meat go down with some Gatorade while watching how the others were doing. These weren't recruits. No, these were 'lings, and they were made of tougher stuff.

"That was some lesson you pulled there," he told Ramona with a grin on his face. "My instructor wouldn't have liked it. You kept your voice level at all times. Your language was all good and proper. Shameful!" jokes aside, it was pretty clear he was impressed.

He didn't join Morgan when she went off to teach the others how to throw sharp objects around. Just like he didn't seem very interested when Ramona brought up the subject of weaponry. It wasn't some sort of snobbish warrior code. He had his share of skills, and he was willing to do the best he could with them. But he was done learning more creative ways of killing people. In other people's hands, maybe it would turn out alright, but he didn't trust himself that much. Maybe it was stubborn. Maybe it would cost him his life. But that didn't bother him nearly as much.

[Tally Benoit]

Tally listens to the instructions that Ramona gives while lending her aid when directed. As the lessen ends, a break is called, she head to grab a sandwich plus a bottle of Gatorade. As she finishes, she does her best to relax her shoulder muscles and enjoy the companionship of the other Changelings within the same room.

Once it looks like Morgan is getting ready, she gets up and joins the crowd listening and watching the demonstration the fellow Beast is giving. She joins in the fun, throwing the various items from the bag.

Should I roll anything for Tally practicing with throwing the size 1 items?