LOG: Haroun and Alison - Don't Call Me Girly

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Haroun and Alison hit the mat for a little hand-to-hand work. Therapeutic, in a way, and progress is assuredly made. Sat early Tuesday morning.



Haroun grinned at Alison before tossing her one of the sticks that they'd been practicing with for the last few months. "Next step here." he said with a grin. "You ready to show me what you've got? Big bad girly with her big bad stick against little ol' unarmed me..." he said with an exaggerated pout and a shrug of his shoulders. "Hardly seems fair."

Alison glared at him at that, though for once the near constant anger of the last month wasn't bubbling at the surface. This was Haroun, and a playful Haroun at that, no less. "You?" She pointed one of the sticks at him, accusingly so. "You are going to wipe the floor with me and don't think I don't know it." But, one thing was certain; she had no intention of it being easy for him. So long as she didn't react as badly as the first sparring session had gone, everything would be fine.

Haroun made a "gimme" gesture with his hands. "Show me what you've got, tiger." he said and then waited for her to make her first move. He was loose, alert, and completely focused in on her and, more importantly, that stick of hers. "You think you can take me down? Take your shot, girly." he said, trying to provoke her a bit. Expressing anger was healthy, he'd heard it said once.

"Haroun?" She slid into one of the stances he'd called her, something roiling in the back of her mind which she ignored as best she could. "Don't call me girly. He called me that." The first attack was clean and sharp, Alison ready to withdraw from it the moment he moved, the concentration on the task as hand present and, thankfully, better than it had been for weeks. Anger, despite all of that, did pierce through her voice at that.

Haroun sidestepped, without even so much as raising his hands into a guard position. "Oh." he said, not counterattacking for now. "Sorry about that." he added, with real feeling behind it. "Come on, we're not dancing here. You want to dance, let's go get changed and hit a club. Follow-through!"

The apology was accepted with a short nod, Alison managing to focus on the forms and sequences she'd been taught, the sticks whirring out with the long earned ease she'd acquired as Haroun had taught her, and refined in the past few weeks when anger had stopped causing her to drop the sticks more often than not. She shifted from a high strike to the head to a mid-section combination at the tail end of the pattern, driving forward steadily.

Haroun was playing things purely on the defensive, but she was pressing him. Hard. Time to change things up a little. On her next combination, he juked out of the way of the head hit, and darted forward inside the reach of the stick before the midsection hit could happen. He just got out of the way and helped her swing along, adding his own strength to hers.

The forward momentum was sharp and sudden, Alison using the only way possibly to break out of it for someone of her mass - push forward to tuck and roll into the fall, twisting the wrist to break the hold he had on her. When his hand did not let go, a faint burning to the skin a clear note that he did in fact have a solid grip, Alison threw in a sharp rap to his elbow, knowing it would be her only chance to break free and not end up in a hold. Haroun's leg holds were not, in general, much fun when sparring.

Haroun kept his grip on the stick and stepped out away from the strike, giving Alison a choice - surrender the stick and stay in her graceful role, and keep a grip on the stick and have her roll turn into something ungainly, ugly, and probably painful. When she left her feet to roll through the grab, she surrendered control to him, and he was not about to surrender that control easily

Hard and painful was the choice though, Alison refusing to give up on the sticks so early in the game. At one point either one of them would have to let go - and her grip was the most solid, in essence, so she was betting that she'd win out with her entire weight thrown in as well. IF not, well, she'd at least still have one stick… along with a very sore shoulder, most likely, from the twisting motion involved in falling, rolling and yet not letting go.

She didn't let go. How curious. He stepped back rapidly, spreading Alison out and not letting her bunch up on him. He also twisted the stick, seeking to break her grip through sheer rotational force if she wouldn't let go conventionally.

This was, she realized, not working out - and as much as she refused to let go, very much wanted to damn well keep a grip on that stick, throwing her shoulder out entirely wasn't an acceptable way to be able to continue a fight. And if he continued the circle motion anymore than he already had, her shoulder would be letting go. Curling up a lip in sheer annoyance with herself, Alison let go of the stick, not at rolling away in an elegant way but at least managing both distance and getting back to her feet in the process.
 
Haroun took the stick and twirled into a quick guard as he settled into a low guard stance. "OK, now I've got the stick. You want it back? Come and get it - if you can." he said to her mockingly. At least she'd learned her lesson about when to let the stick go - thus avoiding a repeat of their disastrous session a few weeks ago. Being flash-blinded was not his idea of a good time.

She ignored the taunt, focusing on just keeping the last remaining stick as long as possible. Yes, thinking that way only got you beat, as Haroun might say. Only Alison was also very much a realist and in hand to hand combat, plain and simple, Haroun would take her down sooner or later. Sticks or no sticks. If the entire aim of this session hadn't been her keeping a grip on the sticks - or stick - as long as possible, she'd just have thrown the other one at him instead and switched to something else. Instead she swung the stick around, taking it up in a reverse hold, the baton now serving as an arm guard as well, and moved in once more, using it to block any strike he might make with the other stick.

Haroun grinned at Alison and waited for her to make her first strike. He would counter and take her down, just as nicely as you please. She still had a tendency to go soft on her defense as she struck, and he was trying to help her overcome that tendency. Knowing her, she'd feint and then go for his solar plexus. It's what he would do in her shoes.

The feint and solar plexus strike did indeed occur just as he'd anticipated, though the addition strike to the throat that followed was not part of her normal pattern. It meant leaving an opening, however, as well as Alison is a slightly unusual position as the stick arched around this first block he'd made to aim a this throat, reversing in a tight flip to extend outwards for more range.

Haroun wasn't expecting the throat-strike, and he managed to shift so that the worst of it landed on the muscle of his neck and not his throat proper. Growling slightly, he went on the offensive. She didn't have the mass to be able to stop _all_ his strikes, so he wanted to launch a flurry of them at her, see what got through and what did not. Out of deference to her, he kept his attacks to two with the stolen stick, two with his off-land, and an elbow strike.

Defensive Alison could do, though - it was, in a sense, what she'd always specialized in. The stick was deflected the first time with her own, the crack of the sound not as loud as it would have been had it been a match of strength as she simple diverted just enough so miss her. The return strike was simply ducked, though it nearly put her in the path of one of the hits and as he advanced for the elbow strike she just leaned out of the way, keeping her lower body where it was, nearly against his as he kept moving - and then popped up an elbow strike from closely between them, hand curled up in a fist above her own shoulder as she powered the hit upwards.

Haroun rode out the elbow strike, accepting it in exchange for the advantage it gave him. He was up-close-and-personal, and she was soon to be dead. He grabbed at the front of her shirt, twisting it into a sudden and vicious choke. To add emphasis, he "lightly" brought a knee up to her abdomen, looking to screw up her breathing temporarily. Sure, he could have killed her with that knee, but that was Not On, and besides, they had plans for later.

Lack of air was a decidedly unfun feeling, and Alison did her best to try and work some back in her lungs, the hold he had on her tank top keeping her upright, at least. She hated the leg strikes and anything in general involving his legs when sparring. Oh so much. Bad legs. "Huh." Breath wasn't quite coming back, yet no, and she found herself pushing one leg back to steady herself, one arm draped over his for support rather than to try and break the hold. It was a really strong hold. Crap.

Haroun could feel her weight shift, so he encouraged it by adding his own to her movement. He wanted to put her on her back, and when they went over he shifted his grip from a neck-choke to grabbing one of her legs as they both fell downwards. Time to see how she's respond to a triangle choke or to a leglock of some kind.

Sometimes, it truly was a curse to be flexible. She had strong legs, without a doubt, but the downward motion and Haroun's leverage was not enough for her to simply brute force her way out of it, though she did at least give him a hard time of it - for a moment. She broke the fall as best she could, hands snapping out and shoulders stiffening to take the impact.

Haroun rode out the fall far more roughly than she did, but he took the time she spent on a breakfall to lock in the first part of a leglock. Knee between the legs? Check. Surround the leg and grab his own clothes? Check. Fall to the side and apply pressure to the knee? Check. Grin maniacally.

Big ol' check on that one.

There was, for the briefest of moments, a faint sizzling underneath Alison's skin in response at being locked down so - but she took a deep breath and fought down the urge, which was something she'd not managed to do all that well the first time they'd sparred since Sabertooth had decided to try and flay her alive.
 
That she could even think of it that way, she thought, was something of a minor success. And blinking, she turned her head, still unable to move any of her lower body at all, and stared at the hand still holding a stick. "Huh. I didn't let go of it."

Haroun laughed. "You done, or do you think you can worm your way out of my leglock?" he asked with an amused air. "Because I still have my stick as well." he added.

The only sound answering at that was a cheerfully blown raspberry, Alison shaking slightly in his hold as she laughed tiredly to herself, a feeling of satisfaction running through her despite the leghold she was in.

She hadn't lost both sticks. And that was still a tie, of sorts.