Maya places the sword back into the cart, “Low blow to attack someone already tired from carrying a sword and not giving them a chance to rest up.”
“The lesson to learn is, you need to push through the pain of feeling sore. Sometimes you get tired when fighting and you don’t have an easy out. You will still need to defend yourself to escape or defeat the enemy in front of you. Also, we need to build your strength and endurance up so might as well start at the beginning.” Emma says shrugging with a big grin on her face.
“Next you’ll be telling me to wax on and then wax off.” Maya mumbles under her breath.
“What did you say?” Emma’s ears perk up.
“Nothing. How long does this trip typically take anyways?” Maya quickly changing the subject.
“Oh, about half a day by horseback or roughly a day on foot. As long as you don’t take any breaks of course.” Johnathan pitches in.
“So, if a day is seen as sunrise to sunset, then we will be walking for a little over 12 hours I’m assuming. I wonder how fast I could get there by flying when I get proficient enough to?” Maya thought to herself.
“Since there is no room in the cart to have someone rest and rotate, we will have to stop for some breaks. We will probably arrive tonight late after sunset to be honest.” Johnathan continues from before.
“Looks like I’ll have plenty of time to train you Maya.” Emma cackles almost maniacally.
“Hey now, don’t wear her out too much, you’re both still on the job and I don’t want to have to carry either one of you because you’re ‘too tired from training’.” Johnathan says while trying to imitate a girl’s voice towards the end of his comment.
Emma begins laughing at Johnathan “Is that the best girly voice you can do?!”
“Well, I’d like to see you do better with a manly voice!” Johnathan sneers back.
Emma takes a deep breath in, sounding like a cub trying to imitate papa bear “I’m so manly and strong I can cut this log in half with my bare hand.”
Now Johnathan laughing hysterically, “Well I do have to say, you sure tried way harder than I did, but I don’t think you were any better.”
Hours pass by with the sun hanging straight over head, Johnathan speaks up “Looks like this is a good time to stop and rest as well as eat some food.” Johnathan leads the horses to the side of the dirt road under a nice large tree. Maya and Emma follow, and everyone begins to sit down and relax in the shade. Johnathan pulls out a basket from the cart and sets it down. “Don’t worry, Nancy made us some lunch and snacks for the trip.” As he opens the basket it has fruits, bread and a couple of sandwiches already made. Everyone digs in and begins to eat.
After letting the food settle, Emma stands up “Hey Maya I’m going to show you a few things so get up and come over here.”
Maya gets up and follows Emma a few feet away from where they were relaxing. “I don’t know how much training I’ll be able to handle since we just ate, just a heads up.”
“No worries I just wanted to show you a couple things that can help you in a fight.” Emma moves her body into an almost high squat position “Now what I’m doing is lowering my center of weight. Typically, your hips are where your center is at so squatting and lowering your hips will bring your center down.”
Maya mimics Emma and does a partial squat, “You mean like this?”
“Yes! Now if you space your legs out a little more you should be harder to knock over.” Emma walks over to Maya and gives her a good push. Maya moves a little bit but does not stagger or fall over. “Because you’re lower, most people will push from a higher point on your body. This gives you more mobility to react and counterbalance.” Emma gets back across from Maya. “Now come stand next to me.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Maya approaches Emma, feeling curiosity of what she was about to be shown. Emma suddenly takes swift action, planting her foot strategically between Maya's and seizing her arm in a firm grip. Before Maya can even begin to react or comprehend the situation, there's an abrupt slam. Maya finds herself sprawled on her back, gasping for air as the wind is momentarily knocked out of her. She blinks up at the open sky, disoriented and bewildered, and manages to utter, “Oww, what just happened?”
"I flipped you. Guess I should have looked for a softer landing spot," Emma says nonchalantly, her tone lacking any real concern. "Anyways, when you walked over to me, your waist was higher than mine, making it easy to flip you." Emma extends a hand to help Maya up, pulling her to her feet. "Now, I want you to give it a try."
Standing behind Maya, “Lower your hips into the position I just showed you. Now I’m going to walk to your right side, put your foot in between my legs and behind my left leg. Then grab my arm. In one smooth movement kick my leg out and pull my arm over like you’re about to carry a sack of potatoes, just remember to keep your waist lower than mine.”
Emma begins to walk to the right of Maya. Maya sticks her foot between and behind Emma’s left foot followed by grabbing her arm and in one solid motion kicks her foot out and pulls her over her shoulder. Emma is now laid out flat on her back in front of Maya. “Ok that is pretty cool, I would never have thought being smaller than your target could allow you to flip them.”
“Yeah, I got one smaller trick which will probably be more helpful in the city than anywhere else.” Emma says standing up and dusting herself off “Some people are just creeps, and it’s not always smart to start a fight, but rather knock them over and walk away or run away from the situation.”
“Why would I not want to beat them to a pulp if I was strong enough?”
“Some of those creeps have friends and some will report you to a guard and it won’t matter who started it at that point because you threw the punch.”
“Well, if they are trying to start something why should I get in trouble for defending myself, that’s just stupid.”
“Unfortunately, most of the creeps know how to manipulate the rules to favor them, just like it does no good to run to a guard and say some creep is harassing you because either they blow it off because nothing violent happened or they just won’t believe you.”
“Well, that’s messed up, sounds like the guards are corrupt to me.”
“Not in the normal sense no, they just don’t care and will pick the side of someone they see as more respectable in society’s eyes. Which in most cases is never the girl in the situation, you would have to already have a high reputation within a guild or family name before they would think twice.” Emma takes a moment before continuing “Anyways let me show you an easy way to knock someone over and get away.”
“I am going to walk toward you; I want you to place your arm out keeping me from coming closer.”
Emma begins to walk towards Maya, Maya fully extends her arms and has her hand flat on the center of her chest. “Like this?”
“Good but two small changes, don’t lock your arm, and your thumb should be facing down to the ground.”
“Ok so more like this then?!” Maya adjusts her hand and puts a little give into her elbow as to not lock up her arm.
“Great, now I’m going to push forward more. I want you to now let me come in closer by having your forearm go across my chest diagonally but make sure to keep your hand and palm open and together like you’re pretending you hand is a knife.”
Emma begins to press forward more into Maya. In a smooth movement her hand is now closer to her shoulder and her forearm is going diagonally across her chest. Maya notices that not having her arm fully extended makes it a little easier to push back.
“Perfect, now for the last part. I’m going to put my full weight into you to try and get close, I want you to spin your arm around and under my arm nearest your elbow. Make sure when you spin your arm around you go down to come up under my arm. Immediately place your palm on my shoulder, and at the same time turn your body to face the direction I’m facing. When you turn, keep the leg that is on the same side as your arm planted. Finally, with your leg in the way of mine and your arm behind mine and hand on my shoulder just push and my weight should do the rest.”
Emma begins to put a lot of force and weight into Maya. Maya spins her arm counterclockwise around and behind Emma’s arm with her hand on her shoulder, while simultaneously pivoting to face the same direction as Emma and pushes her down. Emma falls straight on her face into the dirt. “Wow that took no force at all.”
“Exactly, all you did was let me use my own weight against myself and at this point would have been your get away window.” Maya helps Emma get up as she was explaining.
“That’s a neat trick…”
“Let’s head out!” Johnathan shouts, he was already walking the horses back to the dirt road.
“We were so caught up in our own thing I didn’t even see him get up and start walking. I should be better about paying attention to our surroundings since that is part of the reason we tagged along to begin with” Maya thought to herself as she was catching up with Johnathan and Emma right next to her.