Sword Versus Stick (Lysira)

[Bree]

Ubriel had a long standing aversion to swords. She thought they were too common. That being true, she needed to practice twice as often against a sword as she did all other weapons combined. At her level of skill it was difficult to find a real challenge. Luckily, Lysira had agreed to the challenge. Ubriel made her way out to the Yard in the early afternoon. She was a little early but she wanted to take the opportunity to wander the Yard and check the progress of the trainees. It was good to show up unexpected. She left al'Doondieb sitting in its cradle in the weapons rack of her office. There was rarely a good excuse to use the wickedly armored quarterstaff on the grounds of the Tower. One day, I will be out in the world again and that staff is going to be very useful.

Meanwhile, she had taken her practice staff, made of dense hickory wood. It would do more than enough damage of its own if necessary and the wood was sturdy enough to withstand being battered by a blade. She used it in her resistance stretches as she walked, holding it in both hands and bringing it high over her head. Bending to either side and drawing the staff down behind her, she caused her shoulders and arms to bend and stretch. She swung the staff through several arcing maneuvers as she walked to warm-up her muscles and get herself ready. As she was still somewhat early, she didn't bother running through them all yet. Instead, she performed many of those warm-up forms lazily and without thought or care.

She watched with appreciation the work of the students in the Yard and the more experienced Gaidin and Gaidar teaching. A warm and comfortable sense of peace and happiness came over her as she walked past the archers at their ranges. She passed the students of unarmed combat moving through forms and the students of the quarterstaff, who made her smile just learning to hold the weapon. As she passed the area of students sparring with swords, her mind came back to her purpose. Finding herself under the shade of the large oak on the side of the Yard nearest the treeline, Ubriel took up a ready stance and began to flow through her favored forms, warming up while she awaited her spar.

[Bella]

It had been a long while since Lysira had a good spar, particularly one with her sword and against a staff at that. She had been a little surprise to receive the request of the Mistress of Training, but flattered to be asked when she had not really been back on Tower grounds for all that long. She didn't believe her establishment of the past counted fully again until she established herself anew.

Entering the Yards, she inhaled the fresh and familiar scent. Felt the energy. It didn't take much work to find Ubriel Gaidar. The diminutive woman smiled and gestured 'hello' before beginning her own stretches and warm-ups. True, a battle would never give you the time to do so, but why not avail themselves of the lack of battle reality?

[OOC: Sorry this took so long. >.< ]

[Bree]

Ubriel acknowledged the arrival of her opponent and then fell into the void. It was a thoughtless and effortless state of mind now. When she had first begun to learn it, the idea of slowly feeding away all of her thoughts and distractions was foreign and more than strange. She was sure back then that she would never attain the focus to still and clear her mind so completely. Yet now, she understood. In the void, the mind did not stop seeing or feeling or hearing or thinking, it simply stopped being distracted from its chosen path by any of those or other things. Her thoughts and perceptions skittered around the outside of the void. Her opponent was the only thing that managed to reach her across the border.

She flowed back through her warm-up exercises once again. Throwing her staff over her right shoulder with her right hand and reaching under her right elbow with her left to catch it, she stepped forward with her left foot as she pulled the staff through in a diagonal arc from low right to high left. When the leading tip of the staff continued upward, she guided it to repeat the movement on her left shoulder and stepped forward with her right foot. Two more steps forward this way and she reversed her steps with the same flourishing hand moves. Then she swung her staff in a wide arc right to left and parallel to the ground, this time taking steps backward. After four steps back, four more forward followed with harsh forward and upward thrusts of the staff held across her chest at shoulder height. Two more types of arcs and another thrusting motion carried her all the way through all the warm-ups. Warm blood and warm muscles, she was ready.

Grounding the butt of her staff and letting it lean into the crook of her arm, Ubriel waited for the attention of the other woman. "Thank you for agreeing to this spar. Training gets harder the more skill you have." She grinned, crooked and her tongue stuck to peek through her teeth, she intentionally made her grin look silly as she knew otherwise, her grin would look cold and false. "I am not looking forward to either of us getting hurt so let's agree to pull our punches. Contact of torso or hips is fair but no head, arms or legs. If either of us gets a fair shot there, we will agree to the point without the touch? How does a five point match sound to you?"

Ubriel waited to see if Lysira Gaidar would agree or want different arrangements. Ubriel shifted lightly from one foot to the other, not really resting on either but keeping her balance between. When she was ready to engage an opponent, she stayed ready. She didn't think about it, it was simply the way she stood. Somewhere outside that edge of the Void the thought flickered, I really need to get back out into the world and find something to fight that really needs to be killed.

[Bella]

With her body limber and warm, she turned to her sparring partner and listened to her suggestion for their arrangement. It sounded fairly standard for sparring matches, except a few in her memory where she ended up with more bruises and roughed-up muscles than should be allowed in a simple "spar." Usually while she was coming up through the ranks and needed "teaching." Now, it was a matter of keeping her skills sharp rather than newly learning them.

'Yes, that works for me,' she signed. She rolled her slender shoulders once. 'Ready when you are. She pulled her wooden sparring sword.

[Bree]

Ubriel nodded and assumed her ready stance. She had long known that many of her forms were not the standard that most users of her preferred weapon trained with. That only meant that she could surprise people easier. The Void made it all melt away. Nothing mattered but her staff and her opponent. She flowed forward and spun a sweeping arc, parallel to the ground aimed at her opponent's left hip. Lysira of course, easily parried that and as the staff rebounded, Ubriel took a half step back on that side, using the momentum of the rebound to pull the leading edge of the staff back with her and thrust forward, up and left with the other end of the staff.

That end darted a vicious threat to Lysira's right shoulder, just at the collar bone. Using nearly the full length of the staff, Ubriel was five feet away from her opponent, presenting the grounded and narrow profile of her left side. It would be a maiming blow if it were not a spar. But this was a spar, for practice, fun and to challenge their best techniques.

Apparently the students in the Yard realized what was happening and many had stopped to watch. Let them. It would be good for them to see their Mistress of Training sweat. It would be even better for some of them to see a spar that was undertaken with the seriousness of training rather than the oblique horseplay that some seemed to devolve into.

OOC: I am going to attempt to be specific about what shot I am taking and exactly how I am standing so that you can position Lysira and decide exactly how she will stand, react and move so as to most realistically spar with the highest level of moves we know. If you ever need better explanation or detail, just ask and I will gladly expound.

[Bella]

Upon this field of mock battle, Ubriel and Lysira stood as equals. They were both Gaidar, matured into their places, and experts in their chosen crafts. This was the sort of spar that excited a warder; it was the sort they sought out because it would be a challenge, second only to the challenge of true combat, but more enjoyable for the distinct lack of balancing life and death. Lysira's large, dark eyes followed Ubriel's every move like an animal in the wood.

The first strike was easily parried, but she knew from experience that one of the benefits of the staff was the range and the way it could move, rebounding from one place into another with more ease than some other weapons, given its very nature. Lysira knew that another strike would be coming on its heels and she would have to be fast to meet it. Eyes observed her opponent keenly. She was dimly aware of the gathering trainees, because no self-respecting Gaidar would miss anything, but her primary focus was Ubriel.

When the strike rose for her collar bone, Lysira swiftly brought her blade--a hand and a half that she had made, long ago, just for her size and had even named, it had been with her longer than her child--up quickly into Willow Embracing the Breeze, a vertical block and shift of weight that steered the staff away from her and over her shoulder, while shifting her slightly into its space. The staff had great range and she would need her hard-earned speed to try to keep that advantage from taking her over.

Now inside, she flowed immediately into The Sapling Trembles, aiming to 'tap' her practice blade against Ubriel's wrist. On a lesser opponent, it might even make them drop their weapon. But the Mistress of Training was far, far from a lesser opponent, and the spacing forced the blade's aim less for the wrist and more for the space of staff near it. With luck, maybe enough to unbalance the 'stick' and give her an opening...

OOC: Works for me! I'll try my best to do that same, but I'm a little rusty at this. XD

[Bree]

Ubriel leaned back as Lysira parried her thrust. She felt the grin pulling the corners of her mouth upward. She was going to have to try harder with this opponent. She pulled the staff back hard and fast, leaning back on the staff as the butt end grounded and raising the forward end. Her right foot being behind her, she shifted her weight back and onto it and swung her left foot back and out to the side. The hopping motion that ensued, allowed her to pull the top end of the staff with her and launch the butt end forward in a broad diagonal arc up and to the left. Meeting Lysira's blade with a resounding CLACK! the spar was well and truly engaged now. A ripple of excited commentary began to roll through the gathered spectators.

Ubriel pulled the staff away from the meeting of the weapons with a tight, counter-clockwise circular motion of the forward end of the staff. The flourish was as much a misdirection technique as anything else. Ubriel now stood with her feet squared and her knees slightly bent and springy, off center to her opponent so that she was effectively showing Lysira her right side. As the staff reached the bottom of the circle at about the height of Lysira's navel, Ubriel pushed suddenly up and forward, aiming at the other woman's throat and chin. Being a spar, she stopped the momentum of the staff well before she would actually endanger the other woman.

Already deciding her best two options for her next movements, depending on the type of response from Lysira, if she was able to counter that attack, Ubriel felt her mind and her body ramp up. The void encompassed her being and she floated in the serene bliss of the challenge.

OOC: I am assuming you and I both will have a very hard time making any actual hits and I am going to pull out my very best moves. If you agree, let's both get one good thwack on the other and not get the full five point match. We are supposed to be both super good at our preferred weapons after all.

[Bella]

In the silence of her concentration, she watched Ubriel dance through her motions as the reverberation from the connection of their weapons left its sensation in Lysira's body. It didn't affect what she did or how she moved, but it was one of the small details that she held in her mind that kept her grounded in the moment. It helped keep her focus as her eyes latched on to every movement, small or large, of the Mistress of Training.

As Ubriel shifted back, Lysira didn't attempt to move in for her right side. She saw those small telltale signs in the other woman's body of an impending strike. It came, rising up from her midsection towards her neck. She flowed back with one foot, bringing her sword in a quick horizontal upward parry from its low position. Wind Over Highgrass. It lifted the end of the staff up and away from her face.

With their weapons suspended just above her, she swiftly circled the blade away from the staff and stepped forward, and slightly to the side, aiming to move into Ubriel's guard (but not leave her head under the staff) as she brought her sword back around in a hit for the other woman's side with Cutting the Clouds.

OOC: I am the worst sparring partner EVER.

[Bree]

Ubriel let her staff follow through, using the force of momentum from the other woman's parry. As the forward end of her staff swung upward, she tugged it left and back. The place somewhere between her two hands was her pivot point, so the back end of her staff thus went forward, low hip height. Ubriel stepped forward on her right foot, crossing her left and letting that left foot swing around behind her. Her turning, sideways advance took her out of the path of the sword of her opponent while her staff met that swing in a parry that again sounded in a loud CLACK. This time, though, that sound seemed protracted as the staff slid along the length of the sword.

In this conflict, there was no rebound and no pause as in so many practice spars. There was no high-yelling and neither woman had yet pressed the other to breathing heavily from exertion. Ubriel was only just beginning to feel the blood warming her joints and that tingling sensation of a quickened pulse in the base of her skull.

While her staff still slid in its meeting with the sword, she brought the other end up and forward, at low shin or ankle height. Never intending to go through with that low blow, Ubriel stepped forward with her left foot, crossing her right and advanced her right foot immediately after. Strafing in this way up to Lysira's side as the initial low blow missed its originally intended target, the low end of the staff came up behind Lysira's legs. The other end of the staff, having just completed its long contact with the sword, stayed high and crossed Ubriel's body at shoulder height, trailing her left side as it swung behind her put her behind where Lysira had been.

The graceful pattern of footwork was a simple five steps. It barely took the space of a breath within the void. Ubriel was focused on the path of her staff now toward the back of her opponent's knees.

OOC: Nah you have had things to handle. I am just glad you picked it back up!