17455/Gliding High

Gliding High
Date of Scene:	20 March 2024
Location:	Back Yard
Synopsis:	Patty makes an important decision about her future and gets a little training in.
Cast of Characters:	Patty Sloan, Isabel Kane

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Patty Sloan has posed:
Patty has had a busy day. Every free minute she has had was spent going over a self defense book. Turns out she didn't get self defense this semester. She got dancing though which is helping her get light on her feet. Still she has a far way to go. Something has been weighing on her though and this past weekend definitely helped her to make a decision. She uses her phone to give Izzy a call. She invited her to come hang out at the school.

The Blonde then went outside and despite the cold of this late winter day she starts practicing what she's learned from the book she is reading. Its clearly not the greatest form of self defense but it is self defense of some sort. She continues to move about trying to throw punches and the like.

Isabel Kane has posed:
Izzy is all too happy to to help Patty with her self-defense! She heads over, making sure to drive rather than fly. While she's a somewhat known quantity by some of the staff and students, she's not a regular enough visitor that she's going to just fly onto the campus. Once she's parked, she'll head around back to find Patty. "Hey there! How's things going?"

She strolls towards the young woman, casually dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a tanktop under a short-sleeved button-down shirt. She also has those strange sunglasses perched atop her head. "Oh, hey, hold on oooooooooooone second..." She moves over, making a small adjustment to Patty's form, making sure her shoulders are squared to her hips and that her hands are at shoulder level. "There. You always want your shoulders to square with your hips, it will help with your balance. And fist at shoulder level unless you're specifically working a maneuver or style that requires otherwise. Just good basic technique when practicing."

Patty Sloan has posed:
"Thank you!" She smiles to Izzy and adjusts her stance as she is guided. She returns to throwing punches and moving around. Its clear that even that little bit of guidance helped her out a lot. She smiles. "Happy to see you. I was just practicing a little bit from a book. I have dance this semester but not self defense which kinda stinks and with how crazy things get whenever I leave the estate, I figured I would start learning self defense on my own." She smiles and shows the book she's learning from. Its not the greatest book but its got some good stuff in it.

She then turns and squares herself, looking at Isabel. "So I've been thinking about what you suggested. The whole SHIELD thing. I think I want to try it. I wanna try getting into SHIELD." She smiles. "If it means I can help people I mean. That would be awesome. This past weekend I had a crash course in helping people and it felt good. It felt like I was actually doing something to make a difference in the world.

Isabel Kane has posed:
"Welcome," Izzy smiles at her and steps back so she can go through a few movements on her own. Watching her form, analyzing what needs to be worked on. "Great initiative, Patty, though books can only take you so far. They don't always explain the things you need to know to go with the diagrams... like stance and posture. It's usually best to learn from someone until you have the basics down. Then at least you know you aren't going to teach yourself a bad baseline, because that will throw you off completely and it's harder to correct." She says with the wry smile of personal experience.

That smile widens and she gives a nod, "Good for you! Well then, we should start training you in hand to hand. And when you're ready, we can go to a gun range for you to get used to guns. You don't have to carry one, but you should at least know basic gun safety and to be prepared for the sound of them being fired, and the feel of them. That way if you *have* to, you can. But we have plenty of agents that specialize in other areas and don't really use guns much. So don't feel that's a path you have to take." Isabel sets her hands to her hips and nods, "Alright. Well then lets start getting you some good basic self-defense going. After we've practiced that a bit, if you want to try taking it airborne, it will be a good chance to start training up your spatial awareness. Flight combat is a whole other kettle of fish, you have to be aware of all your surroundings in every direction. There's no wall to put yourself up against, no ground to stand on. You have to be mobile and perceptive."

Patty Sloan has posed:
"Thanks I want to learn as much as I can." Patty says with a smile. "This weekend things got really crazy. I am starting to get more used to being around guns. They still freak my out but I am getting better about being around them. Saturday I almost went into a hot situation where people were shooting, to try to get people to safety. Then Sunday I went to the bank to find it being robbed by a bunch of bridesmaids and a bride all wearing masks and all of them having assault rifles. I made a plan and executed it to get them to flee without revealing myself as the source of their illusions." She smiles.

"As for flight, I can't fly very well. My wing muscles are just not very strong yet. I can fly and use my abilities to get me to high positions and stuff but I can't maintain flight for longer than maybe a minute." She smiles. "I am ready to learn hand to hand. When it comes time for guns, I think I will be better off because knowing gun safety would make me a little less antsy around them. Plus I mean, I know I will always be a little freaked out being on the business end of a gun, Being able to disarm someone or whatever I need to do would be amazing."

Isabel Kane has posed:
"Sounds like you had a full weekend! This is why I tend to keep a low profile on weekends unless I'm called in. There's so much insanity going around... yeesh. Thankfully, a proportionate number of heroes that we can all manage to get the occasional weekend off." Izzy flashes a grin and rocks back on her heels. "Besides, being able to spend time with Sam is important, too."

Nodding, she smiles, "Well then, until you can build those up... have you thought about using them to glide? Start from a highervantage, then use updrafts and air currents to stay aloft. And that way, too, if you *have* to land, you know you can control your descent." Suggestion! But for the moment, Izzy slips from the short-sleeve shirt and tosses it aside, "Alright. We'll focus on hand to hand for now, and next weekend I'll schedule us some range time and we can go over gun safety with various firearms. Because you *will* see a lot of them. Went up against a guy not too long ago that had an honest to God blunderbuss. Straight outta the history books. Things can get very weird very fast."

Patty Sloan has posed:
"I have thought about it but I haven't tried it. Lemme see." Patty extends her wings and jumps up! a gust of wind launches her high into the air and she just lets herself glide a bit. Her wings flit and flutter a little to stabilize her but she definitely comes down slower than falling. As she touches the ground, she actually flutters them harder to touch down gently. "Did that work? I could probably give myself another burst of wind to stay up longer. It would be gliding but closer to flying I guess." She shrugs again.

"Okay! Hand to Hand!" She goes into the stance that she had just learned and actually looks like she has an idea of what to do. She smiles and moves her feet, circling. She is actually light on her feet, showing that dance class has been helping her out. "What should I do?" She asks as she continues moving.

Isabel Kane has posed:
Watching Patty catch the gust up into the air, turning this way and that as she slowly descends, Izzy smiles at the sight. She's clearly got some good instincts on how to use her wings to her advantage. That's a great start. When Patty reaches ground, Izzy grins, "That was great! And remember, you don't have to always provide your own gusts of wind. There are air currents and eddies and updrafts naturally, you can use those to help stay up in the air, too."

Nodding, Isabel takes up a responding stance, making hers more defensive to allow Patty the opportunity to work out her attacks. "First. Don't circule unless you know you can make it work. Against someone of a higher skill level, the only thing that's going to do is potentially put you off-balance as you're trying to be all cool, and they attack without ever having to turn around. I know, it's in all the movies and shows.. but those are wrong. You want to SEE your opponents hands and feet, their eyes, you want to be able to tell what they're going to do. At least until you get a little more experience under your belt."

Patty Sloan has posed:
She smiles as she considers what she is being told. "I have to learn to feel them. I'm not quite used to anything really. I mean I can feel the wind. I can feel it even more than just when it blows and stuff. Its like a weird sense. But I can feel the wind. I just need to be able to find those updrafts and such."

"Okay!" Patty stops moving around. She gets into one place and stays there. "Alright. I think this is better." She comments as she focuses. She doesn't use her powers thankfully. In fact the air is rather still. "Don't want you to think I am trying to blow ya away!" She laughs knowing she probably couldn't do that.

Isabel Kane has posed:
"That's something to think about then. Just sit outside and close your eyes and *feel* the wind. And I'm saying this but you should really talk to someone like Storm about this stuff. I know basic aerodynamics, but my powers aren't nature related and I don't fly using wings or wind." Izzy chuckles and lifts a shrug, then smiles, "But yeah, you should definitely look into that, I think it's going to open up a whole new world of potential for you."

Making sure that she's facing Patty, Izzy smiles, "Okay. How much do you know about striking and blocking?"

Patty Sloan has posed:
Patty nods, "I will talk with Storm the next time I see her. I've chatted with her a little before. She's mischievous!" She giggles a little bit and nods. "Yeah I will talk with her though. I'm sure she could tell me a few tips to flying around."

The younger girl smiles and takes off her glasses. She tosses them aside. "Don't wanna break those. I don't need my glasses all the time. I can see. I just need them for reading, writing... that sort of thing. Got bullied a lot for wearing those." She then smiles a little smile. "Absolutely nothing. I've never been in a fist fight or had to block a punch. Though I probably would have been better off if I could block punches and stuff." She readies herself and prepares to do... something. She doesn't even know what yet.

Isabel Kane has posed:
"I haven't actually met her yet, but I've seen her. She is legit amazing in action and I'm sure you could learn a lot from her." Isabel offers with a grin even as she shifts her stance to mirror Patty's, adjusting herself so she can better teach.

"Definitely don't want to break glasses. Okay! So then.. I'm going to move, and I want you to mirror what I do. We won't be touching each other, but we'll be close enough that you can see where the strikes would land, and how the blocks would work. Sound good? When you're comfortable with that, we'll take a few steps closer and speed things up a little so you can get a feel for how to strike and block. This way you'll learn how to both take a hit and give it. And you'll find after enough repetiton, it'll become muscle memory, your body will react even if you're still trying to think things out."

Patty Sloan has posed:
"I got to meet her Last Week for a little bit. It was interesting. She is definitely a character." Patty laughs and smiles. "Really nice and crazy powerful. I wouldn't want to be on the other side of her in a fight." She comments as she considers it.

"Right!" She listens carefully to what she is being told. "Okay do what you do." She smiles "I understand and I can do that. I'm not too worried. Its not like we are going to be beating the tar out of each other today..." Not like some other SHIELD agent techniques... "Anything else?" She asks curiously.

Isabel Kane has posed:
"You and me both! I'm strong, but I do NOT want to put that to the test against her," Izzy chuckles and shakes her head.

Setting herself up, Isabel punches out slowly, deliberately, with her right fist, while simultaneously bringing the left sweeping upright and slightly outward in a blocking motion. "This is a basic strike and block. The strike is meant to hit high center mass. So chest and shoulders. The block os meant to sweep the strike aside so it misses, or at worst, grazes the shoulder. Then we do the same, but with the opposite hands. So left hand strike, right hand block. And we'll swap back and forth between them. Sort of like a very slow and deliberate dance... without moving our feet." She smiles, "And when you're comfortable, then we'll speed it up a little more and actually have the strikes and blocks touch, so you'll actually block my strike and I'll block yours."

With the session set up, Isabel will start going through the basic strikes and blocks with Patty, leading her through it slowly, until Patty is confident in them, then speeding things up a little and taking her through them again. It's all about repetition and form, getting Patty comfortable and familiar with her stance, and the strokes or blocks. She'll keep her at it until Patty is able to hold her form and feels comfortable with her progress.