Grace, Sorority, Economy

Mariko’s brow twitched in mild irritation as Shinobu brought up Ami. That bitch had recently not only defeated Mariko’s brother, but gone out of her way to humiliate him in front of thousands of fans. Not the kind of thing she was fond of remembering, to say the least.

But she pushed the thought aside, doing her best to maintain her friendly, yet confident grin. “I see. Well, practice does make perfect, as they say. And with such a pretty woman helping you out, I’m sure you’re in excellent hands.” she finally replied a faint chuckle.

“But you know, you should have a bit more confidence in your abilities. The ladies like handsome guys with confidence. Isn’t that right, Cassie-chan?” Mariko continued, giving the other woman a playful wink.

Cassie furrowed her brow at Mariko while she limbered up. She wiggled her toes and eagerly dug them into the mat. "Well..." She said, cautiously regarding the purple-haired girl while trying to retain a friendly smile.

"Maybe... You could help us train? You and I can grapple, and so I can demonstrate some techniques for Shinobu, and we can see how we feel about putting a match together? Or you guys can," she said, with a nervous laugh. "I'm not his manager or anything!"

"Of course you're not." Mariko replied with a giggle. "Sure thing. I'd love to help out a bit." And with that, the Japanese woman kicked off her boots before moving to stand in front of Cassie, all the while maintaining her sly grin.

"So, how're we going to do this, Cassie-chan?" she asked, inwardly very interested in finding out about this woman. Was this "training session" just the cover of a little date between them, or did she genuinely have something worth teaching him? Whichever it was, Mariko guessed she wouldn't have to wait long to find out.

In the blink of an eye, Cassie and Mariko seemed about to face off in the friendliest of spars. Friendly to anyone who might be watching from afar. Cassie wouldn't say a word and Mariko was playing it cool, but Shinobu knew there had to be some tension there. Cassie looked less relaxed then normal but Shinobu wondered if they actually could do as they said.

"It's... she may not be my manager, but I trust her explicitly, Ishii-san." Shinobu said. "I think maybe it would be best if I watched." He blushed suddenly. Hopefully they understoo as he mentally cursed himself for his choice of words. "Cassie-chan is quite the experienced grappler, so I am sure I could learn quite a bit." He added.

"Okay," Cassie said, more business-like than before. "What I wanted to do was go over some of the positions and situations that Shinobu was in during his match, and how you can apply some basic technique to fix some of the problems you had."

She gestured to Mariko as she stepped toward the middle of the mat, inviting her to join her. "First, I remember that there was the body kick that led to the DDT. Why don't we assume that I just got kicked... Mariko, grab a side headlock..." She bent down to let the girl wrap an arm around her neck. "So here, your first instinct is often to pull away, like this."

She stuck her butt out and wiggled and tried to use some of her weight to pull her head out. "But unless you're way bigger, that wont work. Mariko, feel free to work as much as you want. Resist and tighten down on the headlock all you want, I don't think I'll have any problems."

“Sounds like fun.” Mariko said before moving to join Cassie, and then listening again while the woman spoke. At the instruction to put her in a headlock, Mariko immediately obliged, wrapping her arm around Cassie’s neck.

As she then attempted to pull her head out, Mariko tightened her hold around Cassie’s neck to ensure she wouldn’t be slipping out so easily. The next comment certainly packed a lot of confidence, and Mariko couldn’t that was intended as a shot at her, or simply Cassie just having confidence in herself in general.

A headlock like this certainly wasn’t the most difficult hold to escape, but the Japanese woman couldn’t help but be a little curious to see how Cassie would go about it. “Alright. If you say so.” she said, before clamping down tightly with the headlock and spreading her feet a bit out to widen and further secure her base.

Cassie tightened her neck and turned her head slightly in toward Mariko's body to help alleviate some of the pressure, enough that she could talk. She had had her neck squeezed thousands of times by people bigger and stronger and more skilled than Mariko, and she remained completely calm in the hold.

"Okay, so here," she said, her voice bearing some of the strain of the hold. "Can't get out this way," she wiggled some more and couldn't pull back to get her head free. "She's way bigger and stronger than me. But I'm okay here. It's not comfortable, but I'm not in danger just from this, so right now I'm just paying attention to her body, and I'll move when she does. In this case, it'll be a DDT, for demonstration purposes. So Mariko, go ahead and give me a nice DDT, eh? Don't be shy."

The moment Mariko pulled back for her DDT, Cassie lunged forward. She threw her bodyweight into the girl so that instead of landing on her head, she landed on top with her shoulder crashing into Mariko's chest. She used the surprise moment of impact to yank her head free, and pulled back just enough to shove Mariko's legs to the side so that she could take a position laying across her. She wrapped her arms around Mariko's neck and shoulder, kept her knees tight against her side and spread wide so that she kept all of her weight pressing down squarely on the girl's chest, pinning her in place.

In the blink of an eye, she had deftly turned a potentially devastating move into an advantageous position. She held Mariko down and gave Shinobu's brain a moment to catch up.

"I can go into detail about what just happened, but nothing I just did was complicated. Just basic technique planned and executed well, and this is a great position to have because there's so much available to me, and most of the girls in AFW don't have the background to really be able to defend."

Mariko kept the headlock tightly synched in while Cassie explained what she was doing. And though her training in grappling certainly wasn’t as extensive as the Canadian’s, it wasn’t too hard to see where she was going with this. “Sure thing.” Mariko replied as she was instructed to deliver the DDT.

Knowing it would end with a crash onto her back, Mariko dropped back quick and hard enough to make a believable representation of an actual DDT attempt without simply hurling herself back as hard as she could. Sure enough Mariko fell back onto the mat with Cassie not only crashing onto her chest, eliciting a brief grunt from her, but also allowing the woman to break free from the headlock. And not even a second later, Cassie had a secure position over her by wrapping her arms around Mariko’s neck and shoulder while bringing her legs close and wide to properly leverage herself.

“Seems you've yourself a smart one, Shinobu-kun.” Mariko said with a giggle after Cassie spoke. “She’s right. I might be a bit bigger than Cassie-chan, but she won’t have any problem holding me here with this leverage.” To emphasize her point, Mariko bucked a few times, knowing it likely wouldn’t do much more than budge Cassie, if even that. “And what makes it work is this right here.” she continued, swinging her free hand to give Cassie a little playful smack right on the back of her nearest leg.

“If they’re extended back too far back or held too close together, you leverage goes away, and your opponent will probably be able to get out without too much difficulty. But as it is, she can transition to one of a multitude of different holds from here, or simply stay there and wait for me to tire myself out trying to escape. Isn’t that right, Cassie-chan?” she asked. Though not the expert Cassie was, she was still curious how the woman would react to her interjecting into her lesson.

Shinobu did his best to pay careful attention to what was going on. Cassie said it was simple but to the actor, who knew nothing of fighting that wasn't choreographed, it just looked liked Cassie and Mariko fell over and somehow didn't get her head caved in.

He listened to both girls intently while he stared at the pile they had made. His cheeks flushed but he tried not to pay attention. If he was to follow Cassie's instructions, then he could very well end up in that same position.

He wondered about THAT thought too but let it pass.

"Both of you make it seem so easy, but I'm not certain if I'm capable..." He admitted. Thought it wasn't from lack of confidence but moreso that when it came ttime to do it in a match, he might be too worried about pulling it off, rather than just DOING it.

"Well..." Cassie said hesitantly. Mariko wasn't completely wrong, but...

"Think weight, not leverage. Be heavy and tight, otherwise she gets free and beats me up. Knees in tight, a little under her shoulder and by her hip, so she can't turn in toward me... And the wider you spread your knees, the heavier you can be on her chest. There are times when you'd want to be up on your toes or other things, but that's if you have a plan. For now, just basics."

She hoped the second voice didn't confuse Shinobu. It was complicated enough as it was.

"Submitting her from here would be no problem, and it wasn't hard to get this position. You just need to get a good grasp on the basics, and then we can start to think about things like... She'll probably look for a DDT here, look for her to arch her back and then I can do this..."

She sat up onto her knees and put her hands on her thighs. "You can go a long way with just good technique. Like... Mariko, do you have any grappling background?" She gestured toward the taller girl. It was an honest question.