How would you like your training today?

Sure, Isa's story wasn't the usual one. Most wrestlers were surely training hard with the aim to get more power, and Isa could guess that Alicia was one of those who avidly visited the gym. Glancing at her thighs again made Isa sure that sculpting them had required countless hours of working out.

Isa's power was instead like more of a coincidence. And so had her love for the scissor hold been. She had just happened to realise it to be a great way to control others. And to be honest, doing that often turned out to be quite, ehm, fun.

Alicia's question revealed that she had clearly not ridden a horse before. "Oh, heh, yeah, that and a few other things. Really, if you would ride a horse you wouldn't have to really ask that anymore!"

Isa was about to reply Alicia's second question with "It's fun!", but then the redhead kept on talking.

"Oh, well yeah, I guess..." the blonde let out, as the continuation made her slightly confused. It was rare that Isa would have been in a situation to use them on someone she didn't like. "I guess, for me, it's just the easiest way to control someone, you know? Just something that's really useful when having a match. But I guess it's quite fun to see someone forced to admit losing to their power..."

The last sentence made Isa blush again. She wasn't really proud of that tendency to feel that way. But somehow Alicia seemed to be like the best person to admit that to, and the most likely candidate to appreciate that trait. Besides, the Brit was starting to feel like a friendly and nice person now, and it would probably be cool to have her train the blonde even further.

Naturally, Alicia hadn’t intended to talk over Isa. That hadn’t occurred to her at all, she just hadn’t anticipated the blonde having much if anything to say. Fortunately, nobody seemed offended. In fairness to her, while Isa might think that horse riding was the best thing ever, the redhead hadn’t ever had the chance to try it. Again, the perils of growing up in central London, then not being into that sort of thing.

Though, from Isa’s tone, she could be hearing about the merits of the sport (Activity? Sport?) a lot more if the two kept talking.

Oh well, Alicia didn’t think she’d mind much. In some ways, she supposed it might be a tiny bit relevant to her studies, knowing what it was actually like to ride a horse. That was probably reaching but still…

Shaking off the sidetrack her thoughts had found themselves on, the redhead refocused as Isa explained.

The line about how they were the best way to control people got a knowing smirk from the kickboxer, who did indeed know exactly what Isa meant. This time though, Alicia didn’t mean to interrupt, holding her thoughts as Isa carried on. And yes, people did often underestimate how useful legs like theirs could be in a match.

There were the obvious uses, like scissors or kicks, but the advantages didn’t end there. There was balance, the lower centre of gravity…

And, with the last admission, Alicia grinned still wider.

Isa might have been blushing, but she got it.

”Awesome,” Stepping over, the kickboxer offered Isa a hand up, ”So, let’s make this fun. What would you like me to show you?”

Isa hadn't intended to sound like a teacher when she was commenting on the benefits of horseback riding. Even if she might have come across that way, it didn't mean that she would have been overly attached to the activity. She wasn't a fangirl in any way. For her, it had been primarily a mean of transport, one that didn't have a close competitor when talking about climbing up the volcanoes in the remote outback parts of Iceland.

Anyway, even if Isa hadn't been too proud of revealing her fondness of controlling others with her scissors, the admission seemed to make Alicia only prouder about her. That was a good, although rather expected sign, especially considering how their training rounds had ended up being so far.

Alicia surely had also a lot of experience of controlling opponents with her scissors, but she also seemed to have more varied fighting experience behind her. If she was still so approving of scissors, maybe Isa was really on a right track.

But what would Isa like Alicia to show her? That question was still something Isa didn't have an answer right off the bat. The blonde had expected her trainer to have ideas on how Isa could improve. To be honest, Isa was quite exhausted by now from all the training she had done already today, and was expecting their training session to be in its final stages.

Still, after a brief consideration, Isa managed to come up with an answer. If Alicia wanted to show her moves, she wasn't dumb enough to reject that.

"Ehm, well... I have to always rely a lot on getting opponents grounded. So, it would probably be useful to get to know some useful moves to down opponents effectively..." the blonde reasoned. "Oh, and also, while I don't have that much upper body strength, if you can think of any throws that would still be easy to perform, that would be great as well!"

Then again, the big question was whether Alicia would be guiding her on techniques, or have a more "practical" approach by starting to throw the blonde around the ring.

Let’s be honest here. Alicia wasn’t a teacher. She’d never taught anyone anything much, at least not that she could recall, and she’d certainly never got any professional training in how to instruct someone.

So, she was making this up more or less as she went along. But, while she did want to go away and think about this a bit – if they were going to do it longer term – she did also think Isa deserved something useful.

Hence the offer, though she’d honestly been expecting the blonde to ask for something fun. Unusual. Though, to be honest, given neither of them knew what the other’s moves were yet (other than scissors), it’d probably been a stupid question.

Regardless, she definitely hadn’t expected Isa to ask for anything as simple but useful – essential even – as a takedown.

Well. Alicia blinked, shook her head.

”Sure,” She said after a moment, ”Throws aren’t my scene so much, I don’t know Judo or anything. But getting people on the ground…”

The redhead grinned, wide and mean.

”That I can do. Let’s start with the basics. You know the double leg takedown?”

If she didn’t, well, Alicia had more than just a way to take her opponents down to show Isa. But she’d been caught on the hop enough already not to make assumptions about what her new friend-slash-pupil knew or didn’t.

Then maybe it was time to call it a day. But first Alicia waited to see what Isa had to offer.

OK. Well maybe what Isa was asking was quite basic stuff. Maybe basic enough to make Alicia fall somewhat in disbelief. Still, the redhead had to remember that Isa was far from a professional fighter, so on the blonde's opinion, asking those moves was perfectly justified!

Isa wanted to point out that she wasn't specifically referring to judo of other such martial arts, just some stylish wrestling moves she had seen used before. Of course, those usually required a lot of strength, but she had some in her legs that could help, right?

But getting into that seemed quite pointless, as Alicia already had something in mind.

Double leg takedown? "Uhm, well, maybe... I'm not so good with the terms, so maybe you could show me what you are exactly meaning?"

The answer was quite honest - it sounded simple enough that she could have sometimes done something like that. But then again, she had no specific idea of what Alicia was referring to.

Anyway, Isa was now preparing herself to be taken down for a number of times. There seemed to be no other way to let Alicia show her the different moves, and she should just be happy that there was someone showing her.

Honestly, Alicia’s assumption was less about the blonde and more a reflection on the way the redhead herself thought. Most fighters in AFW would probably hear throws and think wrestling slams or whatever. Alicia? Well, she used very few of those herself and the wrestling moves she did use were both simple and instinctive as much as anything.

That actually did sort of remind her of what Isa was saying – it seemed the blonde wasn’t sure either way, feeling that maybe she’d actually used the move before but just wasn’t sure what it was called. Ok, fair enough. Alicia could work with that.

”Sure,” the big Briton agreed, ”And I think you’ll like what you can do with this one.”

Deciding to take a slightly gentler approach, more intended to let Isa see what she was about – after all, this was meant to teach the blonde something – Alicia promptly moved in as if she was going to execute the double leg takedown.

She went in low, looking to stay under Isa’s guard, getting her shoulder pressed into the other woman’s tummy and her hands under the blonde’s knees. Unless Isa blocked, the newcomer would find herself hefted up and gently planted on the mat, with Alicia immediately looking to scoot up into a full mount position astride Isa’s chest.

”See what I did there?”

The redhead wouldn’t try and go any further, just holding position while she waited to see what Isa had to say. Then she’d explain the move a bit, demonstrate a couple of options that Isa could use afterwards and show her new student – wow, that was going to take some getting used to – how it worked.

Luckily, Alicia didn't seem to question at all Isa's somewhat ambiguous response. More than anything, she seemed to be keen on showing her the move.

And that made Isa brace herself.

But a little surprisingly, Alicia seemed to take it easy. Sure, Isa was promptly taken down by the kickboxer's move. But the blonde could clearly tell that Alicia took it much more easily than she would have in a genuine match. And frankly, it was good also because that allowed Isa to grasp some idea of what the Brit was actually doing.

In other words, clearly Alicia had some idea on how to train others.

Soon enough Isa found her trainer on top of her. "Well yes, that really seemed super-effective! And I can see that you're already in a perfect position to scissor me if you wanted to..." the blonde's statement meant purely as a testament to the effectiveness of the move, rather than an invitation to try some scissoring.

And frankly, it didn't require too much explaining for Isa to grasp what the move was all about. The blonde seemed to be a quick learner for now. After a couple of instructions, Isa got to try the move out on Alicia, and then it was the blonde straddling her trainer beneath her.

”The best moves always set up the next step,” Alicia agreed, flexing her thighs slightly where they surrounded Isa’s torso, ”Once you’ve got this, there’s a few neat tricks you can pull. Let me show you again…”

While Alicia was probably as brutal a sparring partner as Isa was likely to meet in Friction, there was a difference between sparring and training. Alicia might not have been a teacher but she was too smart to think people learnt anything from being smacked around the mats. Except, perhaps, not to mess with her.

Her patience probably wouldn’t have been that great but, luckily, Isa was a quick study as well. Alicia put her through it twice, maybe three more times, explaining what she was doing. And then the blonde had a go and – while she didn’t nail it the first time – she got it pretty quickly.

Soon enough, their positions were reversed and it was Alicia starring up at a triumphant Isa.

Well, it was still one of the basic takedowns but it was a start and it was impressively quick – between Alicia’s lack of teaching experience and Isa’s apparent novitiate status as a wrestler.

Rather than indulging her instincts and going for an escape, the redhead lay still and grinned up at her student-slash-new-friend.

”Alright, you’ve got them,” She agreed, ”Now, you want to squeeze them, right?” her grin widened.

”Couple of easy ways to do it. If they’re dim, they’ll try and buck you off. That way, you can get a leg under them and you’ve got them. Or here’s what I like to do. Scoot up, start pounding them in the face. They’ll block and then you grab an arm or two. Here, move up, I’ll show you what I mean.”

As if Isa had been punching her in the face, Alicia got her arms up in guard position to shield her face, waiting for the blonde to do as asked.

Trust was a strange thing. It could get easily broken and it was usually hard to earn - but in some circumstances trust could be built like from scratch. This was one of those cases. Somehow, despite their relative unfamiliarness with each other, Isa had learnt to trust Alicia by now. Maybe she was naïve, but Alicia seemed very genuine with her efforts on training the blonde.

That trust seemed mutual as Alicia didn't even make any efforts on escaping from beneath Isa. Or then she knew Isa was too kind to, or smart enough not to, harm her in any way. Either or, it looked like their training session was becoming the beginning of something in the longer term.

The session wasn't over though. Alicia was keen on keeping up coaching the blonde. "Sure!" was Isa's natural reaction to the squeezing part.

The first suggestion seemed reasonable enough. Bucking made it easy to slip a leg for a good, strong scissor hold. The second suggestion on the other hand - that wasn't really something Isa would have been used to doing. She wasn't actually sure if she had ever pounded anyone in the face before... And now Alicia wanted her to do that?

Sure, the redhead had definitely taken a beating before. But still, "Are you sure?" was Isa's preferred answer for her request. Things were once again getting out of her comfort zone. But that wasn't news at all anymore today.

Despite that, Isa was proceeding as requested. Be it in the name of trust, or simply obedience, Isa started pounding Alicia's arms covering her face. And now that she was at it, the hits weren't too weak either. Well, not that hard either, but strong enough to dissolve any doubts that Isa wasn't brave enough to hit her from the redhead's mind. The blonde knew that Alicia would know how to stop her whenever she wanted to. And besides that, Alicia already had a follow-up plan.

And that was why Alicia’s grin was as wide as it was. She wasn’t sure how she’d lucked into a friend who was as into squeezing people as she was, but Isa certainly seemed to share her taste for the scissorhold and that was at least half of why the kickboxer was happy to share her time with the blonde. After all, she didn’t even need to teach Isa anything about the actual hold itself.

It was just giving her some more ideas about how to apply and use it to her advantage. Not to mention she might get a good match-up out of this, down the line. All good reasons for what she was doing.

Admittedly, she was also going to have to work on that reluctance. Hopefully, it was just a sparring thing and not a more general issue, because Isa was definitely going to be punched in the face in Friction. And she needed to be able to punch back.

In answer to her new student’s question, Alicia just nodded.

She kept her arms up.

And a moment later, Isa slammed a fist into them.

Despite the brief hesitation Isa wasn’t a lightweight, and her arms were certainly feeling the impacts as the blonde’s fists pounded away at her guard.

It was a bit sloppy, the punishment spread out, but Alicia wasn’t about to complain about Isa’s execution.

”Good,” She praised, her words interspersed with grunts as her defences were pummelled, ”Don’t forget you can use your forearms and elbows too. Now I’ve got to keep my arms up. So, you feint a punch and grab a wrist.”

As best she dared without leaving a gap, the redhead proffered an arm, waiting for Isa to grab a hold before she continued with her suggestions.