An Honourable Spar (For Valicon)

Charlotte was ever the duellist, when growing up most girls got dolls. Charlotte got a pair of boxing gloves and a sword, she was doing those sports and giving it all she could ever since her folks had sat her down and regaled epic tales of her ancestors being heroic knights besting opponents in single combat and standing up for the common folk. Charlotte had favoured striking first and foremost before moving to learning a decent grapple game, most if not all fights were always guaranteed to be taken to the floor at some point she had learned. 

Even in wrestling this still held precedence, Charlotte despite her experience would by her own opinion would say that she had enough experience......only to know that she still had to learn far more there. Same thing with the art of the squared circle rather than the octagon, thankfully it seemed that Rebecca could provide that for the duel seeker here today.

The redheaded wrestler requested that Charlotte teach her how to improve her strikes, to which Charlotte gave a smile and said "You got it, let's find us a ring then!" with that Charlotte would pat Rebecca on the back and practically leap off the bench in enthusiasm. She'd motion for the wrestler to join her in a nearby wrestling ring, the Frenchwoman would leap up to the apron and then over the top rope landing in an elegant forward roll. Once Rebecca got into the ring herself, Charlotte would start doing some light stretching to loosen herself up. "Alright, let me know when your ready! To help you with your striking I'll first need to get a taste of it, come at me with your punches and kicks and back away when you've had enough. Don't worry, I've got an iron chin." Charlotte stated tapping the side of her jawline to emphasise this, the duel seeker would then get her front palms up to signal she was ready to get a taste of trying to catch these hands with lady Rebecca here!

Rebecca had been fighting most of her life. She had been taking down goons on the streets of Rome long before she actually stepped into the ring. Her father and mother had simy tried to focus that drive towards other ends until finally she joined the school wrestling team and it all just clicked for her. Still most of her material was self taught, so she needed constant training to refine what she had to the best it could be. Hence why she was so excited to join Charlotte.

Rebecca followed along taking the steps then finally getting between the ropes, pulling off her t-shirt and folding it off to the side, revealing a black sports bra and a toned core underneath. Once she was ready she took her position and then came in guns blazing at Charlotte, holding nothing back as she let loose a barrage of punches at Charlotte.

It was go time, Charlotte was no stranger to offering herself up as a punching bag. You could hit one of those ones that you string up all day and fair enough you'd build and improve your striking strength, but you'd not know how it felt until you actually exchanged strikes. Mike Tyson once said 'Everyone has a plan, until their punched in the face' and Charlotte could attest to this saying. Heck she could still remember being sat on her ass the first time she tried to spar with someone and ended up, since then Charlotte simply picked herself up and carried on as best she could. Trying to learn about where she went wrong, or offer feedback if she was asked to test her partner. So the French girl was here to do just that for Rebecca with the lady coming at her thick and fast.

Charlotte had her guard up, ducking and weaving and using her arms to block and deflect as best she can. As she did so she quickly and calmly sized up what her sparring partner was capable of, Charlotte wasn't attacking here even though she fully well could. A few blows would land on her, a chest shot, blow to the shoulders, even one landing square on the chin. But the duel seeker did not fall down but merely grunted upon being struck, she took the blows like a champ which would no doubt prove to Rebecca that Charlotte's credentials were legit.

After a couple of minutes of this Charlotte would leap backwards and say "Please stand down!" with the duel seeker putting her hands in front of her, once Rebecca ceased Charlotte would take a deep breath and nod her head and say "Nice one, I can tell you've been in your fair share of stand up fights. Here's a few tips for you, if your doing a stand up game. Keep your body at an angle rather than straight dead on, makes you harder to hit on the rebound. Vary your attack vectors and mixup where your coming from, I've been guilty of not doing this in the past. You don't need to always target for the head either, peppering the chest in combination makes your foe guess and the longer the fight goes the slower they think." Charlotte would nod with a smile and take a breather leaning on the ropes nearby while saying "Just give me a second, then let's have a lockup. Wanna see how good I can grapple with you."

After a couple of minutes of throwing punches Charlotte called a halt to her and with Rebecca in mid punch she did a small, ungainly skip to maintain her balance as the punch was redirected. Even Though Charlotte had never attacked Rebecca could tell the woman was insanely skilled and probably could have countered any number of her punches. she listened to the feedback and went to catalog it for later practice, especially the part about making herself harder to hit, being a tall woman she wanted to not totally rely on just tanking hits.

Next it was time for Rebecca to show Charlotte her side. She limbered herself up a bit before giving her partner the run down. "I am sure you are already aware of this but just in case, I am going to tell you this anyway. When Locking up with your opponent, the most important things to keep in mind are
1) How are you gripping them?
2) how you are standing

When you are pushing against your opponent pay more attention to keeping your arms flexible to absorb the strain, and put most of your power into pushing with your legs. Alright lets see if you can push me into the corner" She held out her arms looking to see how she would grip. then when they finally locked up she would not push forward, but focus all her effort on not being pushed, she wanted to see how Charlotte handled that.

Charlotte was no stranger to some grappling, she'd been in the clinch before in the octagon. Usually to try and drive a knee into her opponent's head or gut while trying to shift them towards the walls to further make them an easier target, or if she felt confident in having a better ground game than her opponent the duel seeker would try and take them to the mat and go for a ground and pound. But wrestling grappling was another sort of field however, Charlotte had faced a wrestler once in an MMA match and when they landed a lunging tackle Charlotte had been completely surprised and ended up tasting the mat and had lost due to pondering what just the heck hit her there. 

The duel seeker knew she'd need to work on this aspect and the wrestler here had quite an experienced track record, demonstrated as such by Rebecca promptly listing off her advice in a matter that could only come from a professional. Ever the keen learner Charlotte would listen intently as she bounced around while nearing the redhead, lightly clenching and unclenching her hands in preparation for trying to wrangle around with Rebecca. Charlotte nodded calmly and would approach the wrestler with her arms outstretched slightly, using her martial arts background to keep her body shifting from one angle to the next. Feinting into a lunge before swaying to the left, mentally reminding herself not to strike here in the clinch.

Eventually however Charlotte would near Rebecca, gingerly so before suddenly springing forth to try and catch her into a collar and elbow tie up. The duel seeker would glance down to their legs, shuffling her thighs slightly and pressing down on the balls of her feet before trying to heft her weight forwards and try and make some progress into getting Rebecca corralled into the corner, Charlotte's clinching experience played well here. But she was keen to see how Rebecca would react to this sort of approach.......

It was certainly a unique approach, one fir which Rebecca had little, if any prior experience with. At first Rebecca would be pushed back a few feet before finally getting a handle on things and digging in her heel and settling her weight on her legs. She at that point became an immovable wall, a force few without her height or strength could hope to move. She let this contest go on a bit longer until it became clear that Charlotte could not push her any further and she called a halt.

Charlotte was the sort that was one that tried to acknowledge her bad habits when and where she could, in the heat of combat it was easy to slip back into her muscle memory of trying to establish dominance with knees and fists and taking her opponent for a ride as she jockeyed for position. Rebecca might not have expected Charlotte to go with the collar and elbow clinch up, but as a striker that was the Frenchwoman's main go to for a grapple rather than some charging tackle where she could put her limbs to good use. Yet she was confident she could back Rebecca up and get her into the corner, but the duel seeker was running into issues here. Rebecca was 6ft tall and had some muscle on her frame, not as much as say Ryan Knight. But she was toned all the same and certainly more than Ms Charlotte. 

To compensate Charlotte was trying to play fancy with her footwork, yet it wasn't getting her anywhere with how Rebecca was making herself a total brick wall. She couldn't make any headway to build her mindgames off of at this point, Charlotte would huff loudly with her cheeks puffed. Looking very much like an inflated baguette, Charlotte was drawing on her discipline to not use strikes as to do so would be to go against the rules here. Instead she gave a bit more of a go before Rebecca gave the signal, taking this as a chance to catch her breath Charlotte would somewhat step back and then bend forwards to rest her hands on her thighs.

"Whew! That was like trying to shove a castle wall there, can't control the clinch if you can just stone me there. Any tips? I was considering trying to hook my leg around or behind yours to take you to the mat, but that was against the rules. I can see that ring control is important even if its not the octagon however." Charlotte said, taking the moment to analyse the situation before saying "Learned more how to cope grapples on the ground than a corner though, octagonal ring and all that. Any tips for when I'm backed in the corner myself?"

Rebecca quickly stepped out of the ring and returned with 2 water bottles. "Here you go, thought you might be thirsty." she sipped hers while Listening to to Charlottes' Questions. she took a second to collect her thoughts before she answered, wanting to make sure she gave the proper response. "If you notice that a Lock up is not going your way, the best advice I can give is to try and break it. Most wrestlers, myself included usually refer to this process as a contest of strength, we use it to guage how strong we are compared to our opponent, so if you find yourself getting pushed, my advice would be to break it yourself and go for a different attack. As to what to do if you are in the corner yourself. That is a bit trickier a question and is very situational. In fact it would probably be easier simply to show you."

Rebecca moved till she was in the closest of the corners and signaled for Charlotte to come to her. "Now lets say you got me in the corner, What sort of attacks do you think you could pull with me in this position?"

Charlotte figured that she might as well take a breather here if Rebecca was offering, usually when the round ended the duel seeker had cared little for sitting tight save for the remarks and feedback that her corner folks could provide to her. The Frenchwoman nodded politely and accepted the bottle of water and took a sip before leaning over the ropes nearby and pouring the rest down the back of her head to cool herself down and shook her hair to get it nice and rinsed before giving a sigh while the redhead took a moment to collect herself and contemplate upon Charlotte's questions. 

Rebecca stated the best way to go about dealing with a lockup that you couldn't make any headway into jockeying for control your best bet was to simply try and break from it. Charlotte contemplated it before responding with "I can see the reasoning there, I'm told that I'm often on the aggressive side of combat. Usually if I ran into trouble in the clinch it was my opponent was a jiu jitsu fighter mainly, they'd be more comfortable on their backs and stuff. I usually throw out a knee or knuckle to the jaw to rattle them."

Rebecca then spoke of what could be done in the corner, the tall redhead would move towards the closest corner that was nearest to the duel seeker. Asking of what sort of techniques would Charlotte do were she able to get her opponent placed in the corner, Ms Harenwood would perk herself up off the ropes and say "Whenever I got my opponents up against the octagon wall I pressed them up and let them have it, usually targeted the head. Quickest way to end the fight, didn't really get the corners instead. Walls were larger. I'd probably try and land some gut or jaw blows before the ref came in to break it up. Could try those 10 blows from above, you know the move. On defence I'd try and land a good shot to get some breathing room, if me and they are similar builds I could try and reverse the position. Been curious about high flying though, you ever take off from there?"

"High flying, nah, never really been a strategy I've been able to pull off. I might be able to if I really tried, but no, my place is in the ground, picking up my opponents and making them submit. That is what I am built for, though my student, or appreciate we have used both terms before, she seems naturally gifted to flying around in the air....has a real talent for it." For just a second Rebecca was lost in thought about the cute girl she had been training for a year now.

"Anyway. Generally speaking if you were to get me into the corner, your response would be a series of strikes. A pretty good response, but it does have counters, namely blocking and waiting for the ref to break it up. There are other ways to attack a trapped foe though. Any number of throws can be performed from this angle as well as charge attacks. The trick to getting out is to know how you are going to be attacked and responding appropriately." Rebecca had been trapped in the corner so often she was surprised it did not have a permanent imprint of her back in it. "I know it's not a perfect answer but I hope it helps."