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 Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 10:00 am
Naomi's hair was fiercely pulled back, pinned out of her face and out of her way as she watched the instructor carefully, trying to imitate his moves. The ginga was the fundamental basic move of capoeira, a fluid movement that involved moving from side to side and crossing your legs slightly as you did it - the idea of which was to keep you constantly moving, so you weren't left as a standing target. You had to keep your body low to the ground, and it was all about endurance. At first it had seemed easy enough, and the fluidity of the movement had come naturally to the blonde. But then the instructor had urged them to keep going, and the act of using the same muscles over and over had caused them to burn and scream. Naomi's face was bright red and sweat was evident on her brow. This was more difficult than she'd initially thought it would be. It was only her second lesson, the leaflet advertising the art having found it's way into the blonde's hands via a certain General-Queen. She'd shown it to Chase and he'd urged her to go for it, and to be honest having any chance to defend herself seemed like a good idea. She hadn't expected it to hurt so much, though - she sure as hell bet that she'd ache in the morning. Her bad ankle was throbbing, and Naomi briefly found herself wondering again what she'd done to it. It was all a blur, but she assumed it must have been an old injury of some sort. To begin with it hadn't seemed much of an inconvenience, but even after only two sessions it had become clear that it would be a weakness she needed to work on. Capoeira offense was mainly comprised of kicks, and to put her whole weight onto that ankle wasn't something Naomi was comfortable with right now. Time was finally called on the ginga, and on the class. Groaning softly as she lifted herself, feeling her thighs groan with her, Naomi made her way to the side of the hall to snatch her water bottle, quickly downing three or four large gulps and using a towel to dry her face. She took a mirror from her bag to examine herself, grimacing at the distinctly unattractive shade of tomato her face had turned. She made a mental note to ensure she never took a class before any social activity.
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 10:30 am
It'd been a bit of a whim at first, going to check out yet another martial arts class. Honestly, the few self-defence classes she'd taken in Denmark she'd managed to completely fail, so she wasn't quite sure what she was thinking, pondering joining another one. Obviously being a capable fighter just wasn't in her cards. And yet... she'd already managed to get her a** beat by a Negaverser, and she hadn't even been back in DC for a month. That was just kinda sad. Obviously this was something she needed to work on, and Aggie was nothing if not hardworking. She came back to this city entirely for her senshi duties - she wasn't about to abandon them now by continuing to try and run from all her battles. So she'd do this. No matter how much it scared her (and it scared her a lot; she'd barely slept for the nightmares these past few days), she'd do this. Somehow. Which was how capoeira had come into the picture. Well, honestly it was more like the lady at the gym had recommended it for a fun class, but whatever. She'd gone to a class just to observe what this thing was all about and, well... it looked hard. Really hard. And co-ordinated, which was definitely not Aggie's strong point. So... was it really worth pursuing this further? There were a ton of other martial arts classes out there after all, and there had to be something easier than this. But wouldn't that just be taking the easy way out again, like she'd done two years ago when she'd went to Denmark with her parents, far away from senshi and the Negaverse and talking cats? And look how that'd turned out - the regret, the guilt had nearly eaten her up. So maybe she wouldn't take the easy way out. But she needed more info on this thing before she decided definitively. As the class was ending, she scanned the participants for anyone who looked like they wouldn't mind a few questions. And weren't totally intimidating, ie the instructor and all the super good members of class. A good candidate was the girl with blond hair. She looked nice, as nice as anyone sweating and obviously concentrating hard could. She hadn't been super fantastic like some of the other members of the class, but she was obviously giving it her all. Alright, so the blond girl it was! And, Aggie thought to herself with markedly more enthusiasm, this was another opportunity to make a friend, wasn't it? "Hey!" She'd been sure to step into the girl's line of sight this time - no spooking innocent people this time - before speaking. "That looked, um, really awesome out there." She beamed, radiating as much friendlyness as she could before veritably being called a creep.
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 11:31 am
Naomi was still studying herself in the mirror, picking at a blackhead of all things, when the red-head approached. She'd seen her out of the corner of her eye and heard her say hey, but didn't looked up until no-one else had answered. She did a quick 360 - was she talking to her? She didn't recognize the girl, but smiled none the less, albeit a little shyly. "Hey?" She was confused, but the girl was radiating friendlyness and so Naomi returned in kind, taking another gulp of water before standing and flashing a brighter, more genuine smile through her exhaustion. Boy was she knackered. "Sorry, I thought you were talking to someone else," she admitted a little abashedly, and her cheeks would have portrayed her embarrassment if they weren't already a deep scarlet colour from the exertion. The red-head went on to compliment her, so Naomi flashed a grin. She really hoped she wasn't supposed to know this girl. She was so blimin' forgetful. "Heh, thanks!" Glancing around again, trying to remember if the girl had just taken part, she looked instead to the girl herself for an answer and quickly deduced that she hadn't. She looked far too...un-ruffled to have taken part. Even the girls who pinned their hair back to perfection and brushed an extra layer of water-proof mascara on their perfectly preened eyelashes still ended up looking frizzy and tired at the end of a class. "Oh, where are my manners?!" Extended a hand, Naomi offered another smile, "I'm Naomi." At least, that was what she'd been told.
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:37 pm
"Oh no worries, it happens." She waved the sentiment away. Really, if anyone was at fault, it was likely herself. Aggie had a rather limp but enthusiastic handshake as the other girl was about to find out. "Pleased to meet you! I'm Aggie. It's really, really nice to meet y-you." Beaming and managing to hold on to the other girl's hand for just a few moments too long, the red-head finally let go. "Oh, um, sorry about that." She fiddled with a pigtail, suddenly looking less friendly and more nervous. It was best to cut to the chase, right? Or should she make nice for a bit longer? No, she didn't want to look like a weirdo who randomly ambushed people after they were done exercising to talk about nothing. Because that was weird, right? Oh nevermind... "I was, um, wondering if I c-could ask you a few questions about class?" Hopefully Naomi wouldn't mind too much, but just in case she did, Aggie stayed on high alert, ready to hightail it out of there and forget this ever happened.
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:48 am
The girl held her hand for just a fraction of a second too long, and so Naomi found her smile becoming a slightly confused one, before she finally released and muttered an apology. It was odd, how those few extra seconds could completely change your opinion of someone. Naomi merely brushed it off, however, not one to judge on such trivial things. She brightened her smile, not wanting to appear intimidating. The newly-introduced Aggie seemed to suddenly get nervous, with tell-tale signs such as fiddling with her hair. Naomi waited patiently, though was about to interrupt and ask if she was okay when the red-head finally found her voice - the blonde had been expecting a somewhat outrageous request, given how nervous she'd been, and so flashed the smallest of grins when she realized it was only answering a few questions that Aggie required. "Yeah, sure, fire away." She was getting nervous over nothing!
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 2:58 pm
Aggie waited a few seconds just to be sure that Naomi really thought it was okay before beaming again and lightening up. Hallelujah, the blonde had agreed to help her! And she didn't seem unhappy to help, either; she'd been very polite even when Aggie had messed up with the handshake and then kind of lost her voice. Like, she'd been really nice, Aggie thought admiringly. "Um, I was just wondering..." It was at this point that the red-head realised that she should probably have prepared some questions in advance. Yeah, that might have been a good idea. "Um, do you like capoeira?" Lamest. Question. Ever. Aggie was inwardly flagging herself for her lack of creativity - honestly, Naomi probably wouldn't even be here if she didn't like capoeira, so what kind of question was that?
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Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2012 8:48 am
She really hadn't come prepared, had she? Amused more than anything, Naomi tried her best to radiate reassurance as she gave a small nod. "Yeah, I really like it. I've only been doing it a couple of weeks, I think this is my...fourth class?" Her mouth dry, she paused to take another drink of water, wondering if there was anything else to add. "I'm trying for three times a week, though at the moment I can only manage two. It leaves you quite...sore." Naomi wasn't sure if she should be bigging it up more - would she get rewarded if she convinced more people to join? Like a referral programme? "Are you thinking of starting then?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2012 9:08 am
Nodding a lot as she listened intently to the other girl's words, Aggie considered her question for a moment. Was she? Was she really considering it, seriously? "Yeah... I think I am. It'd be nice to be able to defend myself. Especially h-here, in DC with all the, um, weird stuff." She sent a smile at Naomi. "It looks really tough, though. But pretty." It was a weird juxtaposition, but it seemed to work. "Do you think it, um, w-would actually be of use against other people?" Waaaait, that sounded kinda wrong. "In a d-defensive situation, of course!"
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Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2012 10:55 am
Naomi smiled - it was always nice to see a new face, not that she had really been going long enough to pick out new faces from old yet. She more went off of ability. If someone was kicking arse and rocking the moves, it was pretty obvious that they'd been going a while. Either that or they were just insanely gifted. She nodded in understanding at the red-head's statement, "Yeah, there's pretty creepy stuff going on. You want to be able to hold your own." If only civilian's knew. This was the perfect thing, especially since her attacks weren't directly offensive, more support. She needed to be able to deliver the final blow, and to do so effectively. Not that she'd been in a fight yet...Naomi wrinkled her nose. She wasn't entirely sure she was ready for that just yet. Still, she grinned at the strange-sounding phrase. "No, I know exactly what you mean! There's something beautiful about it, but deadly. That's half the reason I love it." The question about it's use confused her a little, so there was a slight pause before she answered, "The whole idea of it is to be of use, but you'll need to keep at it for a bit before you can freestyle properly." The blonde paused again before expanding, "Like, the basic moves are very choreographed. You need to be confident before you can really use it in a random situation."
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Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:23 am
"Yeah, don't want to get caught in something without some sort of defense." She looked serious, returning the nod. It was good to see that some civilians understood the risk that was living in DC, at least. It was dangerous even for a senshi (maybe especially for a senshi), and even if civilians didn't have the strength of those who were powered up and probably couldn't defeat a Negaverser in a fight, at least being able to put up some sort of resistance and possibly using that to get away was a good idea. The Negaverse were merciless, in Aggie's opinion, and being innocent just wasn't enough to be spared in their pursuit of, well, whatever it was they were pursuing. "It's like a dance, but then it's not." She smiled at Naomi, glad to see that they were on the same page here. "I'd kinda read up on it at home before going here, but it sounded like, really boring and then I came here and it really wasn't! It was much prettier than any d-dry words on a page could describe, you know? "And that sounds r-reasonable." The red-head thought for a moment. "It's probably the same with other martial arts too, like, you always have to be good at something to use it effectively. Or something like that. But I guess not a lot of people know this style so it, um, might be a bit unpredictable to them?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2012 9:57 am
Like a dance, but not. Naomi smiled again and nodded eagerly, pleased that there was somewhere else who seemed to see the art as she did. "Exactly!" She was a little worried that it supposedly sounded boring online - you didn't want to blow your own trumpet, but at the same time you didn't want to sell yourself short. Perhaps she should investigate, see if she could help out. After all, it was a great way to keep fit, even if you weren't training up to be a kick-a** puppet for Chaos. "I think so, did you not look at some videos?" She didn't mean to sound accusing, more curious, wide blue eyes watching Aggie patiently. The mention of unpredictability threw the blonde slightly - she hadn't thought about it like that before. "That makes sense, actually. I don't think many people have heard of capoeira, so you'll sort of have a foot up on them I guess."
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Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2012 12:33 pm
"Er..." Aggie looked hunted. "There were videos?" Truthfully it hadn't even occurred to her that there might be videos; she didn't often use the internet for anything more than sending emails to her parents or reading up on geography, neither of which really gave her much contact with the video section of the net. Well, she had heard about skype and her parents had been talking about using it to chat recently, but that was about the extent of it. "Yeah! And it d-doesn't really look like most martial arts, like, the way you move is kinda different? So when they're expecting one thing maybe they won't notice that it's a other thing coming. Er, yeah." She finished rather lamely.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 7:45 am
Naomi smiled kindly, "There were a few, but don't worry. Just check it out on youtube, type in capoeira and there are quite a few." There were some tutorial-like ones that she'd tried out before making the jump to attending class, and they'd helped her out quite a lot. It was always a good idea to research and know what you were getting yourself into, and videos were super-useful for things like this. The blonde laughed somewhat, hoping that the girl didn't think she was laughing at her. Well...she supposed she was, but not in a cruel way! "No no, I know exactly what you mean. It's hard to put into words." She smiled again, "If you want, we can always meet up for coffee sometime and talk about it more? I have a lift home so can't really now, but I'd love to talk about it some more. I can bring my laptop and show you the videos?" It was a bit of a stab in the dark, and she'd have loved to have gone out now, but she was sure Chase would be waiting. And let's face it, she needed more friends right now.
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Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 11:56 am
"Oh, s-sure! That'd be lovely." More than lovely really; potentially making a friend, and getting a more seasoned eye to analyze the videos with were both very good things, as far as Aggie was concerned. "I'll be signing up for this class for sure, s-so maybe after the next one?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 2:47 am
"Next class is Saturday morning, so if you like we can shower here then head out?" She had just had this conversation with herself - no social situations directly after class, it would only end in embarrassment. But the community showers here would have to suffice, since it did sort of make sense to go straight from the hall. Naomi smiled, "I'm glad you're joining though!" It'd be nice to have another friend. Or just...y'know, a friend, period.
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