A whole different sport (Open to all)

Guest

Sweet Saturday was a blessing. No homework this weekend, and the pitch hadn't been booked for a practice today. So Felix dug out her stashed away Karate uniform and inflatable practice dummy, then changed, putting her robes over them and running out into the grounds before the sun was up, her red belt tied securely about her waist.

The young gryffindor was not usually an early riser but she'd missed out doing this for so long, she had hoped more weekends would be free so she could practice her lessons in peace. She didn't realise that muggle self defence and fighting styles wasn't even thought of for an after school club here.

She reached the pitch just as gold light was starting to break the horizon, turning the clouds pink and orange. She grinned seeing no one was around and set up her practice dummy, using a sticking charm to keep it on the grass instead of blowing off in the wind.

She ran two laps of the pitch to warm up, putting her robes to one side then running back to the dummy. She didn't start fighting right away, as much as she wanted to. Her old tutor always put them through drills first. Since he wasn't here she tried her best to go through them properly. She called out the stances and numbered the movements, her bare feet digging into the grass with every step.

After that then she began jumping around the dummy, ducking and weaving before starting off with punches, knocking the dummy around. Of course it rose up after every hit, only to be knocked back again.

She moved from punches to kicks, some straight, some hook kicks and a few impressive spinning kicks, that half the time left her on her ass in the grass. Like the dummy she got back up and tried again till she no longer fell over.

Well after sunrise and about an hour after breakfast the girl was still going at it with the dummy. She was determined to use her day off to it's fullest, and skipping breakfast was an atrocity to nature but she was too engrossed in what she was doing to care. She kicked, punched, ducked and weaved around the dummy, finally getting into the flow of things. It helped that she pictured the charms professor as her opponent, and it let off a load of steam for her.

Guest

Alexander had never really been a morning person, in all honest, except for Saturday's. Saturday was the day he liked to do some sport before most people woke up - Sundays Alexander was almost always found in bed past midday, but that wasn't relevant right now.

No, this morning he was up at the crack of dawn and heading out in to the grounds. However, Alexander had never been one to take to magical sport. He couldn't fly a broom to save his life, and Quidditch was not to his liking. No, being a Cavendish, and a lord-to-be of the English monarchy, Alexander had been brought up among the sports of the higher societies of Muggles.

Despite being a Pureblood.

Which meant he could fence, he played polo to a high standard, he could box, and he could play rugby and badminton to a good level. The only trouble with this, Alexander had found, was that most people in the school weren't interested in Muggle sports. They wanted to fly brooms, or play Quidditch.

However, today it seemed someone had already beaten him to the pitch, doing some weird thing with a dummy that he couldn't say he'd seen before. Leaning against the stands, Alexander watched with slight confusion as the witch continued to pummel the dummy again and again and again. It didn't seem very controlled, to Alexander, but he didn't really know. So he stood in the shadows, watching the witch and hoping that sooner rather than later she would leave so he could have the fields to himself.

Guest

Satisfied that she'd gotten out the majority of her frustrations and perfecting her form over the hours, Felix removed the sticking charm from the dummy and let it deflate while doing her cool down motions. It resembled a form of Tai Chi, slow yet fluid movements to let her cool off and calm down without having to stop entirely. She'd figured out suddenly stopping made her grumpy as she'd often fall asleep and then got annoyed when people woke her up.

Something caught her eye as she was in the middle of pulling back some 'energy' into her chest and her face, though already quite pink, turned red. "Uh..Hi." Damn she'd hoped no one would bother coming down here this early, looks like she'd been caught. No, she wasn't doing anything wrong, she wasn't out of bounds, she wasn't punching another student so she had nothing to feel guilty about. Though being caught doing her favourite hobby kind of felt like an invasion of privacy. "What?" She snipped, suddenly looking cross and finishing her move and standing still, righting herself. Though truth be told it was difficult to look intimidating in white robes that resembled pyjamas, and with her hair sticking to her face and neck.

Guest

As the witch stopped, Alexander figured that he just might be able to get on with what he wanted to now. Of course, that meant he was being incredibly hopeful and he doubted he would be so lucky, but he could hold on for a moment and hopefully the kid would hurry off out of his way.

The greeting simply made Alexander nod back to the witch. He wasn't much in the mood for talking to the younger years.

But when she asked him 'what' in the tone of young defiance, Alexander cocked an eyebrow in response. Well, the fiery attitude so early on spoke of one house and only one house. "What exactly are you asking? I'm just watching." Alexander replied to the witch, a small smirk touching his features. "Which, I can tell you now, I am allowed to do, so please don't try to tell me otherwise." Alexander explained, though he didn't have to do anything, not really.

Guest

(ooc: Sorry for the long delay)

Felix pouted, her typical go to expression for when things don't quite go how she pictured in her head. She'd hoped to be off the pitch before anyone noticed. She was aware of the rivalry between her own house and Slytherin but thought it was just something stupid older years did, clearly not.

"I didn't think I was that interesting to watch." She grumbled, gathering up her things in her arms and heading towards the stands. "You'd think wizards could've made up many new sports, but I've only heard of one. It's fun and all but not half as exciting as some muggle games. Uh..." Oops was that a no go subject with Slytherins? She couldn't take it back now so she babbled on. "Unless there's a secret club I don't know about that plays muggle sports. That'd be pretty cool." She grinned at the idea, maybe she'd start a club when she was a bit older, she doubted anyone would take a first year seriously. "So what are you doing out here?" She looked around the boy. "Not flying?"

Guest

(OOC: No worries!)

The grumbling from the younger witch was most unladylike and Alexander couldn't help but judge her almost instantly. She most certainly must have been a halfblood, or perhaps even a Muggleborn, because there was absolutely no way a witch would act like that from his circles.

Though, of course, Chara had lapsed for a moment...

The memory made Alexander smile to himself for a moment because he'd found it amusing at the time that Chara would do such a thing. But, he shook such thoughts away because they weren't for the present time.

But as the conversation fell to the talk of Muggle sports, Alexander couldn't help but grow a little warmer to the witch. His affiliation with Muggle sports wasn't something he showed very often at school, being a Pureblood meant he had a reputation to keep despite his lineage. "That would be so very cool!" Alexander blurted out before he thought about the consequences, somewhat out of character for the blonde, but the truth, if nothing else.

"So what are you doing out here?" She looked around the boy. "Not flying?"

"Uh..." Alexander paused, swallowing a little before shaking his head. "N-no... No, not flying." The Slytherin responded, pulling himself together. "I was actually going to practice my fencing, but I got sidetracked by your work. Have you ever tried fencing?"

Guest

"That would be so very cool!"

Felix grinned and relaxed a bit, now that they had something worth talking about. "Fencing? Oh with swords. They used to have that before my judo practice, I'd watch sometimes before we had to set up for our practice. Oh are you any good? Can you show me?" She was getting excited by the thought of learning how to sword fight, really wizards ought to pay more attention to the world around them, there was so much they were missing out on.

"I know if you show me how to fence I can show you some judo moves, it's not as fancy as other martial arts but it does the job." she beamed, clearly as passionate about learning new sports as she was about her own. She put her things on the bench, practically bouncing in place waiting to get started.

Guest

Thankfully his outburst wasn't too detrimental to the moment for Alexander, because that could have been highly embarrassing for him indeed. Though, the Cavendish heir was sure he could wave away anything the first year told anyone else with little and less effort on his part.

The questions came as something of a bombardment to him, and Alexander simply waited for them to end before he thought of answering them. Mostly because it would have been rude to try and speak over the witch with her excited questions. "Yes, with swords, though you don't call them that. You have three different ones, a foil, an Épée, or a sabre. I favour the foil personally, but I use all of them." Alexander explained with a smile that was starting to grow the more he talked about it.

"I won the fencing championship in England last summer for my age group, if that matters?" Alexander responded to her question on how good he was. The trophies weren't of interest to the Slytherin, but there was a collection of them at home. "And I could show you, I suppose..." He added in respect of her last question.

"I don't wish to learn Judo though, it's... not very graceful." Alexander responded to her offer. Or, at least, it didn't look very graceful from the way in which the witch had done it, which was all he really had to go on in that moment.

Guest

Felix welled up with excitement again but contained herself, for the moment. Though when the boy told her he didn't want to learn judo she felt slightly deflated. "Well it's not supposed to be, it's about self defence. That can be a bit messy.Though I've not learned everything yet, there are other styles that look more graceful but fancy moves don't always work when you really need them. I tried some of them but I like Judo best, and I could only pick one to stick with"

She put her things down on the ground then straightened up again. "Are you going to practice now? I'd love to see." She smiled, a big toothy smile, had she had this sort of passion for learning academically she'd have been sorted to ravenclaw she thought. "Then can you show me some moves?" If he agreed she'd be over the moon and very tempted to hug the boy but as it was she kept still, or as still as she could manage.

Guest

The excitement on the witch's face almost made Alexander want to roll his eyes, however, the blonde shook that thought away a moment later. The moment her face dropped, however, Alexander did feel a little sorry for saying what he had. He didn't mean to be rude, he was just used to speaking freely about his opinion.

Instead of saying anything, though, Alexander simply nodded to the witch when she tried to explain why she picked Judo.

But when the excitement returned once more, Alexander felt a little relieved, if he was completely honest. "Yes... I'm going to practice." Alexander responded, holding up the long package in his hand. "With rounded blades." He added, not wanting the witch to think that he would be using a proper sword. Merlin knew he did not need the Headmaster breathing down his neck.

When he was asked to show the witch some moves, Alexander nodded, putting the package down. His fencing instructor had shown him how to bewitch the sword so he could practice, meaning he had two swords. Taking one out, he held it out, hilt first towards the witch. "Have you held a sword before?" He asked, though he doubted the witch had. "You need your thumb laid flat on the top of the sword, with the rest of your hand wrapped around the sword. Not too tight in your grip." Alexander explained, taking up the other sword and showing the witch what he meant.

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