fandomtownies | The Preserve

"Padawan don't get taught hand to hand?" Kaidan asked, nodding approval at the slightly better form. "You want the blow to start at the ground and come out through your fist. Use all the muscles on that side of your body, not just chest and shoulder."

"We get taught sword technique and some hand-to-hand. Enough to get us by until we can get our lightsabers back if we're disarmed," Kanan explained, frowning faintly. "And my training was never completed."

It was almost sad, the fixation on getting one's saber back after being disarmed, sometimes to one's own detriment.

"Again, then?"

This time he was pretty much going to crouch and spring into it, then. His attacks with his lightsaber were never just chest and shoulder, either. It stood to reason that an unarmed attack would be the same.

Kaidan frowned, "Your training is going to be backward from what I know, then." He watched Kanan shift his center of gravity down and took the hit on the pad, but shook his head. "You shouldn't need to do that. Stand, the way you were before. Right foot back. Hit with your right hand, and when you do, keep your elbow tucked and come forward on your right toes slightly. Feel it coming from the ground, moving through your muscles, and impacting on the pad." After a beat he said, "Do not Force punch me. That's cheating."

"I'm not using the Force," Kanan muttered, but he did as he told, adjusting his stance back into it, the way it had been before. He stood there a few moments before actually moving this time, closing his eyes and just envisioning the punch as Kaidan described it before opening them again, nodding, and committing to it.

This punch was much better.

"I know you're not," Kaidan said, "I just didn't want you to get lost in the visualization and wind up using it." The punch hit and Kaidan nodded, "That's how you want it to hit. Here, let me show you why you want the elbows tucked."

Ripping the velcro back, he shook the pads off and stepped into place. "Punch me like you did the first time."

Kanan squinted at Kaidan for a moment at that, and then shrugged and slipped into his more familiar, less refined stance.

He was pretty much ready for this to end badly for him as he threw the punch he was told to throw, yes.

Have a little faith. Kaidan's not that sloppy.

As the fist came at him, Kaidan turned slightly and grabbed Kanan just above the elbow. He used the arm as a lever to send Kanan stumbling in a square. "You can yank all you want, but I can keep you from locking it down. At this point, I can put you anywhere I want, and I have the options of throwing you across the clearing. This is a position you don't want to let yourself get in."

Releasing the arm, he stepped back. "Bring in your elbow and do it again. This time, when I grab your arm, yank it out of my grip. If you aren't able to, you're not bringing it in far enough."

Well. That little dance was a lot more being puppeted around than Kanan was strictly used to. He gave his shoulder a little roll as Kaidan let him go, and then stepped back into his own ready stance. This time, the way he'd been instructed to do before, he brought in his elbow to swing, ready to pull his arm back again.

Stumbling around at someone else's mercy wasn't his idea of a great time.

Kaidan did the same sidestep and grabbed, and Kanan's yank caused him to stumble before his grip was broken. He nodded, "That is what you want to happen. It lets you keep control, and brings the person grabbing you into scope. I'd have to take two or three steps back to get out of range, and if you moved fast enough, you could do some serious damage - especially while they're off balance in that stumble."

Kanan nodded as well, his expression serious as he took what Kaidan was telling him and applied that knowledge to what he already knew.

And this was why he wanted to see how he held up against Kaidan. If the man kicked his ass, he'd at least have the decency to explain how that happened.

"Is there a way to recover from either situation? Once they've got my arm, which ideally won't happen anyway, or that stumble if I grab someone's arm and they pull?"

"Did you learn how to take a fall, or to come out of one in a roll?" Kaidan asked, thinking, "There's a few ways to handle it if someone has control of your arm, but the fastest is to be an immobile object, which means dropping to your ass and kicking them, either straight up or levering them over you. Other ways, break their hold, or use your momentum against them and turn it into a backhand."

He thought some more, trying to articulate this to someone who hadn't trained this way - and who didn't share the same language, really - was a little harder than he'd anticipated. "If you stumble, use it. If you're going forward - go forward. Get an elbow up, go for their throat or face and bring the other arm down low, to their stomach or kidneys. You're gonna take a hit, because if you're in scope and the person has half a clue what they're doing, they're going to hit you, but you're not a small guy, and if you take it and step into it, you could do some damage."

"Let me show you," Kaidan said, taking a step back and standing in a mimic of Kanan's bar-brawler stance, with his elbows out further from his body than he usually held them. "I'll go slow until you grab me. If you see anyone fighting like this, with their arms out like this, you go for that area right over the elbow. You get control of the arm."

"I can take a fall," Kanan replied, shrugging. "And I can get back on my feet again. Those are both easy enough."

He held up his hands.

"Let's do this, then."

Kaidan moved into a punch at about quarter speed.

And Kanan reached in to grab Kaidan above the elbow, the way he'd been grabbed, himself.

Kaidan waited for the yank and then dropped, landing on his ass and pulling Kanan toward him. "If you feel them start to fall, let go and back up or sidestep, because.." He demonstrated, without actually kicking Kanan, that he could. "If they don't kick.." Kaidan caught Kanan's arm and rolled back further, not fully, but enough to show that if he got his feet up, Kanan would get tossed. It was similar to a move he'd used to throw Emil.

And Kanan stumbled along with all of Kaidan's demonstration, brow still furrowed, committing all he could to memory. He'd remember it. He'd pull it out if he needed it. At least where fighting was involved, he'd always been a quick study, after all.

"Seems like from there it all becomes a bit of a dance."

That wasn't really a criticism. So did swordwork, after all.

"Sort of," Kaidan acknowledged, letting go of Kanan's arm and getting to his feet. "It's about control. Keeping control of your own body, taking control of the other person, or people's. There's several different types of hand-to-hand, but the one I learned is meant to end fights in a minimum amount of time. It's mostly for defending yourself, or defending something else."

He fidgeted a second, picking grass off his pants.

Kanan considered that. The words and the fidget both, really. And then he raised a hand and dusted off his shoulder, mostly for something to do with it.

"I can understand that," he replied. "The lightsaber form I know best is tailored to dragging a fight out, to surviving longer than an opponent, saving stamina while they give it their all trying to take you out. This sounds like a fighting style made to counter that sort of mindset. Get in close and end it quickly, before you can get worn down."

He hesitated a moment, and then added, "This is why I need to train against everyone I can. Because I know my way around a blaster, but without my lightsaber, there's only so much I can do if they out-armor me or I end up disarmed."

Kaidan thought about it and tossed him the bamboo. "Go slow, but show me a strike with this, as if it were your light saber."

"The way I fight, it's in two parts. It's meant to protect whatever's behind me, and it's meant to kill or incapacitate enemies quickly so I can go on to the next threat and end that quickly. The entire goal is to finish the mission and get out to report back."

Sentinel. SPECTRE. It made for an odd mix.

Kanan caught the bamboo with ease, slipping far more readily into a stance that he was clearly comfortable with.

"If I'd finished my training, I'd be more well-versed in offensive forms as well," Kanan noted. "I picked up some Jar'kai, that's the two-bladed style, but that'll really only do me any good if I ever manage to find a second crystal."

Which... was not a prospect that was looking terribly likely, these days.

He lifted the bamboo, and then stepped forward with a simple, straightforward strike, aimed for Kaidan's shoulder.

Kaidan pivoted slowly to dodge the bamboo and brought a leg up, knee to hip, and slowly extended in a kick. He demonstrated the three modes of extension - aiming his foot at Kanan's hip, at his chest, and then at the underside of his chin. "How would you correct the strike? It's plasma. If it hits me at all, I'm maimed or dead, so my goal would be to keep out of the way of the blade, keep you off balance so you couldn't swing it, or keep you far enough away that a strike wouldn't hit. In this instance, I would follow up a kick with biotics."

"And if I were in your position, I might try to shove an opponent away with the Force," Kanan noted. "But assuming using the Force is only going to get me in more trouble, the best option is distance. A lightsaber wielder losing their balance is a potential wildcard. They're as likely to injure you as themselves. And," he lifted an elbow, tucked in the other, and twisted his wrist around, bringing the bamboo down toward Kaidan's hip. "Trying to avoid the blade will only take you so far. All I need on you for those strikes in particular is speed, and you've lost your leg."

Kaidan nodded, "Which is why my follow up would be biotics." He smiled grimly, "Assuming I didn't have a gun. If I did, you'd be on the defensive pretty much immediately. I assume lightsabers block bullets as well as blaster bolts?"

He thought of something, "Does the sword shut off if it loses contact with your hand?"

Tilting his head a little, he examined the sword and asked another question, "Why would you go for the hip? Three inches in height, you'd split me in half."

"The sword shuts off," Kanan confirmed. "And I've never tried to block a bullet with it, but I suspect it would simply reduce it to slag. You're welcome to shoot at me to test that theory."

He wasn't holding his breath on that front. He had a hard enough time asking people to throw pebbles at him, here.

There was another moment, while that last question registered. And then he looked faintly horrified.

"The aim is to incapacitate," he said, actively taken aback. "I can kill a person. I have killed with it. But if I can take a leg instead of a life, I damn well will."

"You're going to have to show me a Force shield before I start flinging bullets at you," Kaidan pointed out, "Show me you can block it if it gets past the sword."

Kaidan would have zero problems throwing pebbles. That would be easier than throwing punches.

He shot Kanan a very lopsided smile, "Remember when I said that everything I do is lethal? I wasn't kidding. If I took a leg, that person would be alive on the ground within my defensive sphere. That's not acceptable."

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