Basic Great Axe - Brokenblade

[Ladon]

Room 120

Master Go'axa was standing in the centre of the room. He had a new student that wanted to learn the use of the axe as a weapon, and this pleased him. If he could aid another in the use of his favorite weapon then he would be willing and also eager to help.

The Dwarf began to go through some warmup exercises so that he would be ready for when his new student arrived.

[Gondil Brokenblade]

“Aye, here we are… 120.” Gondil took a deep breath, and tugged on his beard to seem reasonably presentable. He slowly cracked open the door and peeked inside. He wasn’t really looking for anything; he just didn’t want to burst in on something important. Once, the door was fully open, he saw the other dwarf, pacing back and forth. “Prolly’ exercising…” he thought to himself.

“Ahem… umm… Master…” he glanced down at his ticket. He had forgotten who his trainer was already. “Master Go’axa? The name’s Gondil… Brokenblade, sir. I am ready to learn the ways of the axe.” He had thought that sounded a little practiced, but he was trying leave a good first impression. Gondil walked a few more paces forward and waited for his reply.

[Ladon]

Master Go'axa was beginning his warmup, when his new student came into the room.

Master BrokenBlade, Welcome to the first brightening of ya training, Lad. Now first things first, you need to get ready by warming up so what ya need to do lad is run around the room thirty times, and then we'll get to do thirty Pushups, and also thirty situps as well. Whilst ya do this why don't ya tell me why ya want to learn the Axe as a weapon?

[Gondil Brokenblade]

“Yes, master Go’axa…” he replied, not hesitating to start his run around the room. “Hmm… this room seems bigger than it did before...” he uttered under his breath. After a dozen or so laps, he began to breath deeper and heavier. Gondil had always tried his best to be strong, but he had never really run in his whole life. “Phew… ok, keep goin…” he thought to himself.

His old excuses about being a dwarf to compensate for his weaknesses weren’t going to save him this time. He really had to push himself, as not to look foolish, or worst of all, weak, in front of his new mentor. Gondil quickly brought himself to a halt, with sweat dripping off neck into his tunic. He slightly bent over and rested his right hand on his knee. “Heh, that weren’t so bad…”

It hit him like a block of marble -the push ups! Gondil had laid flat on his stomach, and started to recite to himself on why exactly he wanted to learn to use the great axe. “The weapon of my people, sir.” He spoke aloud, in between his push-ups. “The weapon of my family, it is a tradition, and my privilege as a man to wield it…. And 30!” He got up onto his knees for a moment, then thought about it, and just rolled over onto his back. “Ok, 30, right?” he proceeded to do his sit-ups and continue to chat with his trainer. “And on top o’ that, sir… 23… it sure beats a puny sword or clumsy hammer…. 37…. it’s powerful, decisive, and swift…oh, and 30!”

Gondil jumped to his feet, doing his best not to show that he was out of breath. He put a smirk on his face, thinking he impressed his trainer with his monologue. “Aye, sir… ready to get down to business.”

[Ladon]

ooc: lol, Nice post

ic: Master Go'axa, completed the warmup before his student, which gave him time to stretch out a couple of muscles to ensure he wasn't going to strain himself in the coming training. He went over to the rack of weapons and brought forth his own Axe and did a couple of practise swings.

Well me lad, pick up ya weapon and lets see how ya hold it.

This was only a simple statement, but from this Master Go'axa would be able to tell a number of things.

ooc: Ok this is a simple case of finding out if you know how to hold the weapon correctly. If you don't, don't worry. RP how you feel, what hand is doing what, where you would put them, and we will go from there.

[Gondil Brokenblade]

Gondil nodded his head and gave a low “Hmm”. He looked to his right and saw the weapons rack. He casually strolled over to the rack and gazed at all the various battle axes. Some of them seemed to be very old and worn, but others seemed to be made of high grade dwarven steel. He wasn’t sure which axe to pick; many of them seemed quite large and unwieldy. “Les’ go with this one…” He grunted to himself as he heaved up a great axe from the center of the rack. It didn’t feel too heavy, at least not at first. He carried it back over to his trainer and stood about 10 feet in front of him.

“Ok… you hold it… like…. hmm…” He had never really thought about it before. He would always mess around with toys of the like as a child, and used small axes to cut lumber, but he had never truly used a great axe before. He paused for a moment. He bit the corner of his mouth and rolled his eyes under his lids, and began to think. He thought back to how his father used to hold it when he would leave their home for the guard. “Ah, ya see… like this!” Gondil placed his right hand, his stronger one, a little less than halfway down the shaft, closest to the blade. Next, he slid down his left hand towards the bottom of the shaft, to about a quarter of the way and lifted the axe-head up high, near his right shoulder.

Now, the axe handle was parallel to his chest and he stood with his feet slightly apart, directly facing Master Go’axa. “There y’are, sir. How’s that?”

[Ladon]

Master Go’axa looked as the dwarf took a great axe from the rack and held it. The first thing that Go’axa noticed was that Gondil was right handed. This was one of the things that this little exercise brought to the fore, and was the way that the Axe Master found out a little about his student, without having to actually having to ask. The student seemed to have placed his legs slightly apart, but they were a little straight and the dwarf would be a little unsteady if he were to wield the axe in that position.

Good Master Brokenblade, you have the correct grip on that weapon, Tell me, why have you set you legs so? You May find it easier to stand if you were to step forward with your right leg a little. This will give you a solid base to work from

[Gondil Brokenblade]

A perplexed appearance washed over Gondil’s face. “Me’… legs?” He looked down towards his feet and closely examined his stance. “Hmm, well, I do suppose I might be a bit off balance if I were to actually swing the bloody thing!” he chuckled.

He wasn’t sure how well that joke was going to go over, so immediately, he stomped his right leg forward about a half a step. He felt the weight shift in his hips and legs and it forced his knees to jerk to a bend.

“Gah! Hmm, well, this seems to feel a bit more comfortable. So… this is the correct stance?”

[Ladon]

Master Go'axa gave a little chuckle as the student made a joke.

Well, aye lad, that be a much better stance, now that ya have set ya stance correct, ya should be able to swing the axe in ya hands a bit before you have ta move, ta get outa th way of an attack.

So lets start with taking about that there weapon ya be holding lad. That you have in your hand is a great axe. It is a big 'un ya see, and because of that it is a little bit on the slow side, but I'll be buggered if ya find a better weapon for slicing the odd critters head clean off in one swing. Because it is big it will be slow so ya have to learn when to give the old weapon a swing at the critters you want to hit, but if ya hit then you can bet they will not be getting up in any way quickly to hit ya back. The handel is usually made of a stong wood giving a good base for the transfer of ya energy in to the swing. It sometimes has some rings of metal as well to give a bit more strength to it. Ya have yur stance set right, but don't be tempted to bring the right hand down to join the left, as this will lead ya to becoming unbalanced again, and an unbalanced dwarf is likely to end up a dead dwarf on the battle field. The head of the weapon is usually a single blade, but the great axe has two heads on it so that ya get to strike on a swing in either direction, ya see? So, Stand in ya basic stance and then I want ya to give a swing of this weapon you have chosen, and imagine ya have a human critter in front of ya, I want ya to take his knee caps off, with a swing attack from right to left. So get to it Grondil.

[Gondil Brokenblade]

“Aye, I see. Both directions, eh? Well, I think I’ll just be swingin’ in one this time…” Gondil gave a smirk and tried to imagine a human in front of him. “Tall, lanky things, aren’t they? Well, les’ see, his knees would come to about…” Gondil stood for a moment to try to picture exactly where a human’s knees would come up to him. He gave a large, slow blink and bit his bottom lip, signaling that he had made a decision.

“AAAARGH!” Gondil yelled with much effort. When his master asked him to take the human’s knees clean off, he wasn’t going to take it likely. Gondil bent his knees more slightly than his original stance and leaned more heavily on his forward, right leg. He fixed his hands in the positions they were in, heeding his master’s warning. He lifted the left end of the shaft with his left hand and lowered the axe end with this right. He now leaned forward, bending his right knee even more and made a large, slightly diagonal slash downwards in front of him.

He felt the weight and force of the axe head take him as it seemed to cut through the very air. But as soon as he thought the axe had traveled far enough, he had to use his right shoulder very heavily to bring the swinging arc to a halt.

“Aye, phew…. How was that?”

[Ladon]

ooc: Nice description.

IC: Go'axa smiled at his student, as he made his first attempt at a swing attack. As a first attempt it was a good one, there had been many, and there would be many more, that would basically go into an unbalanced state, and loose control of the axe.

Good first swing there Lad, you seem to have the right idea, perhaps a bit off with ya aim, but we will improve on that in the next brightening. So, that was a swing roughly across the middle. Hows about you try the same attacking move lad, but this time at shoulder height? The only thing I would say is that through practice, ya will get to control the swing a little better, but for now just try to stop the axe as quickly as ya can.

So have another go at the higher point of attack Master Broken Blade.

[Gondil Brokenblade]

“Right, well, ok then. At the shoulders.” Gondil said slowly, not really thinking about what he was saying. He was slightly disappointed that he had not done the previous swing perfectly. He wasn’t a perfectionist, but the idea that he wasn’t going to breeze past this lesson without any effort, didn’t sit well with him.

Gondil wrinkled his forehead as he thought about how he was going to execute his next swing. He returned to his newly learned starting stance and held his axe. His left hand remained holding the shaft at the bottom, keeping it overhand, while the top of the shaft rested on the palm of his right hand. His knuckles turned white as his tightly clenched his mighty axe. He was determined to keep control of the swing.

Instead of a yell, he capitalized on his attack with a rather large “Humph”, trying to keep his lungs from bursting from his great exhale. Unlike the previous attack, where the elbows were only slightly bent downwards, they were now bent as far as they could go, almost folding in half. He lifted his great axe much higher, at shoulder level and twisted his back about a quarter of the way around. His eyes never left in front of him. He was particularly careful not to make a mistake of that sort, now that it was obvious that his trainer was a stickler for detail. He twisted his torso back around, keeping his left elbow very much bent, and halfway extending his right. The swing was powerful, but this time Gondil was more focused on his control, rather than how hard he could swing it. The axe’s arc came straight across at the shoulder level, so much so that it would’ve lopped the head off another dwarf. As the axe’s head come veering towards the left side of his body, he began to slow it down. This time, instead of just his shoulders, he also used his abdomen and torso to share the burden of slowing down the careening chunk of metal.

A ball of sweat rolled down his cheek and dripped by the corner of his mouth. “Peh, well, ahem… how was that there, master Go’axa?”

[Ladon]

Go’axa now grinned at his student, a smile that showed that he had seen his student take a large step in the correct direction.

Ya see lad, ya have got the idea of how to add the control to the swing. Now that ya have done this we can continue, because some of these swings that follow from this point on, will need to be controlled and this is something ya needed to learn.

So Lad, it be time to learn ya next attacking move. Ya have learned the slash from right to left. Now I need ya to have ago at the slash attack form left to right. This one is slightly more difficult, and ya need to be aware of ya balance and control more on this one as ya left hand will be wanting to let the thing go and through ya right and off to the starts, so be careful to control ya swing there lad, and have a go at the left to right swing.

[Gondil Brokenblade]

“Left to right? Hmm…” Gondil really had to picture in his head how he was going to pull this maneuver off. He was right handed, so swinging from right to left seemed to feel very natural. But now, while swinging from left to right, he was convinced he would trip or drop the axe or something of that sort.

Gondil held his great axe near the blade with his right hand and used his left to stroke his beard. You could easily tell he was in deep thought- trying to visualize his attack and body movements. “Aye, well, it should go somethin’ like…”

Gondil spaced his legs slightly apart, and stepped his right foot over in front of his left. It looked as though he was stepping forward in a straight line, at least until he rotated his right foot to be perpendicular to the left. This served as a good brace for his coming swing. Gondil bent his elbows slightly and slowly rotated his upper body to the left, like he was winding up. Once his chest was facing the left side of his body, he clenched the handle and swung his great axe from the left, to the right.

His grip had remained the same as before. His right hand was near the top, and the left near the bottom. He couldn’t find any reason, at least at the moment, why he would ever have to change grips- especially during battle. He could feel the weight pull him outwards, and the grip on his left hand wanted to leave him, just as his master said it would. Gondil gritted his teeth as he could feel his body leaning outwards, but doing it’s best to use his stance to brace himself. As the axe came to the other side, he used the same technique in slowing down he had used the previous time. However, he was not as used to using these muscles as he was the others. It was a bit more difficult and slightly painful as his left shoulder and arm seemed to have more trouble tightening and contouring to the swing than the right ones.

Gondil inhaled through his teeth, showing his discomfort, when he returned to his starting stance. He didn’t say anything to his master, just waited for his evaluation of his performance.

[Ladon]

Master Go'axa watched the deliberations, and the thought process that his student was going through, to be sure that his attack was going to be correct. He watched the concentration, and the strain as Gondil performed the act of swinging the axe in an attack, and then made his comments.

Not bad, Lad fo a first attempt. What ya might find to make it easier for ya, would be to form a slight upward sweep to the stroke on this one, as this would be the naural way ya arms would want to take the thing, see. Ya might find that as ya swing as well, that ya right hand could move down the shaft of ya weapon there Master Brokenblade, as this may help the attack some. So try one more time, and hopefully these wee pointers I just gave ya might improve ya swing, and aid to stopping ya nearly dislocating ya shoulder, hey lad?