Coach Pierce
January 11, 2013 11:28 PM
Flying Lessons by Coach Pierce
Coach Amelia Pierce had given basically the same first lesson for the nine years she had been employed as Sonora's Quidditch Coach. There had been a few students who had never fully (or partially) mastered broom riding but, for the most part, the class was considered one of the easier ones taught at the school. Second years who had gotten less than an O were permitted to take it again to improve their performance, but most didn't need to. In a handful of cases, some students who had earned Os took the course again anyway, just for the extra flying time. She had no age limit for how long a student could retake their flying lessons, but she had yet to have anyone older than third year join the first years. It was, after all, a beginner class.She saw little need to change the curriculum; flying basics were fairly, well, basic and there was not a lot of variation possible. She also saw no reason to subject students who already knew how to fly to the tedium of those basics. So today's class started very much the same as every first flying lesson had for the last nine years.
"Hello, and welcome to flying lessons. I am Coach Pierce. Flying lessons are required for all first year students, so everyone will be participating. If you already know how to fly, you do not have go through the basics with the beginners, but you do need to arrive promptly and spend the period on a broom. Every class will begin with a roll call, and then the experienced players may break off for Pitch laps or various broom games. We have Quidditch balls and other equipment for your use." Muggleborn students would recognize several varieties of other sports balls. She had a few Quods in her shed that were available upon request outside of classtime, but the explosive nature of Quodpot was not conducive for the lessons going on with the less experienced fliers. "As long as you are not disruptive to the beginner class, you may play whatever you like in the air."
"So, I will take the roll now, then we can split into those two groups. "Ambrose, Rajid," she began. None of the names were particularly notable to her, though she recognized several surnames from possible older relatives. 'Boxton-Fox-Reynolds,' she expected, was not a particularly common one and must surely be Henny's younger brother. There was a Hernandez that she tried not to pause over, though she felt sure someone would have told her if a California Pierce was starting this term, so she was probably not Jose's sister. Perhaps a cousin on his paternal side? Squib families did sometimes produce magical heirs.
"We have brooms, here," she indicated the collection of brooms she had arranged before class began. "If you already know how to use one, go ahead and take one if you don't have your own. If I have to interrupt my lesson for any reason, the responsible parties will serve detention and spend the rest of the month down here hovering. So nothing dangerous or disruptive. Otherwise, go have fun. Everyone else, line up."
Once the experience fliers had launched and moved away, she turned her attention to the remaining group. "As I said, this is a required course. You need to complete it to graduate. With any luck, you will leave it knowing how to use a broom to transport yourself. With better luck and some interest on your part, you may be able to get a spot on your House Quidditch Team. Particularly this year, I encourage anyone interested in playing Quidditch to sign up when you get back to your common rooms. Due to the challenges taking place this year, there are no formal games, so your captains will be training you in how to play for a full year before you have to go up in a real match." As she spoke, she handed out brooms, one to each student.
"We begin simply. Place the broom on the ground beside you. If you are right-handed, put it to your right. If you are left-handed, put it to your left. Hold your hand over the broom and command it, Up! Be firm and confident or it won't work. If any of you have dogs or elves, use the same tone of voice as you would use with them."
She held her hand out over her own broom and demonstrated, "Up!" The broom leapt easily into her hand. "It may take a few tries so do not get discouraged. Keep trying. Once you have your broom in the air, please try a low hover. Either put one leg over to straddle the broom, or sit side-saddle. Please let me know if you plan to side saddle your broom. I'll have to adjust the cushion charm."
"Please begin."
OOC: Welcome to Sonora and to Flying lessons. You earn house points for your character by attending classes such as this one. The better your posts are (in both quality and quantity), the more points you will earn. Please be wary of writing for other characters (god-modding) without permission. For example, if you toss another player a ball, it is up to them to decide if they caught it or not, though you can qualify that it was a good throw or entirely off-mark so they know how difficult it should be. That said, you do have my permission to have Amelia change your charm to side-saddle if you raise your hand and ask her for it. Now go forth and write long detailed creative posts and have fun with it!
Subthreads: A pre-emptive strike by Francesca Wolseithcrafte with Malcolm Carey, Pecari, Mal Carey, Mal Carey, Pecari
Quaffle Toss Anyone? by Adam Spencer with Percival Everett Waterford II, Adam, William Casey
Flying around by Keme RunningBear, Aladren with Charlie B-F-R, Jeweliah Dyste, Keme, Omara Hernandez, Omara Hernandez, Pecari
Side-Saddle is uncomfortable. by Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus with Gemma Bennett, Teppenpaw, Ginny
Riding solo by Rajid Ambrose
I'm not really off to a stellar start. by Julian Umland, Teppenpaw with Jude Butler
I have to be confident? by Analea Thornton
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Coach Pierce
Flying Lessons
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Coach Pierce
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Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
January 24, 2013 2:34 PM
I'm not really off to a stellar start. by Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
At the last minute, just shy of being late, Julian hurried across the Quidditch Pitch toward her classmates, stumbling twice over small imperfections in the turf as she tried to move as fast as she could without breaking into a completely undignified, stupid-looking run. In spite of this effort, she was still breathless and flushed by the time she got to the rest of the group and tried to join the back of it as inconspicuously as possible, with bits of her dark brown hair coming out of her ponytail and a little dirt collected on the hems of her pants. She had taken a wrong turn on her way to the Pitch somewhere, she thought, around the front door, and had only just realized her mistake and figured out the right way in the nick of time, but she didn’t see how she could tell the coach that and so stood still instead, her face burning with embarrassment more than exertion as the speech began, mortified to think she had already probably made a bad impression on a teacher.When her name was called off the roll, she replied, forcing herself to do it in a regular voice instead of a whisper. Hiding wouldn’t really help anything after her very visible entrance, and she had the rest of the year to make up for this one near-miss with the time. She would, she resolved, be early to every single one of these classes from now on, because that was really the only way she expected to ever be able to impress the flying coach. Julian enjoyed watching broom sports as much as anyone, but athleticism wasn’t one of her outstanding traits as an individual.
She listened closely, her cheeks still red, as they were given all their directions, then looked at the broom lying by her feet. The only one she had ever been on (rarely, with three wizard brothers who liked it much more than she did anyway) was the very old one at home, and this one looked a little more recent than that, but she thought it shouldn’t be too much different as long as she was sensible and didn’t decide she wanted to be the fanciest flier in first year. If she did that, she was sure she could rack up an impressive collection of broken bones even on the old broom at home, which was why she wasn’t planning to do it. Slow and steady, to quote the old Muggle saying, won the race, at least if she defined the race the way she wanted to. Mom always said the first thing to do in any situation was to define her terms….
“Up!” she exclaimed, holding her hand over the broom, and it rose almost leisurely into her hand, making Julian flush again, but this time with success. Feeling a little encouraged, she got on the broom, kicked off from the ground, and held onto it with both hands as she maintained a hover.
So far, so good, she thought. She wasn't going to win any races, but she could stay on the broom and pass the class. And she was going to arrive to every single class early, and maybe use that special room she had heard about to practice some so she could get better and not make as much of a fool of herself. It was going to be okay. She was going to get it all right.
She was still thinking about that when someone spoke near her and, between starting and turning her head at almost the same time, she almost fell off.
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Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
I'm not really off to a stellar start.
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Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
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Jude Butler
January 24, 2013 10:22 PM
You're off to a better one than me! by Jude Butler
Jude saw the note about Flying Class and she swallowed her saliva. “Flying?” she said softly, gulping up her air and feeling about half an inch tall. Her cheeks reddened again as bright as flames as she walked out to the Pitch. She'd left with plenty of time to get to the class on time, and had beat most of the others there for her own slight fear of being late. Coach Pierce looked like she would start talking and another one of the first years ran up beside her. Yes, Jude had been one of the first few there, but that didn't mean that she wanted to be in the front by any means! The other girl looked as if she'd taken a few spills on her way there and Jude wanted to ask if she was okay, but Coach started talking.She welcomed them to flying lessons and introduced herself. The way the class would work was explained and Jude listened as best as she could without understanding much of it. Are pitch laps like running laps on the track? she thought to herself and wondered if there would be someone she could ask about it when they were ready to start.
Roll call started and when Jude heard her name called, she raised her hand. “Here!” she said. The girl that had been standing next to her replied to the name Julian Umland and Jude looked at her and smiled. Maybe she could be a friend? Jude thought as Coach said they should take a broom if they didn't have one of their own. She didn't, so she took one from Coach and went back to stand next to Julian.
She followed directions and put her broom on the ground beside her, underneath her right hand. Jude listened to what they were supposed to do and watched as Coach did it in front of them. Jude watched as the broom shot up into her hand and Jude slipped over her broom handle beside her foot and landed next to it. Her face turned a brighter shade of red than Grandma Carol's house had turned and she hid her head in her hands right there on the grass. Still she listened to what she was supposed to do from down on the ground so that she knew what she was supposed to be doing even though she didn't understand it.
She heard Julian say up, and she peeked her eye through a hole between two of her fingers and saw Julian's broom rise into her hand. Jude stood up from the ground and held her hand over the broom handle that had tripped her up. “Up...” she said softly. It didn't move.
Julian got onto her broom and rose up into the air a little bit. Jude's mouth opened wide, then closed, thinking.
“Uhm... How did you get that to work?” Jude asked Julian.
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Jude Butler
You're off to a better one than me!
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Jude Butler
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Julian U.
January 25, 2013 1:34 PM
I'm sure you'll catch me soon. by Julian U.
Julian was just about to decide she might have a steady seat on her broom when another girl spoke to her and she wobbled as she turned, not thinking of her balance, to look at her. “Oh!” she gasped, adjusting her grip to steady herself up again on the narrow length of wood.“Sorry,” she added to the other girl, feeling mixed up and like she was somehow embarrassing herself without knowing exactly what it was she was doing for the second time in as many days. At least this time, she thought she only had an audience of one, where she had had two to deal with when she’d done it front of her roommates. “I actually have no idea what I’m doing, I’m just…sort of doing it and hoping nothing goes wrong. I’m sorry.” She felt like finishing the sentence and explaining exactly what she was sorry for, that she wasn’t able to provide better advice, but thought at the same time it would make her run out of breath, so she didn’t.
She looked back at the broom in disgust as she straightened her posture a little, so she wasn’t quite so close to being huddled over it in her five foot hover, which was making her worry about accidentally falling on the other girl’s head when she tried to move. “This is so pathetic,” she said. “My little brothers would never let me live this down if they saw me.” Even Paul might enjoy the joke at her expense, even though he didn’t really ride brooms either. Technically, Julian supposed a Squib could get on one and use the Power of Physics to make it move where he wanted it to go, but Paul still, as far as she knew, joined her in preferring bicycles.
Thinking of bicycles and brooms at home reminded her of the sharing rules, which reminded her of her manners. She smiled down at the still earthbound girl – a Pecari, she thought, by the badge, just based on colors, since Julian knew she wasn’t another first year Teppenpaw, which was the next-nearest fit. “We haven’t met before. I’m Julian,” she introduced herself. “I’m so sorry in advance if I fall off this thing and land on your head.”
That, she thought she might write home about. It was just one of those introductions she didn’t think anyone ever really expected to have to use.
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Julian U.
I'm sure you'll catch me soon.
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Julian U.
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Jude
January 25, 2013 2:43 PM
I'm not so sure about that... by Jude
Jude was at a loss. She had no idea what she was supposed to be doing really. Of course, she'd listened to the directions, but it wasn't working for her and the eleven year old was starting to wonder if she really was supposed to be here after all. Yes, she'd turned brown as a Pecari would, but maybe that was all of the magic she possessed??When the other girl gasped and apologized to her, telling her she really had no idea how she did what she did, Jude became even more scared. The other girl spoke about how pathetic this was and Jude hoped she wasn't talking about her! Jude however, felt absolutely pathetic to go along with whatever the girl was talking about.
The girl introduced herself as Julian and apologized in advance if she fell and landed on Jude. “It's okay, and I'm Jude. Jude Butler...” she said, wishing that something would work to her advantage one of these days...
Between her klutzi-ness and not knowing anything, Jude felt like she was a huge let down and had failed her parents and older siblings, but worse, she felt like she'd failed Luca. He was the last one she wanted to fail. Just as she looked up to the others, Luca looked up to her and Jude wasn't about to fail him.
I have to figure this all out, I HAVE TO! For Luca! she thought, wondering if perhaps Julian would come down and show her what she'd done. Maybe that would help Jude to get it right?
“Uhm... Julian?” she asked, “Would you mind coming back down and showing me again what you just did? Even if you don't do it the same?”
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Jude
I'm not so sure about that...
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Julian U.
January 28, 2013 5:30 PM
Just try your best. by Julian U.
She immediately felt horrible for doing it, but Julian giggled when the other girl said her name was Jude. Another girl with a usually male name was not one of the things Julian had expected to encounter at school. Maybe anything really could happen at Sonora Academy.“I’m sorry – it’s just I didn’t expect to have name company, and now I have two,” she said, having gathered there was another Julian, a boy one, in her House, too. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Julian focused on staying steady and keeping up with where other people were, so she wouldn’t fly into them. She wasn’t sure why she felt so incompetent now, since she had grown up in a magical family and could at least get the broom to go where she wanted it to, eventually, at home, but the whole situation, with all these people around, was almost overwhelming. She looked down again, though, when Jude asked her to come down and try getting up in the air again.
“All right,” she said, reminding herself that she knew how to do this. She did. Bending forward slightly, she tilted the broom toward the ground, her grip on it white-knuckled, and though she thought for a few seconds that she might slip off and fall after all, she got it back to the ground without an accident. She got off the broom and then got back on. “You…sort of pull the end up, like this, while you push off with your feet,” she said, demonstrating this for Jude and rising again into the air, holding on to her broom. “Just don’t kick hard, or you’ll go, um, sailing off through the air like a top out of a bottle,” she advised the other girl, ending the sentence in a rush and with another laugh.
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Julian U.
Just try your best.
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Julian U.
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Jude Butler
February 05, 2013 9:05 PM
Trying... by Jude Butler
Julian giggled when Jude said her name. The eleven year old wondered what was so funny and she felt all alone. Not only did she have no idea what she was supposed to be doing with this magic thing, but she was getting laughed at for only saying her name?But when Julian apologized for not expecting name company, Jude was confused for a moment. The muscles in her mind worked in overtime mode to try to work out this small mystery. Name company? We don't have the same name... Unless Julian meant that both our names started with a 'J' or that both of our names could be used for a boy or a girl... she thought as she looked at her again, deciding what her ending result of her small debate was inside her mind. "It's nice to meet you too." she said, as Julian came down from her hover.
Jude put her hand back over her broom, remembering what Coach told them to do. "Up." she said. The broom didn't rise up into her hand, but it did roll over this time. Jude sighed and looked up at Julian as the Teppenpaw told her what she needed to do in order to hover too.
"Sailing through the air like a top out of a bottle?" she said as she swallowed her saliva and almost didn't even want her broom to rise up into her hand to begin with. Ohmygosh... I'm so gonna die... she thought as she looked up at Julian, terrified.
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Jude Butler
Trying...
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Jude Butler
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Julian U.
February 06, 2013 2:16 PM
Keep trying. by Julian U.
Instead of laughing, Jude looked absolutely terrified after Julian offered her half-baked advice about good flying technique, and it occurred to Julian that a habit of trying to break the tension in some situations might not always be a good thing, or at least that she might really be very bad at it. At least when it came to stuff like this, where really, if she was going to be totally honest, her use of hyperbole wasn’t really that hyper. She decided, though, not to be totally honest with Jude, because she just didn’t see how that could end well.“Um, that was sort of an exaggeration,” she said. “I don’t think we’re even strong enough to kick off that hard. But I think less can be more when it comes to brooms. But Coach Pierce would totally save us before anyone could get really hurt,” she finished quickly. “So there’s nothing really to worry about. It’s her job to make sure we’re safe.”
At least some of the other beginners, after all, if nothing else, came from big, rich families. That was all but a given. Julian hoped the coach was really a good person who would be just as slow, if she knew all their backgrounds by heart, to let a Muggleborn get hurt as someone with a bunch of rich old homicidal patriarchs in their family tree, but even her gloomier side saw the practical benefits to Coach Pierce of not letting any of them get killed, especially since Julian really doubted the staff knew who every single one of them was off the tops of their heads yet. Even if they’d spent time learning lists of pictures, she thought people were more likely than not to get a little mixed up in some cases until they had had time to attach personalities to those faces as well as names, though she guessed that she and Jude might have stood out even just on a list if it came with pictures because of their names.
“Go on, try again to get your broom up,” she encouraged Jude. “You can do it, and then you’ll be done with it and if you don’t like it you’ll be that much closer to not having to do it again, after we finish this class this year. Nearly anything’s all right for just that long.” Well, maybe not, but this was, and most encouragement was based on half-lies anyway.
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Julian U.
Keep trying.
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Julian U.
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Jude
February 12, 2013 5:49 PM
Trying again... by Jude
Jude had no idea what she was doing there. Both at Flying Class and at a Magical School to begin with... She was nothing special, nothing magical, nothing like that to anyone other than her family..."An exaggeration?" Jude repeated, "Oh, okay." she added, sighing in relief. "I'm not too sure how I feel about flying, to be honest, even with Coach Pierce here... You see, this is all new to me and- well- its scary, you know?"
She waited for Julian's response to her and when Julian suggested she should try to get her broom up and with a sigh, Jude put her hand back over the handle and said, "Up." This time the broom actually rolled over and rose a little bit off the ground before it slammed back down onto the Pitch, right on her foot. Another sigh appeared from her mouth as she tried her hardest not to cry. She wasn't the emotional one on a normal day (in the normal world) so the way she was feeling was definitely not okay for her. I'll need to think about why this is all happening when I'm laying in bed tonight. she thought, as the thought hit her like a truck. "It's cause I don't feel like I belong here and I want to go home..." she whispered, bending her head a little bit to the left, thinking about it. "Hm..." she finished her thought and realized that Julian had probably heard what she had said.
"Sorry... That wasn't supposed to be out loud." Jude blushed, knowing that Julian now knew just how she felt about everything.
OOC: Julian, I'm sorry this reply took so long!! The internet we had has disappeared... so we'll be posting but much more sporadically, unfortunately...
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Jude
Trying again...
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Jude
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