Keeping the edge

[ThatPolishDude]

Not being able to lock in the kneebar was a pain but Geun was at least satisfied that Senji seemed to not be finding a way to immidietly get back at her. given her current situation, she could try to isolate his ankle and continue there but the likelihood of it getting far was rather slim. Given that and the relative control she had at the moment, she decided to go for a reset, pushing her legs down to prevent Senji from getting on top of her as she pushed away and got to her feet.

As they got back into a neutral position Huan spoke. "Since you are done flirting for a moment a word of advice. If striking is allowed in a fight and it gets to the ground, always try to get out from there and if you are up, try to stay up, strikes on the ground end fight really quickly and while in pure grappling you can still win from the bottom, it is not happening if someone can just pummel your face in."

[TheLoneWanderer]

Senji felt that she allotted a reset as he limbs unwound from his. He allowed himself some contentment in that she hadn't been able to snag him unlike the two previous times. He stayed on his rear, only getting up after Geun finished. The comment about them flirting made Senji not dignify that with a response. He did listen to the advice she gave after that short round despite that and Huan got several fast nods in response to indicate he wasn't ignoring her. Senji pursed his lips as he pondered his next approach. He struck a southpaw stance again, lightly bouncing in place to prepare himself for what Haru had next in store. Keep it standing, right.

Regarding his bodily condition, Senji felt the very definition of "fine". Not too good, not too bad. But just enough to coax himself back into the routine. His gaze kept scanning Geun's limbs...wondering what she'd do. That takedown he'd performed against her knee strike had been useful. He shouldn't scrap it in that case if he could catch someone's leg. From what he could infer and not assume, Senji figured she'd stick to the stand up game and not immediately go for a takedown considering her actions previously.

[ThatPolishDude]

Southpaw stance was notoriously irritating for everyone who was not a southpaw themselves, it wasn't even that it was inherently better but simply the fact that there were so few people fighting like that. Be a southpaw and you can be fighting ortodoxes your whole career and most of them will have really if ever fought someone like you, thus the advantage. It wasn't however without its drawbacks, keeping yourself further to the left of your opponent opened this stance to more hooks as well as giving a rather open bath to the body, not a huge advantage for sure but if you know what you were doing it was exploitable. And there was also the matter of mixing of styles here, boxers were famously bad at taking kicks, especially ones aimed at the legs, and boxing footwork was prone to takedowns though given Senji's BJJ know howit was not a good avenue of approach. That was what Huan thought, Geun however was a bit more free-flow kind of fighter, less method, more instinct and she had that in spades.

She slowly circled Senji, technicalities of it all were not important to her but still, she could tell that the legs were a good target and so she would approach. First, she would send a combination of the right cross, left hook and another cross up high towards Senji's head. All of these strikes were meant to hit but the main part of the offensive was a low kick aimed at the side of his thigh. There if she did well she could hit a peroneal nerve which when struck could render the entire limb temporarily numb, or so she recalled from what Huan told her once and given her friend's record in ending fights with kicks like that she was happy to try it herself.

[TheLoneWanderer]

Senji's eyes tracked Geun's movements. Akin to the common analogy of a predator stalking their prey, Haru took her time before approaching. To intercept them, he pushed his left forearm in the way of her fist as a buffer. The second strike came as he intercepted that too, blocking with the right forearm which he kept raised high. As he watched the cross take place, suddenly at a remarkable speed, Senji's left fist shot forward to run parallel to her arm's bicep, the right she used for the almighty cross, and such. Given this, Senji had used a cross counter by sending an explosive fist towards her right temple to slam into it while his left arm blocked it from completing its full motion. Due to having more speed to retaliate given his left arm's positioning closer to his face, this one had a lot power to strike right into the side of her head if things went correctly.

Should events go his way, Senji would avoid the potential kick to his thigh. Taking advantage of her perhaps being stunned by the counter, Senji fired off an attacking jab to her sternum using his right hand and used this as a stepping stone to move closer and prevent her from using as many long-range moves so he could change the momentum into his favor....

That was only if his current methods were enough. If not, then they'd require revision to continue facing off against Haru.

[ThatPolishDude]

Geun's plan's got a slight hiccup in the form of a counter attack, not wanting to take that hit she would shift her weight and slide to the left, that however meant she could not throw a kick when she wanted to but given the shift her plans to go low should remain unnoticed given that she couldn't start the movement proper. Then she noticed how Senji was going in after her to keep their distance close. She could force him back with a quick teep but close was not bad for her so she took another side step, to avoid the jab and wrap her arm around his in an overhook and then pulling sharply while her legs shifted to trip him up and sent to the floor where she would follow to try and establish a mount. If that worked she would waste of time, maintaining the overhook to pull his guard apart she would use her other hand to start sending punches down, something that was at random intervals interspersed with elbow strikes.

[TheLoneWanderer]

Senji's arm did not retract as he wanted. It snagged as she entangled her arm with his in a overhook from their standing position. He felt her feet behind to trip him, although he couldn't necessarily do much about preventing it due to her avoiding his strike to the temple and wrapping his left arm up. In the brief time he was airborne, Senji went to shift and lean on his right so that he'd avoid irritating his healing back wound. That said, he was forced to settle on his back completely by way of Geun forcing herself on him in the form of a proper mount. The punches rained down as Senji found his lone arm pounded by a single arm as she kept his left arm from simply being yanked out. The sound of flesh-on-flesh resounded as Senji continued to endure to the best of his ability. The blunt edge of her elbow especially made him grunt as they struck against his ulna and radius. Senji needed to get out of this, that was obvious.

According to his mental plan, the best thing here would be to go for one of his favorite chokeholds: a D'arce. It'd have to be set up properly first. Senji bent his left arm so that it could curl around the upper back of Geun while being held by her. With his right arm, Senji moved to wrap the arm along the contours of her back while going to interlock the fingers of his two hands. He had to endure a hit to the jaw to transition from his guard however fast he was. If that was done as written, Senji performed a bodylock and pulled her closer to nullify her ability to send those powerful strikes his way. Her current positioning now would be likely hunched somewhere along his upper chest or where her head was forced closer to his own.


If nothing else, this would put them in a temporary deadlock by Senji's own design. Perhaps Geun could continue some sort of offensive, but his arms aimed to grind against her sides regardless to keep her still. The next thing on his agenda was to recover his guard despite her having him in the full mount.

[ThatPolishDude]

Feeling as Senji tried to get his trapped hand behind her back, Geun shifted by keeping hold of his arm and rising on her knees to drag him back onto his side, thus preventing the arms from locking together and moreover making it awkward to use his right to defend from further attack, then she brought her fist back up before hearing a whistle.

"Break! That was a good attempt to shift but hard to pull that off when someone is paying close attention with that overhook, it pulls guards apart really nicely so be awear of that. Take a breather and we will reset." Huan said as Geun released Senji and slid off of him to sit to the side.

[TheLoneWanderer]

A whistle made him pause as Huan quickly stopped them from continuing. He got interrupted! Senji sighed as the woman who grew more akin to a boa constrictor with each roll slid away from him at the behest of her best friend. Senji raised from his position, sitting up and continuing to listen to Huan.

"---Yeah, I was trying to set something up."

There was always next round to catch her, Senji surmised. His heart was pounding in his chest to a high degree from the exercise as Senji took to deeply breathing to get himself off the natural high from the fight. Geun was quite stubborn like himself. She was unrelenting in her hunt for a submission or in the previous ground and pound. He scooted slightly closer to the space between Huan and Geun, although it wasn't like he sat exactly at the midpoint. That done, Senji curled his knees close to his chest and focused on taking a breather as Huan put it.

The auburn haired man then saw fit to permit a choice to Geun as he kept his gaze switching between her and Lei.

"Keep sparring or do you want to switch to drilling.", He said whilst referring to the previous sessions he and Huan had together before he met Haru and began training together.

[ThatPolishDude]

"Someone is developing a taste for getting punched and kicked if you want to switch, sure." Geun said with a slight chuckle as Huan jumped down and collected her gloves to slip them on while she made her way while Geun stepped off the mat. "Since we ended up focusing on striking I actually might be a better fit to show you something." Huan said stretching out her arms before getting into her stance.

Since it was supposed to be a lesson she took a slightly different stance than usual since she joined law, though not completely new if someone watched her back in her mma days. On the face of it, it was similar to a stance typical for muay thai, though it was a bit wider and lower. Her movements in it were confusing, to say the least, it seemed as if she was always getting ready to strike, all telltale signs of an incoming attack that didn't actually come, leaving whatever her real plan was a complete puzzle. She didn't fight like that anymore, law was more of a hobby, something she was doing for fun and so she wasn't actually fighting to win a lot of the time, just to make it fun. Then she gestured for Senji to start. "You start.

[TheLoneWanderer]

"I don't think I'm a...what's the term... masochist. It isn't like I'm begging."

Senji merely tilted his head, racking his brain to recall a rare word, and shrugged at Geun's statement. Drilling holds and such in the past hadn't been terrible and he trusted them to that extent not to harm him too much. Plus, she was the one desiring to humor him. However, something peculiar happened. Instead Senji found that Huan would be the one dancing this time around. While he moved to get to his feet, Senji observed her stance. It was similar to his sibling, although had more of a crouch to it as opposed to the usual standing position. That was... curious. If he was recalling correctly, Huan held back on him more than Geun did and he felt him and Haru were relative to each other strength wise. Was he bitter about that? No, there always was a bigger fish and that was a symbol for him to get better as not be the weakest of the bunch.

Senji took his stance again, thinking about what Huan might do and considering his options since she'd given him time. That approach may work if he wished to give her challenge while Huan tried to do what she wanted to show him. Senji pushed forward to then stride off to Huan's right after getting within her range. That was where he'd try to sink his knuckles into Huan's lower side to start their round off nice and proper. He was aiming to hit her in the liver, as it was a considerable target for someone to hit. If it struck true, he tried to retract back into his southpaw stance whilst keeping to Lei's right.

His reasoning for doing so was that the delay, if he'd stepped off before he got into her range, was too high. Therefore, it would do him better to use this faster movement while not allowing Huan to retaliate as fast to due to his movement of direction and the tighter distance between the two. Perhaps he could squeeze a takedown in. His main goal overall was to condition himself to be faster so that him switching between Boxing and BJJ would be more fluid, lacking a delay. After that, adopting MMA with its combination of throws, locks, and strikes would likely be the next step in completing his path. Alongside his motivations, Huan had been brief in actually telling him what to do so he merely started similarly to his roll with Geun.