Gonna Fly Now

Stretching out a bit herself, Adrian couldn't help but feel slightly nervous. She was effectively a white belt about to spar with a black belt who had just promised not to go easy on her. "I wanted to spar with you to get away form treadmills for a while. We can do that after, if I'm still in one piece." Adrian said, steeling herself as she sat down, face to face with Cassie, thinking about how this might work in her favour. Just do whatever feels right, drop chin and raise shoulders if she goes for a choke, fold arms if she goes for an armbar, don't look for a win, look to prove a point that you're someone to respect, whatever the situation she told herself, taking a deep breath before looking the Canadian Ju-jitsu master firmly in the eye and said without the slightest voice waiver "Bring it. I'm ready."

"Okay." Cassie loosened up her neck and drew a slow breath. "But... I'm not cutting you any slack this time. I'm going to submit you. When I get something, if you don't tap, I'll break it. It's your job to tap. Okay?"

She pulled off her flip flops and tossed them aside, and then laid down on her back with her bare feet flat on the mat. She looked completely relaxed. She was completely relaxed. There was nowhere else where she was more at home than on the mats.

"You can start in whatever position you want. Go for it."

"Got it." Adrian affirmed, breathing deeply as she plotted out her initial angle of attack, starting with position. The obvious idea would be to go for a mount and work whatever from there, but if that went wrong ( which it probably would) Cassie would have complete access to whatever body part she wanted to make an example out of. So maybe something that still gave her control but at least kept some parts of her relatively safe. "So is this okay?" She asked as she crawled around the relaxed Cassie, trying to get it so she was upside down, relative to the red-headed grappler, head to head but bodies going in the opposite direction before she attempted to grab Cassie, pinning her arms to her side.

"Ooh, I like it."

Cassie didn't mind being on bottom in north-south position. She was used to being so much smaller than her training partners, and north-south at least allowed her a little room to relax. She thought through Adrian's submissions, and figured that maybe she'd have a north-south choke, but setting up something else from a different position probably required a little too much grappling-chess for the former cosplayer.

All in all, she was probably pretty safe where she was. She could push for a scramble and try to take a position on Adrian, but she couldn't be sure that she'd get it so she didn't bother. She didn't want to waste any energy. Instead, she remained flat on her back, and didn't even tuck her chin or use her arms to protect her neck against a possible choke. She was wide open to it.

Adrian might see that. She might also know that Cassie knew that she saw it. And if Cassie knew that Adrian knew that Cassie knew about the threat of that choke, she could be setting up any number of things by anticipating how Adrian was going to anticipate it. Cassie's kept it simple, though. She didn't need to crowd her mind by trying to think through all the possibilities. She only needed to read Adrian's body, and trust that she knew the implication of each movement, each change in position.

Meanwhile, she remained completely silent. Normally, she would talk to people throughout each position, as a coach or a partner. This time, she offered her nothing at all.

Not moving was probably the best thing for Cassie to do, combined with the eerie silence it really just confused Adrian. "Umm..." she said, unsure of what exactly to do next. She had picked this position for herself, but the last time was when she was doing Judo practice, where this was a strong position to hold people down in but Jujitsu didn't have any rules on pins and hold-downs, so she probably should have picked a better position to start with. She could just wrap her arm around the Canadian's neck for something like a Dragon Sleeper or whatever the proper Martial Art term for it was... she'd probably have a lot more options here if Cassie was sitting upright... so why not make her sit up.

Sliding her hands down, she tried to get under and hook up both Cassie's arms, attempting to lift her up to a seated position so she could actually do something she knew off by heart.

Cassie reacted with such calm efficiency that she hardly appeared to be making an effort at all. She immediately grabbed Adrian's right wrist and pushed it down so that it didn't hook around her shoulder, and clamped her other arm down tightly to secure Adrian's left. She grabbed Adrian's wrist and switched her feet under, and then just by twisting her body she dragged on Adrian's arm and rolled the girl over her hip and onto her back.

She ended with her back to Adrian's chest, and kept her grip on her wrist. She figure-four'd her other arm under Adrian's and clasped her own wrist, and then with a controlled burst of effort she worked to stretch Adrian's arm out against the elbow into a straight armbar.

Adrian barely had time to register what Cassie was doing when she clamped down on the former cosplayer's attempt to get her seating before she was flipped over onto her back and her arm was in the Canadian's grip and about to be stretched out in a very painful fashion. At least with this she knew what to do: grabbing the arm that Cassie wanted to pull out with her spare hand, she tried to keep her arms somewhat folded so the red-head couldn't hyperextend it while she pushed herself towards Cassie, trying to roll her up so she had a better position for an escape.

Cassie first got her knees under her. Adrian's arms were wrapped around her, and her hands clasped to resist the armbar. Cassie didn't bother fighting her, and instead she opted to slide her knee across Adrian's belly until she was able to straddle her and take full mount position.

She kept her weight heavy on Adrian's chest, and while she worked to slip an arm under Adrian's shoulder and behind her neck, she pressed her shoulder up against Adrian's chin, keeping her pinned as tightly and uncomfortably as she could.

"Fck..." Adrian choked out as she felt Cassie's shoulder go right under her jaw, pinning her to the mat quite effectively and making it really uncomfortable to move, or do anything really. She still had her arms around the Canadian and wasn't having her arm stretched out painfully, or being choked so... kind of progress? Yaaay?

Still, with just being restricted to grappling, Adrian didn't really have much of a way to get out of this pinning predicament so she tried the first thing that came to mind that seemed like it might work. Holding Cassie tight with a bit of a squeeze she bridged up as much as she could before attempting to Roll Cassie over so she was on the bottom instead.

Cassie rolled along with Adrian onto her back with her legs wrapped around her opponent's waist. She put a foot in the brunette's hip and pushed herself back to sit up just enough to wrap an arm over Adrian's neck. She secured the grip with her other hand and fell back and to the side to cinch her forearm against Adrian's throat, and squeezed.

Somewhere in the back of her mind was the idea that by out-grappling and choking Adrian, she was making her more human and more beatable, and that in turn eased her anxiety over Taylor facing her at Summer Splash. By getting her hands on Adrian, she could relax, and stop worrying about all the terrible things that might happen, because they didn't happen to her.