[Fiction] A Step Up

[Erin 'Stellar' Donovan]

Stellar led Brawlzilla into the small training facility she had build. It was a roomy structure, but very spartan. It was definitely a ‘function over form’ building. About a quarter of the space was devoted to a nova class weight room with the rest occupied by training mats, all manner of punching bags, resistance systems, a full sized boxing ring and MMA caged Octagon.

The back wall looked far more fortified than the rest. I single door was set into this wall that led down a broad set of stairs to a small room with several chairs, a multi-screed video display in one corner, a door leading to another set of stairs and a single vitrium panel which looked down on crude Combat Zone that Stellar had built. It was at the bottom the hill that the facility rested atop, yet the ceiling was a good sixty feet from the floor of the zone, easily matching the ceiling on the training room. With wall made of some sort of reinforced duracrete walls several feet think, it offered the same protection to those outside as the real thing, but is certainly much easier to construct and repai. Small vitrium dome housed strategically placed cameras, allowing any match-ups to be recorded for later review.

Stellar walked to the middle of a mat and thought for a moment, considering all the different options and difficulty in training another nova before she finally spoke.

“Now keep in mind, this is my first time training novas, so this is a bit of a learning process for me with both you and Meghan. I can train regular people though, and the fundamentals are the same anyways.”

“The simple fact is you were a jobber. You may have went out and done your best each and every match, but jobbers are just outclassed generally, so your chance of victory was pretty slim. As such, it seems that management did not really seem it worth their while to prompt you to learn and train more. That changes now.”

“I am going to go over some basics to start. Some of this you may know, some you may not. Either way, just listen as it will all help you.”

“In general, fighters come in three flavors. Novas change this up a bit, but will get to that later. You essentially have strikers, who have a preference for using punches, kicks, elbows, knees and so on. They generally come from boxing and kickboxing backgrounds like muay thai, western kickboxing and traditional boxing. The are dangerous in their element and often have good knockout power. Strikers prefer to stay on their feet so they usually work on their takedown defense and sprawl. When they do get on the ground, most of them just try to get back to their feet, sometimes even stepping back to let their opponent rise because they want to strike and not groundfight. Some strikers though will take their opponent down and sit in their guard throwing punches and dropping elbows. That is called “ground n’ pound”. Ideally they get their opponent against a wall or fence to trap them, making it easier to keep then on the ground. Ground n’ pound is usually favored by grapplers though.”

“You, my friend, at the moment are a grappler. Grapplers tend to come from both Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, Jujutsu and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Sambo, Judo and the like. Grapplers generally dislike being on their feet and stroking and tend to look for the shoot to get the opponent to the ground where they can use their strengths, Having a good wrestling base is a great thing to have since you really know how you use your hips, apply leverage, scramble, sprawl and generally have excellent tendon strength. A lot of wrestlers learn to ground n’ pound or lean forms of Jujutsu to take advantage of the base.”

“The last flavor is the true, well-rounded mixed martial artist who had trained that way from the beginning. These have really only started to come around since MMA did not really explode until about ten or twelve years ago. So for the last few years we have been seeing people who have been trained their entire careers as true MMA fighters. Usually, people came over from a specific martial art and had to work to round themselves out. Growing up in the gym like I did, I learned largely like a true MMAer.”

“The truth though, is that I really prefer to strike.”

“And at the moment, you are a grappler. We are going to change that though and try to round you out. And to get that started, you will be learning a Russian martial art called Sambo. It can build off of your wrestling base and help get you familiar with striking and submissions as well. It is the fastest way for the most results at the moment. And from there, we can build.”

“We are also going to work on things like dealing with novas who have ranged attacks and using the Combat Zone to your advantage and everything too, but it all builds.“

“So.. any questions so far?”

[z-Brawlzilla]

Sally was impressed with the training facility, with the obvious care put into the structure and layout. The equipment was obviously top-notch. "This is awesome," she said to Erin the first chance she got.

"Questions? Um, no, not yet," Sally answered, looking around again one more time. Her eufiber shifted from the clothing she had been wearing on the airplane, taking the shape of understated workout clothes. Her tendrils stretched out, pulling away from her body to their full reach before snaking back to hover around her body.

"So, this Sambo," Sally said, grinning. "It sounds like a crazy dance, but if you say it's what I need, then I'm game. What's first? Just tell me what to do."