Jen had always been a person who practices anything and everything. Even something so seemingly mundane as walking, which was what she was practising today. But instead of just walking, she would practice it by doing it really, really slow. As if in super slow motion. What that allowed her to do, is to consider every single detail of what she was doing. Exactly where her legs and arm were, what angle her knee was at, what angle her ankle was at, how it hit the floor, and so on...
Practicing like this allowed her to control how she walked very carefully. Both in terms of speed, technique, and balance, but also body language and sound. The difference might be subtle, but your brain notices more than you think. Even a minuscule misstep could subtract from the notion that she was in complete control.
Whenever she practiced like this her mind would focus completely on all of these variables and block out just about all other thoughts and worries. It helped her forget anything and everything else for a while. So before every lesson, she would practice something she could completely lose herself in.
And as this had become easier she would sometimes also add to it. Walking on a balance plank, on her toes or on her hands. That last one had sort of become her thing; walking elegantly on her hands. It's a great strength exercise and it looks really impressive if you do it just right.
Then her practice was interrupted. It was quite rare, but ever so often stray thought would strike her brain during her practice session. The thought did distract her for a few seconds, but she had learned to store it in her mind and go back to focusing on the task. There was always time to consider it more closely when she was supervising him as he did his workouts.
...
The first thing Jay did as he entered was to look her in her eyes and give her a big, properly tight hug! Maybe there was hope for him after all.
"Hey Jay" she chuckled a bit at the alliteration before continuing. "How are you"
"I'm good, actually. Not excited about being worked to death, though"
That made her laugh and grin viciously. "Are you saying I have a particular reason to work you to death?"
"Uhm..."
"How many did you skip this time?" Her voice turned sharper, letting him know he could be in big trouble.
"Just one!" he blurted out quickly. "I almost skipped a second one, but I remembered what I had to go through the last time..."
"So you only did your exercises so that you did not have to do them here?"
"Uhmmm.... No...."
A quick look was all it took for him to collapse like a poorly executed stacked house of cards in a hurricane.
".... Yes..."
"Seems like I need to step up the exercises I put you through here, then. That way, you might do them all like you're supposed to."
"N-no! Please Miss Jen... I'll be good" he stuttered, eyes looking anywhere but at hers.
"Now's a good time to start then. Go change and start your exercise." The commanding tone of her voice made sure he would walk at a rather brisk pace.
...
As he started doing the push-ups, she desperately wished she had her stiletto heels on. The thought of him pushing himself up into a spike while suffering through push up after push up at her command made her sadistic heart smile. Though stilettos would, of course, be horribly impractical for wrestling, so she had to abandon the idea. As a not very interesting compromise, she made sure to stand in front of him, so he would be looking down at her feet, just to let him know she was there.
It seemed like just seeing her made him determined to do better, so instead of giving him orders, she would just make sure he saw her as he did the exercises. He never once met her eyes, he just looked at her and that alone seemed to spur him on. Only a few times did she have to verbally correct him and only to correct minor details. Mmmmh, progress!
...
When the time came for the dreaded pull ups she watched with great interest as he psyched himself before grabbing the bar. Then he looked straight at her. It was hard to keep a straight face because of how it seemed like he expected, or perhaps even needed, her to spur him on.
"You can do it" her voice was very matter-of-factly, merely stating that he was physically capable of doing it and that she expected him to do it right now.
That tiny poke seemed to help for a while as he started slowly rising towards the top. Though it didn't last very long. Then it happened again; he lifted his head to look at her.
"Get. The. Fuck. Up. There." every syllable was emphasized with some of that sharpness she used last time he did a pull-up. With his eyes closed, he tensed up and lifted himself over the bar, holding the position for a few seconds before he somewhat carefully descended back down to the floor.
Of course, she could have complimented him, but instead, she just told him with her sadistic grin "you know you're gonna have to do that again later, right?"
"Fuckkk"
She grinned her evil little smile at him. "Don't worry though, you have the rest of this exercise set and half of the next series to look forward to it. Now continue."
The second part of the exercises went pretty much like the first part with her making sure he always saw at least some part of her. Seeing her being near, ready to order him to go faster, seemed to have an effect. It still wasn't as fast-paced as she wanted to, but definitely an improvement.
When he finished, she complimented him in her usual cheery tone; "You did a lot better today than last time!"
"So that's why you weren't yelling at me?"
Was that suspicion in his voice? That surprised her a little. It was, of course, very well-grounded. But it was still surprising to hear him being critical. A sense of pride hit her; he was starting to suspect her. Hopefully, it'd soon evolve to the next step; fear.
"You did the exercises mostly correctly and not too dreadfully slow. I consider that progress and decided to reward you a little."
She let him have a few sips of water before starting the second run through the exercises.
...
"Faster! You had a nice relaxing run through the exercises, now you're gonna have to work for it"
With a deep sigh, he picked up the pace. For each set of the exercise, she would keep him working hard, on the edge of what he could do. She also let him do every exercise a little faster or longer just to keep him barely within his limits.
...
"Stop! When you do the pullup I don't want you to dangle there. I'm gonna say 'go' and when I do, you jump, grab the pole and pull yourself up. If you fail to follow these instructions you get to go through all the exercises once more." Like always when she gave orders, there was no way anyone would mistake them for mere suggestions. Even if he had a question like 'what if I don't get all the way up?', which was a very relevant question, he didn't dare pose it.
"Ready? Now!" Just like in the previous lesson, she used that voice again. It wasn't an angry voice, it was just such a sharp and commanding voice. It was one of those tiny, tiny details she had spent a ridiculous amount of time practicing.
The effect it had on Jay though, was absolute. He jumped, grabbed, and slowly but surely pulled himself up. Sure, the fact that he jumped had probably helped him a little, but she didn't care, she was just happy he had done it. Slightly shaky, he lowered himself onto the floor.
"Good girl" her voice was fully back to her normal cheery voice like she prefers it. Raised voices are good to produce an immediate reaction, which is definitely a lot of fun sometimes. But it can also create a form of tension she didn't want, so she tended to revert back to her normal voice to lighten the mood pretty quickly. Successful pull up aside though, she didn't give him any time to relax and instead ordered him to resume his exercises.
...
Since the next exercises didn't rely on his arms, he got through them quite easily. Of course, she made sure he worked hard with each exercise lasting a bit longer than the previous one. For the final exercise, the plank, she did like last time; made it last longer and added some of her body weight to his shoulders towards the end. She added more and more weight to him as he approached the final few seconds. By the end, he was holding up a substantial part of her body weight, but he suffered through it all.
The timer eventually reached zero ( weird how it always took longer when she was the timer ) and she got off of him and handed him a water bottle and a towel.
"You did well today" she let her pride show in the way she said it. "Way better than the last time"
"Thanks. It's getting a little easier!"
"I'm glad!"
With the initial workout complete, it was time to put her newly conceived plan into action. "I want to try something different today, follow me"
They walked leisurely over to a balance plank she had put up in a corner of her gym. It was, in essence, just a plank hovering two feet over the group. It was about 20 cm wide and 5 meters foot long. Small enough to easily fall, long enough there was room for two people to fight on it.
In an elegant move, she jumped on one foot landing perfectly balanced onto the end of the plank facing away from it with Jay on her left. Then she got up onto her toes and walked backward. It was as if she was walking normally on the floor. She never hesitated or slowed down. Nor did she ever have to use her hands to regain her balance. Her feet simply just knew where to place themself in a way so that she didn't lose balance.
As she walked backward she kept her eyes focused on Jays, while his eyes flicked between her eyes and her feet, seemingly worried she'd fall. "I want you to walk back and forth on this. But I don't want you to use your hands to balance. Instead, I want you to really focus on the movement. Focus on where to put your feet so that they're perfectly on the plank and as steady as possible. Buttt..."
As she said the "butt" part she had reached the end, or close enough so she stopped walking backwards, starting to walk forwards instead. Though this time she walked at her slowest pace. Snails would be blisteringly fast in comparison "... I want you to walk
extremely
slow.
This
slow. But as you do, I want you to stare straight into my super exciting grey wall of sheer awesomeness over there and nowhere else."
With a neat little jump, she got off the plank and landed solidly on the floor. "Now get up there"
With absolutely no elegance whatsoever he jumped up onto the plank, arms immediately out to regain his balance.
"Remember; look straight ahead and focus on the movements. I want you to consider every single aspect of every step. You control every variable of each step. The knee, the heels, your torso, your head, and everything else. I want you to consider them all. Find what makes you feel balanced. It's all about keeping focused. Nothing other than you slowly walking towards the end of this plank matters. Okay"
"Uhmm. Okay"
"I know it sounds weird, but I want you to do it. It'll help you a lot. "
"Alright, I'll do my best to keep focused like you said"
"Good girl. I'll be keeping half an eye on you while I do some exercises." Which was part of the plan, she knew she needed to make sure he did it correctly, but she didn't want him to feel too pressured from her watching him.
"Oh, and I want you to walk backwards when you reach the end. So your eyes will always be focused on my wonderful grey wall." Before he could raise any of his concerns she added "just walk slowly and you'll be fine" And without looking back, she headed off to do the exercises.
