[ She joins him, falling easily into a relaxed stance across from him. She's careful at first, because she doesn't know how much experience or skill he has at this - it's her first time sparring with him in any sort of format. Well, him him, not his counterpart. She can do without that experience again. Not that there had been sparring so much as fleeing for her life. She didn't think 'practice sparring' was a concept the Other Guy would be all that quick to pick up on.
So she started light, gauging his level of skill and movement, giving them both time to test each other, learn each other's movement and rhythm. It was something she did automatically, because Coulson had used her on new recruits with a vast variety of skill and experience, so each time started out with her assessing her partner. SHIELD typically frowned on her breaking their promising new agents-to-be.
It doesn't take her long to figure out that he's good, his skill level above and beyond many people she's sparred with. He's obviously been doing this for a while and there's a smoothness and confidence in his movements that she can appreciate. She matches him, finding her own rhythm, matching it to his, echoing his moves with a fluidity that comes from instincts long honed. Back and forth, testing each other, sometimes pushing, sometimes balancing. She loses herself in the motions, her focus narrowing down to the mat under feet and the movements of the man across from her, everything else fading out.
It was her own way of focusing, re-centering. Nothing honed her attention in as sharply as someone she could match herself against, clearing her thoughts and her mind, bringing all her other senses fully in sync. It was her release, a freedom often so very absent in the rest of the hours of her day, a period of time when it didn't matter who she was, what she did or said, or anyone or anything else around her. ]
works for me! *makes shit up*
So she started light, gauging his level of skill and movement, giving them both time to test each other, learn each other's movement and rhythm. It was something she did automatically, because Coulson had used her on new recruits with a vast variety of skill and experience, so each time started out with her assessing her partner. SHIELD typically frowned on her breaking their promising new agents-to-be.
It doesn't take her long to figure out that he's good, his skill level above and beyond many people she's sparred with. He's obviously been doing this for a while and there's a smoothness and confidence in his movements that she can appreciate. She matches him, finding her own rhythm, matching it to his, echoing his moves with a fluidity that comes from instincts long honed. Back and forth, testing each other, sometimes pushing, sometimes balancing. She loses herself in the motions, her focus narrowing down to the mat under feet and the movements of the man across from her, everything else fading out.
It was her own way of focusing, re-centering. Nothing honed her attention in as sharply as someone she could match herself against, clearing her thoughts and her mind, bringing all her other senses fully in sync. It was her release, a freedom often so very absent in the rest of the hours of her day, a period of time when it didn't matter who she was, what she did or said, or anyone or anything else around her. ]