Brooke's Musical Emporium Free For All

[tapdancinskelly]

Who: Everyone... and I mean everyone.
When: Sunday Afternoon
Where: Brooke's Musical Emporium
Summary: Brooke has a million little things he wanted to do with people.  He has a date with Alice, He has violin lessons with Rikku, he has a re-match duel with Mitsuru, He wanted to chat with Sanji about dating, he was going to have tea with Sookie, he was

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~1:31 PM

[tapdancinskelly]

Brooke had only recently finished his conversation with Sir Fratley to play some piano, and as such had not expected him to pop up so quickly. He quickly finished his piano piece with the last lingering notes and made his way to the front of the store where his new student was waiting. "I must say, I'm rather surprised you arrived so soon, it's rather impressive. Were you just around the corner? Well anyways, we may as well start now, if you'll please follow me."

Brooke headed towards a door in the back of the store that lead to the kitchen where there were many different types of tea, then through another room that had a Chandelier and a staircase leading upstairs, and finally into the back room. There were many crates and a stage in the back room and it was a very wide open space despite the sheer number of different crates. Brooke looked around for a crate and pulled out two hand sized balls and several handkerchiefs.

"We must first determine how good your reflexes already are if you are to juggle so we'll start with some basics." Brooke then tossed Fratley a ball for him to catch.

~1:32-34 PM

[by_your_leave]

"Not as such," Fratley admitted. He simply had little else to do.

Obediently, he trailed after Brooke. Though the skeleton wouldn't be able to see the expression on his face with that hat in the way (really, how did he even manage to see) the knight was lively enough, head turning and ears twitching as he took in the sight and smell of the back rooms of the emporium. It was impressive, at least, to someone whose limited memory of civilization involved crowded villages or barren wastelands.

Up the stairs and into the back room. The knight had all of a moment to wonder at the purpose of the stage before Brooke lobbed a ball at him. Out of instinct rather than conscious intent, Fratley reached out and caught the ball before it could hit him, blinking in surprise.

"Ah." He looked down at the ball in his hand, then back at Brooke, inquisitively. The prominent claws didn't seem to pose him a difficulty in holding the ball, but... what now?

[tapdancinskelly]

When Fratley caught the ball his reaction was as he had expected it to be, now they could start with their training. "Juggling is not only about dexterity, but also timing, and hand eye coordination. To start off with I want you to throw the ball from one of your hands to the other in a circular motion. Like so." Brooke put down the handkerchiefs and started to spin the one ball. He was essentially juggling with only one ball but doing it very slowly so that it was easy to follow as a demonstration.

"This will help you get a hold of the very basics of juggling. Depending on how good you are at doing that, will determine if you are completely ready for the next step." Brook sat down on one of the crates in the room with his cup of tea, and watched to see how well Fratley could handle it.

[by_your_leave]

The dexterity wasn't a problem; what Fratley wasn't sure of was whether he'd be able to use it for this particular task. Thankfully, the balls were large, and Brooke at least seemed patient enough. Fratley tossed the ball from one another at first, getting a feel for the weight of it, before he tried doing as Brooke had asked, passing the ball from one hand to another.

Though his gaze was intent and almost too focused, and his movements slow at first, very soon he was smoothly passing the ball between his hands, lightly enough that his claws barely brushed the surface before it left his fingers again.

"It seems I can manage this part of it, at least," he murmured, somewhat uncertainly.

[tapdancinskelly]

"Very good indeed." Brooke said removing the ball from Fratley's hand and replacing them with 3 handkerchiefs. "Now, we move onto the part where we actually start juggling which involves multiple objects. In this particular case we are going to start you with the most simple of things to juggle, these handkerchiefs. They are designed to fall extra slowly so you can more easily set your own pace on how quickly you juggle them. We'll start you off with three, but if that causes you too many problems try two and then work your way back up to three."

(ooc: This is actually how I was taught to juggle :3)

[by_your_leave]

It was enjoyable, learning a new skill. Fratley couldn't remember how he had learned how to fight, or how he had trained to be able to leap from one rooftop to another (which, according to Puck, wasn't something just anyone could do). Actually exerting effort to learn something new, as opposed to straining agains whatever was blocking his memory, was engaging, and, well...

He supposed Lord Puck would probably call it "fun."

The knight fumbled the handkerchiefs a few times, but every time he dropped one, he picked it up and kept going. The fact that the handkerchiefs fell more slowly than a ball did help, and after a few slow, awkward tries, he was at least juggling continuously, if not smoothly.

"... This truly is more difficult than you make it seem."

[ ooc; That's pretty cool. 8D /has no idea how to, sob. ]

[tapdancinskelly]

Brooke couldn't help but smile, he did actually seem to be enjoying himself, despite some of the difficulties he was having. It was rather impressive for a first try though. "My dear Sir Fratley, I don't mean to laugh, but I've been at this for almost 80 years, where you have only just begun. Yohohoho! You are doing a marvelous job so far! You've actually managed to juggle albeit a small amount. With some work at it, you might even be able to juggle 4 or 5 handkerchiefs, maybe even 6 if you were feeling gutsy. and then maybe eventually the balls." Brooke paused for a moment to look at Fratley's tail.

"I'm curious though, do you have a lot of control with your tail? If you did, there's a lot of potential there. A lot of creatures with tails that I know don't have too much control of their tail, but some are very adept at using them."

[ooc: Well you could always try by starting of trying to throw one ball from hand to hand in a circular motion and then try juggling tissues :P]

[by_your_leave]

"My tail?" Fratley echoed, pausing his juggling to turn and peer at the appendage in question. It wasn't something he really thought about, exactly; he more or less took its presence for granted, though he supposed someone without one of their own would be much more aware of his.

"I had not thought to try," he admitted. He flicked his tail, letting it curl-- though it couldn't do so to a great degree. It wasn't like a monkey's, prehensile and capable of grasping things, but it was quite strong, probably capable of knocking the feet out from under unwary opponents.

For Brooke's benefit, he let his tall flick back and forth, then curl and uncurl, demonstrating the extent of its flexibility. "I suppose this is the limit of my control," Fratley murmured, turning to the skeleton questioningly. "It is mostly of use as a means of balance."

[ ooc: I'll give it a go. +___+ ]

[tapdancinskelly]

Brooke considered Fratley's tail some more and nodded. "Likely you could make quite a lot of use out of it in battle since many foes I've seen would not take into consideration the tail. Also it's my personal experience that the more appendages, the more attacks they have to make sure to concern themselves with blocking."

Brooke shook his head though laughing slightly. "I'm getting off track though. There are a few more things one should consider when juggling. One of them is the direction which is more important than you'd think. Now I can juggle in either direction because I am ambidextrous meaning I can use my right hand just as well as my left. Or at least almost as well, I still prefer my using my right hand." To show his point Brooke juggled 7 colored balls clockwise quite rapidly, but ever so slightly slower when he switched to counter clockwise.

Brooke put the balls back down and took a long sip of tea before trying to explain again. "You see, when you juggle one of your hands is used for throwing balls into the air, and catching balls straight across from your other hand. The other hand is used to catch balls falling from the air, and then throwing them to your other hand. The other hand is used for catching balls that fall from the air, and then rapidly and with great accuracy throwing them to your other hand. It's more accurate to say that when one juggles it's in a half circle, where the air is your circular area, but between your hands is a straight line. Now from my personal experience, the hand that you rely on to throw the balls in a circular pattern through the air, and to catch balls specifically aimed at it, needs fare less talent than the hand that catches balls falling from mid air and tossing it to the other hand so it can catch it for sure. Understood?"

... I'm learning so much about juggling from this thread.

[by_your_leave]

Fratley had certainly never realized that so much thought went into juggling. He nodded slowly, looking at the handkerchiefs he had been juggling with a new kind of respect.

"I understand."

At some point in the conversation, the knight had decided to take off his hat, setting it on a box beside him. It was difficult to juggle with such a large brim in the way, never mind for a beginner.

Fratley himself was right-handed, and he flexed the fingers of the hand in question as he continued. "I am right-handed, so juggling from my right to my left hand would be easier than trying to do it in reverse. Correct?" He attempted to demonstrate the principle by juggling from his left hand to his right, but after a few awkard tries one of the handkerchiefs went wild, flying straight up--

"Ah!"

--and, as Fratley leaned back to watch its trajectory, landing right between the knight's eyes.