“I don’t know how not to,” she snapped, then immediately winced. “Sorry.”
I didn’t tell her it was fine. I stepped back instead, giving her space she didn’t seem to want but clearly needed.
“Reset,” I said. “Feet first.”
She looked down, adjusted, then adjusted again.
Still wrong.
“You’re bracing like you expect the ground to give out,” I said.
She huffed out a breath. “It might.”
“It won’t.”
She tried again. This time her stance was closer, but when I stepped toward her, slow and controlled, she flinched anyway. Shoulders up. Chin tucked. Guard collapsing inward.
I stopped immediately.
Her breath went shallow.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I just—do it again. I can do it.”
“We’re not doing it again yet.”
She looked up at me, frustration sharp in her eyes. “I don’t want to be bad at this.”
“You’re not bad at it,” I said. “You’re scared.”
Her mouth tightened.
“That’s not the same thing,” she muttered.
“It is when your body moves before your brain does.”
She tried again. And again. Each time something small went wrong. Her balance. Her timing. Her reaction speed. Every correction stacked on the last until her hands started to shake.
Not big. Not obvious.
The kind you only noticed if you were already watching for it.
“Stop,” I said.
She froze mid-motion.
“I didn’t mean?—”
“I know.” I closed the distance fully this time. Close enough to feel the heat coming off her skin, to hear the way her breathing had gone shallow and fast. “We’re done for a minute.”
Her jaw tightened. “I don’t want to quit.”
“This isn’t quitting.”
She looked away, blinking hard. “It feels like it.”
I lifted my hands slowly, deliberately, so she could track every movement before I touched her. One hand settled at her elbow, the other at her wrist, adjusting her guard without forcing it.
“You’re locking everything up,” I said quietly. “You don’t need to be rigid to be strong.”
