Leah looked around at her classmates. She had not heard clearly what the professor had said. Oh, broom on the floor, say Up.

Leah placed her broom on the ground right below her hand, and said uncertainly, "Uh... Up?" Nothing happened. "Up." She repeated. "Oh, for merlin's sake, UP!" She said irritably, and the broom came shooting up to her, causing her to lose her balance and fall painfully to the ground. The girl stood up frowning, brushing herself.

Okay it was go time- scaredy cat Robin needed to go and adventurous Robin needed to come in- now preferably. That is, if adventure Robin existed. She took a deep breath and oh so gently lay her broom on the soft grass next to her right foot. If the broom was going to make a connection with her- she wanted it to be a good one. She vaguely wondering how soft of a landing if she fell.
nope, no pessimistic thoughts allowed
placing her hand above the broom she tried for the first time.
"U-up"
no good, she stuttered She huffed out a breath and tried again.
"Up"
better, the top half of the broomstick bucked up towards her. She smiled,now she was getting somewhere! She smiled water and confidently asserted
"Up!"
All of a sudden the handle of the broomstick was in her hand, almost knocking her off her feet in surprise.
"It worked! Does that mean it likes me?"

Maybe the professor hadn't heard her? Anyway, she'd done it left-handed with Mo, and it had worked then. Might as well do it now since the other students were clearly making progress. Gwen set the broom down on her left side and held her hand over it. "Up," she demanded, not unkindly, of the pretty broom.

Just as it had when she worked with Mo, the broom jumped into her outstretched hand. Gwen beamed. This seemed to be the only magical thing she was good at so far. Potions had been a total bust, Transfiguration was terrible, but the broom thing...she got it. It made sense to her and was just easier than any of the things she'd tried with her wand.

She glanced around, secretly pleased that some of her classmates were having trouble. For once it was something that Gwen wasn't behind on. Maybe she should offer to help? Or maybe not because it wasn't as if she knew why the broom thing worked so well for her. So she couldn't really explain it to another student. They would just have to wait for the teacher.

Standing somewhere in the middle between the other first years, Kevin had to control himself from bouncing on his feet. He couldn't believe he was going to be flying soon , that he would be in the SKY. He had asked his parents for a toy broom once when he was younger but they had refused.

Listening carefully to the instructions, he placed the broom down on the grass and stepped to the left, next to the flying object. He held his right hand above and shouted, with determination; "UP!"

It happened fast. The broom flew up with rapid speed and he was too late to catch it. Actually, he had been too surprised in the second it had happened and the broom hit him hard on the shoulder. "Owww!" he shouted and brought his left hand to hs right shoulder, rubbing it as he groaned. The broom fell back down and the Gryffindor rolled his shoulder to try and relieve the pain there.

He was NOT letting a broomstick defeat him though so he hovered his hand above the broom again and said "UP!" again. This time he was ready for it , he grabbed it in time before the broom could hit him again and as he grasped on to it he looked at the Professor, beaming with pride. The pain on his shoulder and hand long forgotten.

Fly! are they gonna FLYYY now?!

Okaaay. So she had to get the broom to come up to her. That sounded pretty easy. She moved away from the people she was staying next to, and placed her broom on the floor, to her right. She was sure this would be easy. She had flown loads. She was pretty positive and confident that she would be fine. Beaming, she placed her right hand over the broom, and aid "Up." And waiting. Nothing. Nothing at all. The snake frowned, staring down at her broom. "Up." And still nothing. Was it seriously not going to work? Really?

She frowned, glancing around. It looked like others were having trouble. So at least it wasn't just her. "Up." She pouted, looking at the broom. It kind of twitched on the floor, but then did not do anything. Oh. Not good. Not good at all.

She pouted some more, before trying once more "Upppp." She practically growled, and surprisingly the broom came up. "Woooot. Finaaallllly."

They were ready to move on, she thought. "Okay, now it's time to mount your brooms. Grasp the hand firmly with both hands, one in front of the other, so that you will not fall off." Although she was likely to have that happen with at least one student anyways, which is why they would be hovering close to the ground. "Swing your leg over the broom to mount it, like so." She demonstrated the proper grip and mounted her own broom. "Make sure to keep one foot planted on the ground at all times during this step." She didn't want anyone getting airborne yet.

OOC: The next post will be in about 8-10 hours.

Okay next step- nothing she couldn't handle. She debated for a quick second on which hand to put in front but decided that since she was indeed right handed- it would make since to put that one in front. She gripped it tightly and swung one leg over- briefly going on her tip toe so that her leg could get over it comfortably. When on her tip toes she felt the vroom almost rise- but quickly planted both feet on the ground again-successfully mounting the room. She exhaled- one step down

Josette looked over the Professor when she had told her she'd done a good job. A small smile formed after she said this. She was feeling very proud of herself & very thankful to Mo for showing her the basics. Before she knew it, the lesson was moving forward. Now it was time to mount their brooms. Right.

She gripped both of her hands onto the broom, one in front of the other as the Professor said to do so. Josette then proceeded to cautiously swing her leg over the broom once she felt she had a good enough grip on the broom. She made sure that she was still on the ground just in case, otherwise she would have immediately started to panic if the broom decided to take off with the first year. But thankfully, things looked good so far.

Mount the broom. This shouldn't be too hard. Gwen had ridden horses before. Surely riding a horse was not that different from riding a broom? Except for the airborne factor. And the inanimate vs animate argument....Gwen placed both hands on the handle of the broom, holding it as if she were holding a lever on the alpine slide. One in front of the other, touching each other.

The broom was at waist height, so Gwen was tempted to hop in order to swing one leg over, but she remembered the professors admonishment to keep both feet on the ground. "Could you get just a smidge lower?" she thought, looking at the broom as if to direct the question to it. To her surprise and delight the broom complied, moving it's hovering self down low enough for Gwen to swing her left leg over the broom and plant both feet on the ground. She was ready to fly. They were going to be allowed to fly today, right?

Bri grinned at the compliment that Professor Tyner sent her. "Thank You" She said quietly She listened as the professor gave off the next instructions. Bri was getting even more excited as they got one step closer.

The young girl then grabbed her broom, and put her left hand in front of her right hand, holding the broom firmly. Swinging her leg over the broom she mounted the broom. She wanted to fly up right away, but she kept her feet on the ground, she didn't want to get into trouble.

So Caelen was having a little trouble. Flying was her worst subject. She could just never put the concepts into action as well as she could with thngs like potions. Something wouldn't click, no matter how times she tried to force it to.

But that's why she was here to learn, right? She had to learn to fly sometime. It was like tying your shoes, everyone has to learn and one point. And this seemed to be that point. Because she was not going to be the one person who couldn't fly. And pursuit of knowledge was a Ravenclaw thing. At least that's what her brother messaged her.

Anyway, time to mount the broom. She grabbed onto the handle with both hands and calmly thought of what the professor had said. Keep both feet firmly on the ground and then swing your leg over. She could do that. Nate had taught her this part over the summer with an old broom. Besides the times when she failed, it was actually kind of fun.

Leg swung successfully over. She was on the right track.

This was the part that Tiara wasn't too worried about. Most students were more than capable of swinging their legs over broomsticks. The hardest part was keeping everyone from taking off too soon. Scanning the assembly, she noted that her pupils were ready to move on.

Tiara cleared her throat. "Right. Now you're ready to get in the air!" She paused a brief moment for them to have small internal panic moments. In her experience, it was best to let this happen before giving the directions or no one would hear her. "On my signal, I want you all to kick off from the ground hard, maintaining a firm, two-handed grip on the broom at all times. I would like you to hover for a few moments and then land again by gently coaxing the broom handle downwards." The official demonstrated the process. "You may do this several times until you feel proficient in taking off and landing."

She looked around to make sure everyone had been paying attention. "Okay, then on the count of three. One... two... THREE."

OOC: The next post will be in around 12 hours. Feel free to post more than once if you'd like, just remember not to double post!

Could this get any more boring? They weren't babies. Gwen just wanted to fly as high as she could as fast as she could. She wanted to feel the wind in her hair and the adrenaline in her blood. Once she had gone with Zeke and his friends bridge jumping. That had even been more thrilling than this was. But she supposed the line of reasoning was that you had to walk before you could run.

Gwen obey orders kicking off from the ground. She felt a slight thrill when she realized she was connected to the ground by nothing. Testing the waters, or skies, she tilted the handle up just a bit, moving a little further up into the sky. Not wanting to get in trouble and be told she couldn't fly anymore today, she hovered there for a second before leaning forward and touching the ground again. Now could the real flying happen? The kind where you raced, and flew high, and dodged things?

Robin was feeling more confident than she had before- they were simple steps -kicking up, leaking down, nothing to fret- this being said she forced herself to take deep reaths and calm down. Before she had time to have second thoughts she kicked off the ground as hard as she could.
"Whoa!!"
She immediately leaned down and planted her feet on the sweet oh so solid ground.
She took a minute to catch her breath, her heart pounding from her first (and brief) flight experience. Once she thought she could handle it again she kicked off once more, tho time making herself stay a little longer in the air and slowly descended much more controlled- she felt much more in control the more she did it!

Clutching her broom tightly in both hands as told, Leah listened attentively to the professor. This was the part she was looking forward to most. Leah kicked hard on the ground when Professor Tyner said "one".

It was wonderful. The girl did not dare go too much upwards in case she got a detention or an injury, but enjoyed the few seconds of her first flight. Leah went upwards for a few feet, then coaxed the broom downwards as instructed and landed with a small thud on the soft ground.

Her feeling could not be expressed in mere words. She could try it out several times? OK...

Isabelle was sure flying was horrible, even when the only thing she'd done was tried to make it come up. Tried. And failed. Eventually, when she was about to just give up, the broom flew up into her hand at her commanding, "Up!" which was cool. Beaming, she mounted it, pleased with the achievement.

Okay, now it was time to do the scary actual flying stuff.

Nervously, Belle kicked off hard from the ground and wobbled a lot as she hovered in the air. She felt sick. So she tilted the broom handle forward and landed with a bump. Now she had to do it again. And again, until she got good at it. Or the end of the lesson, anyway, since she doubted she'd ever be confident.

She tried again and afterwards felt about the same as she did before. Terrified of getting anywhere near the broom. Maybe it was time to take a little break to recover.

[ Bri nearly started to bounce due to all the built up excitement. They were going to be in the air now. True it is only barely off the ground and for a few minutes.. but still!

At the Professor's THREE , Bri pushed of the ground, and hover for a little bit in the air, grinning at her fellow first year students, before pushing the handle down, she landed on the ground a little harder than she meant too, but the young Hufflepuff just shook her head, before trying again, untill she got the hang of it taking off and landing smoothly.

"Excellent work everyone. The more you practice, the smoother your landings will be as you get a refined touch and sense of control of the broom. Just as you and your wand learn magic together and so become more attuned, you and the broom become used to each other." Perhaps none of their classes had mentioned this fact about wands before?

And now for the fun part. "If you feel you need more practice with taking off and landing, feel free to do so. If you are ready for a bit of actually going somewhere, that will be how we end the lesson today." It looked like many of them had gotten to the point where they were comfortable enough with kicking off and touching down, but with something as imposing as flying, it was best not to rush students.

"After you kick off, urge your broom forward by pushing your grip forward. The more you do so, the faster you will go. Similarly, to slow down, pull your grip back towards your body. The more you pull, the faster you will slow down." Common sense, but it was worth mentioning. "Once you get good, moving your grip as much will become unnecessary, but don't worry about that today." And they would probably need their own broom before they truly didn't need that at all.

"Please do not get more than ten or twenty feet above the ground, as I don't want any injuries. The whole of the pitch is open to you now. So go ahead and give it a shot!" And for this part, Tiara pulled out her wand and cast several cushioning charms on the ground-- just in case.

OOC: That's the end of the instructions. Go ahead and RP to your heart's content, the more the better! This thread will remain open for another 48 hours or so, and I'll still be around to RP with if you want.

Internal screaming! Internal screaming! They were actually going to go into the air? Caelen's experiences with trying to learn flight pretty much ended badly at this step. She still had a bruise on her back from the last time. The redhead wasn't so sure about this anymore.

With a deep breath and a small moment of nothingness, she told herself to calm down. And it seemed to work, besides the small pang of fear that was eating at her lower intestine.

Wait, maybe she could understand this time. Maybe she would get it. Okay, What were the directions? She was really going to have to listen to this one. Kick off hard from the ground, maintain a hard grip... no a firm grip on the broom with both hands. That was always the easy part.

The hard part was actually controlling the broom and landing correctly. She had more than one meeting with the ground while she was testing this. She would prefer not to have another one, thank you very much.

Okay. This was just practice. She wasn't really that nervous now -thanks to the powers of wanting to get this over with and supressing any fear with song lyrics- and she was ready to go.

Kick hard. Check. Both hands holding the broom handle hard.... no firmly. Check. She was going to have to get better at the firmly thing, because Caelen didn't think gripping it like a person grips a firehose was going to help.

And she was in the air. Well, hovering. Hovering a bit. Which was good. She liked it up here. She felt... tall. And the fun kind of tall, not 'how's the weather up there tall'. All she had to do was land.

Gently coax the broom. Gently coax it- ahh! That wasn't gently. She was laying on the ground, wishing she could get the hang of landing gently.

She hovered without much trouble -that was always the easy part for her- and then tried again. She managed to come into contact with the ground again. Flying hurt.

Wiping the dust off, Caelen thought again. Maybe the jerky movement she was doing wasn't exactly gentle. Maybe there was a better method? She practiced moving the handle down just slightly while she was still on the ground, using a slow movement that would hopefull work when she actually needed it to.

And up! She actually liked being up in the air, it was rather fun. She just had to see about slowing down the landing. Gentle movement. Gentle movement.

Robin was definitely feeling more confident, but that didn't mean that she wanted to speed through the itch at the speed of light. She kicked off once more but instead of immediately coming down , she pushed her grip forward
eeek! too fast too fast!!
She quickly pulled back again until she was hovering. She barely pushed forward the second time until she was gently coasting forward. She sighed, so far so good now just increase the speed and....there! she was flying! She even tried turning around to get to her original spot!. She landed back at her place in line and hopped off the broomstick.
"Oh ground I missed you so much!" She breathed, sinking to her knees and patting the ground, the nice, stable ground.

Yes! Gwen beamed. Now they were allowed to go! She kicked off from the ground again shooting up to nearly twenty feet. She had said no more than twenty, right? This was the coolest thing she had ever done, and certainly something to write home about. Gwen pushed her grip out away from her body and shot forward. Just lean to turn, right? They hadn't been told how to turn, but it felt automatic to the eleven year old. She leaned to the left and the broom veered in that direction. Leaning sharply the opposite way the broom flipped around to face the other side of the pitch. The adrenaline coursed through Gwen's veins and she just wanted to never land.

Bri grinned, now they actually get fly around the pitch! She kicked off and flew to the maximum height of 20 feet. She praticed speeding up and slowing down few a little bit, loving the feel of the wind on her face and hair, as she speed up. The adrenaline was pounding through her veins. She was made to fly! Bri glanced around at the other fellow first years, some still look a little nervous, but a few looked as thrilled as she, particularly a Ravenclaw girl, that she played was named Gwen. She fly till she was next to the other first year girl.
"Hi Gwen.... right? " Bri said, her usual shyness gone due to the adrenaline. "Do you want to race around the pitch... If we are allowed?" The brunette asked excitedly, before turning towards the professor.
" Are we are allowed the race each other?" The young Hufflepuff asked.

Gwen stopped instantly when she heard her name. She turned to see a girl that she didn't know. So, not a Ravenclaw then, she recognized most of the Ravenclaws now even if she didn't know their names. She nodded at the hesitation with her name. "Yeah, Gwen. And you are?" She wasn't being rude. At least intentionally.

Did she want to race? Was that an actual question? Gwen's grin threatened to split her face. "Absolutely." Allowed or not, she would do it. Because the worst that would happen was point loss or detention, right? Maybe a minor injury or two. "Do you want to go down to the posts on that side, make a loop and have this be the finish line?" She indicated the middle of the pitch where they were hovering. Game face on. She was ready to go!

This was it! EEEEK he was sooo excited!

The Gryffindor first year grabbed the broom, making sure to hold one hand in front of the other and swung his leg over the broom. He looked at the others to see what they were doing as he kept one foot planted on the ground and the other hovered in the air. And then he waited....come on hurry up! He wanted to fly!

Even before the signal was even finished, Kevin had kicked his feet off the ground and his broom flew up. He grasped the broom tightly in his hands and looked under him. HE WAS FLYING! He was actually flying! He had to write to his parents after this because this was so cool! After he hovered above the ground for a few moments, Kevin pressed the broom handle down and the object returned to the ground.

And then immediately kicked himself off from the ground the moment the Professor said they could fly on their own. He saw her wave her wand just as he flew up but he didn't bother to know what she was doing. When he had gotten a pretty good height, the Gryffindor hold his body still as he looked around. He would fly a round the pitch first and with this thought he sped off to the right. He used a normal speed for him by leaning forward a little bit to catch some speed but not completely forward to be racing to the other side. He was still learning after all. Now came the turn and he wanted to make a perfect half circle so he leaned to the left, the broom flew with him and.....that's when he lost his grip.

He yelped when he hung upside down, the sky above him and he grasped on to the handle above him, his body clutching around it in panic. He had no idea how to control a broomstick when he was flying upside down and the thing flew criss cross over the pitch. "HOW DO I STOOOOP?!" He shouted, hoping that someone would hear him. He wasn't athletic either so swinging himself back on the broom took a lot of effort and he failed a couple of times as well.

"Yes, of course! Just try not to run into each other, right?" she said with a wink.

And that's when she heard a cry for help. Locating the trouble, she had to suppress a giggle. It would be Kevin. She was taking a liking to that boy.

Fortunately the boy was coming towards her. Taking aim, she said "Arresto Momentum," to slow him down. "You should come to a stop soon!" she called to him. And when he did, she could either help flip him, or he could simply drop to the cushioned ground. Either way, she thought it was best to make him stop first.