Training...
May. 7th, 2006 04:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
governmentninjaFor an agent as high a level as Leon, he had to be ready for anything. Sure, his stock and trade in terms of missions were either search & rescue or secure & protect, but he had to be ready to go into any environment, in any weather, in any terrain, at any time of day, often times with very little in the way of specifics to go on. Always gope for the best; always give your best; always be prepared for the worst was his approach to his training and to al his missions. But how do you prepare for an assignment when you might not even know what you'll be facing until you get on the ground? And given Leon's history, he could find himself in some seriously fucked up messes. How do you prepare for any of that? Well, anyone who ever monitored Leon's training schedule would see how he found a solution to that.
Leon had no schedule. His routine was anything but routine.
Even something a simple as a run was an adventure with him. There was a small river that curved around the eastern edge of town in a wide arc before straightening off, and it was several miles from the northern tip of the bend to the south. From his apartment, it was roughly two and half miles to any point on that arc, give or take about a half mile. Leon would always run, not jog, but run, to some point on that arc, but that's where his run ended in terms of regularity.
He never picked the same point on that arc to run to. Ever. It was always a different route there, and a slightly different route back, the terrain never getting a chance to become familiar. Some days he'd run past more grass and trees than anything else. Other days he'd be running through several back yards.
It didn't matter what time of day it was, either. Nor did he worry about the weather, for that matter. He'd be out there at 2am during a blizzard, 9pm in a cold rain, or 12:30 in the scorching summer heat. He'd just pick some random time and go. His free time tended to fluctuate on a daily basis anyway. Or, at least, it used to, before he got saddled with desk duty and the regular hours that came with it. Still, it was only temporary, and left him plenty of time the rest of day to do other stuff.
When he ran, he never took his phone, PINpoint, or any other communications device, map, or whatever. All he had on him was his 9mm, two extra clips, his knife, and one grenade. The whole point of that was to keep in the back of his head that he was alone, completely and totally alone, with very limited resources. Not that he ever expected trouble on his runs, but out in the field sometimes he would be left entirely on his own, with no back-up what so ever. It's a strange mentality, knowing you're that alone and that everything is resting squarely on your shoulders. Sure, there was no real way to ever prepare for that, but that helped him get into that frame of mind easier.
The rest of his training was also oddly complex like that. He'd have certain exercises he'd do, but he constantly changed up the order in which he'd work out, the location, the time of day, the spotter, sparring partner, whatever. His workouts tended to lean a more towards speed, evasion, and agility than brute power, though he did his share of strength training. Every exercise he did, though, had a purpose to it.
He'd run windsprints, either on the treadmill at his apartment (sometimes immediately before or after a run) or at the training facility at Quantico. He'd run at top speed for thirty seconds, rest for thirty, run again for forty-five seconds, then rest for thirty, then repeat five times, rest for two minutes exactly, then do it all over again. The whole point being to train his heart and his body to recover faster from exertion. Sometimes, in a combat situation, he would only be able to rest long enough to take one or two breaths, so he wanted to make them count as much as possible.
Things like his gymnastics and agility training were pretty basic. Most of his coworkers were surprised by that; they figured he'd have to be able to pull matrix-like moves out of his ass to get the kind of scores he did on evasion tests. While he did have one or two fancy moves like that, most of what he used normally was basic. Outside of a backflip, back layout, and front somersault, most of his moves were simple ducks, sidesteps, rolls and leans. He just did them so well, and could do them so quickly, that he made them look spectacular.
His firearms exercises came in two parts. One was in an outdoor shooting gallery with, either stationary or pop-up targets, which would always have rearranged before each run. Leon was one of the few who would be more likely to be outdoors in the dead of night, or if the weather sucked. Correctly identifying a target and getting a good shot with poor visibility were very useful skills to have. The indoor exercises also consisted of a shooting gallery with stationary or pop-up targets, but also had area to practice various dynamic entry tactics.
The dynamic entry exercises were the most dangerous, though not for Leon himself. He would always have the targets in the room randomly placed by someone, and there would be an ever changing number of people in the room, generally fellow agents, military officers, or instructors, who would play hostages. The danger for them was that Leon always used live rounds during his exercises, no exceptions. This constantly made him think, to be aware of where everyone was in the room within the blink of an eye. After all, he was shooting at paper targets, and bullet could easily pass through them and into someone else. Out in the field, a missed shot, a ricochet, or a shot that's a through-and-through could injure or kill a hostage or teammate unintentionally. He had to prepare for that, and keeping in mind how badly he could fuck up during practice runs kept his focus sharp so he wouldn't get careless.
His long range shooting numbers were solid, but not nearly as high as some others. If you wanted a sharpshooter, you could find better than him. Maybe he should ask Kevin for a few pointers.
His hand-to-hand combat training, both armed and unarmed, was just as varied as everything else. Leon didn't favor any one particular fighting style, taking moves from nearly a dozen different styles and merging them into his own. Most of his moves consisted of blocks, disarming techniques, holds, throws, reversals, stunning strikes, and escapes. He also had a wide range of moves that were both brutal and lethal, you don't get to his level without learning how to kill someone in under five seconds using just a teacup and a credit card, but much preferred the former set to the latter. Besides, the former was easier to practice on live opponents. His sparring partners varied by age, race, size, gender, fighting style, weapon of choice, and fighting experience. He'd probably fought half the people who trained on base at least once.And while he wouldn't admit it, he always got a little kick out of shutting up some loudmouth Marine who decided to talk trash to him.
Along with weight lifting, hitting various sized and shaped punching bags, and a few other basic exercises, that was largely Leon's daily training routine. All of that generally took anywhere from three to five non-consecutive hours a day. Only rarely did he ever do all of that back-to-back-to-back-to-back,and whenever he does, he's immediately sent to psych to find out why he's punishing himself like that most of it was spread out over the course of the day. Sure, there are other things he rather be doing and he's slowly learning to fit his training around Claire, rather than the other way around, but he did have an important job to do.
Besides, ever since the AU!Raccoon City fight, Leon knew had this feeling that he became the de facto field leader of the group in the nexus. This only made him train even harder since he had a sinking feeling that whenever shit would really hit the fan, they were going to be looking to him to take the lead once more.
Always hope for the best; Always give your best; Always be prepared for the worst.
Leon had no schedule. His routine was anything but routine.
Even something a simple as a run was an adventure with him. There was a small river that curved around the eastern edge of town in a wide arc before straightening off, and it was several miles from the northern tip of the bend to the south. From his apartment, it was roughly two and half miles to any point on that arc, give or take about a half mile. Leon would always run, not jog, but run, to some point on that arc, but that's where his run ended in terms of regularity.
He never picked the same point on that arc to run to. Ever. It was always a different route there, and a slightly different route back, the terrain never getting a chance to become familiar. Some days he'd run past more grass and trees than anything else. Other days he'd be running through several back yards.
It didn't matter what time of day it was, either. Nor did he worry about the weather, for that matter. He'd be out there at 2am during a blizzard, 9pm in a cold rain, or 12:30 in the scorching summer heat. He'd just pick some random time and go. His free time tended to fluctuate on a daily basis anyway. Or, at least, it used to, before he got saddled with desk duty and the regular hours that came with it. Still, it was only temporary, and left him plenty of time the rest of day to do other stuff.
When he ran, he never took his phone, PINpoint, or any other communications device, map, or whatever. All he had on him was his 9mm, two extra clips, his knife, and one grenade. The whole point of that was to keep in the back of his head that he was alone, completely and totally alone, with very limited resources. Not that he ever expected trouble on his runs, but out in the field sometimes he would be left entirely on his own, with no back-up what so ever. It's a strange mentality, knowing you're that alone and that everything is resting squarely on your shoulders. Sure, there was no real way to ever prepare for that, but that helped him get into that frame of mind easier.
The rest of his training was also oddly complex like that. He'd have certain exercises he'd do, but he constantly changed up the order in which he'd work out, the location, the time of day, the spotter, sparring partner, whatever. His workouts tended to lean a more towards speed, evasion, and agility than brute power, though he did his share of strength training. Every exercise he did, though, had a purpose to it.
He'd run windsprints, either on the treadmill at his apartment (sometimes immediately before or after a run) or at the training facility at Quantico. He'd run at top speed for thirty seconds, rest for thirty, run again for forty-five seconds, then rest for thirty, then repeat five times, rest for two minutes exactly, then do it all over again. The whole point being to train his heart and his body to recover faster from exertion. Sometimes, in a combat situation, he would only be able to rest long enough to take one or two breaths, so he wanted to make them count as much as possible.
Things like his gymnastics and agility training were pretty basic. Most of his coworkers were surprised by that; they figured he'd have to be able to pull matrix-like moves out of his ass to get the kind of scores he did on evasion tests. While he did have one or two fancy moves like that, most of what he used normally was basic. Outside of a backflip, back layout, and front somersault, most of his moves were simple ducks, sidesteps, rolls and leans. He just did them so well, and could do them so quickly, that he made them look spectacular.
His firearms exercises came in two parts. One was in an outdoor shooting gallery with, either stationary or pop-up targets, which would always have rearranged before each run. Leon was one of the few who would be more likely to be outdoors in the dead of night, or if the weather sucked. Correctly identifying a target and getting a good shot with poor visibility were very useful skills to have. The indoor exercises also consisted of a shooting gallery with stationary or pop-up targets, but also had area to practice various dynamic entry tactics.
The dynamic entry exercises were the most dangerous, though not for Leon himself. He would always have the targets in the room randomly placed by someone, and there would be an ever changing number of people in the room, generally fellow agents, military officers, or instructors, who would play hostages. The danger for them was that Leon always used live rounds during his exercises, no exceptions. This constantly made him think, to be aware of where everyone was in the room within the blink of an eye. After all, he was shooting at paper targets, and bullet could easily pass through them and into someone else. Out in the field, a missed shot, a ricochet, or a shot that's a through-and-through could injure or kill a hostage or teammate unintentionally. He had to prepare for that, and keeping in mind how badly he could fuck up during practice runs kept his focus sharp so he wouldn't get careless.
His long range shooting numbers were solid, but not nearly as high as some others. If you wanted a sharpshooter, you could find better than him. Maybe he should ask Kevin for a few pointers.
His hand-to-hand combat training, both armed and unarmed, was just as varied as everything else. Leon didn't favor any one particular fighting style, taking moves from nearly a dozen different styles and merging them into his own. Most of his moves consisted of blocks, disarming techniques, holds, throws, reversals, stunning strikes, and escapes. He also had a wide range of moves that were both brutal and lethal, you don't get to his level without learning how to kill someone in under five seconds using just a teacup and a credit card, but much preferred the former set to the latter. Besides, the former was easier to practice on live opponents. His sparring partners varied by age, race, size, gender, fighting style, weapon of choice, and fighting experience. He'd probably fought half the people who trained on base at least once.
Along with weight lifting, hitting various sized and shaped punching bags, and a few other basic exercises, that was largely Leon's daily training routine. All of that generally took anywhere from three to five non-consecutive hours a day. Only rarely did he ever do all of that back-to-back-to-back-to-back,
Besides, ever since the AU!Raccoon City fight, Leon knew had this feeling that he became the de facto field leader of the group in the nexus. This only made him train even harder since he had a sinking feeling that whenever shit would really hit the fan, they were going to be looking to him to take the lead once more.
Always hope for the best; Always give your best; Always be prepared for the worst.
