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There might be a bit of salvation here for Tidus.

Mostly in the fact that while Inigo can follow the moves well enough, and that especially following the rhythm is very easy for him.. Inigo is not very much of a stretcher. Especially not compared to mister workout himself over here.

Which means that once they get started on these moves, it goes pretty well for Inigo at first.

Doing it one side a few times, sure. Doing it on the other side, okay. Returning to the first side, and.. ow. Inigo doesn't stop moving, but he's definitely wincing as he speaks up with: "Uh.. is it supposed to hurt?"

He thought they were going to dance! That they were going to have fun!!

"Eh?" Tidus was getting into the moves, though once the stretches started, Hibber-Gibbers - try as he might! - doesn't have the long limbs of a human, and as he wiggles with tiny stub fists stretching out one way, turns to do it in the other, he falls over with a tiny 'hiiig!', the other casualty in the car.

But also, the higgledies do that all the time, so Tidus gives him one look and then takes his gaze over to Inigo.

"Hurt? Where does it hurt?" The exercise coach is ignored as she continues on, the music also continuing, though one of the earbuds coming out so he can hear Inigo better.

"Well, it's just.."

His voice trails off. It's hard to explain, okay. It just hurts. Not dramatically so, but definitely in a way that he usually never feels when he's just dancing by himself. But then again, the movements he uses at times like those are much different than these, and also less repetitive.

He's also ignoring the higgledy antics, but they sure keep on going. Gibbers has dramatically fallen over, causing Jumblie to stop what she's doing as well, running up to her fellow higgledy's side as she starts nudging him with her stubby little arms. Hang in there, friend..!!

In the meantime, Inigo continues his explanation. Or tries to, anyway.

"It kind of feels like I'm straining myself..? Maybe?"

Higgledies are gonna higgledo. Gibbers scrambles back onto his feet, head wobbling back in the motion. But he stands upright, stretching out both his stubby little arms! And then starts to dance again with all the ease and animation of a child.

Meanwhile, Tidus checks his wristbands, finds the option to pause the routine, the voice saying 'Session paused' in their ears. Looks Inigo over, lips tugged aside.

"Where? In your legs? Did you move too fast?" Did he wake up stiff? Which is hard to imagine for a guy like Inigo - he's active; the last thing he should be is stiff!

"Is it a stiff pain, or sharp? In your legs?"

Since that's when Inigo began complaining, and Tidus makes the motion they were before: stretching out one leg while leaning his weight on the knee pointed to the other. Use him to signal where the pain came up, bro!!

(Don't mind Inigo over here as he can't help but wince for a moment at the woman suddenly speaking up in his ear again with something other than 'switch'. He's fine. It's cool. This is totally normal.)

"No, it's just-- I think it's because I'm not used to moving like this. This way of dancing is.. very odd." Then again, you'd wonder what he expected out of a dance workout..

Though the truth of that is that Inigo had absolutely no idea what a dance workout is, and he holds his thigh for a moment.

"It's like my body is telling me to stop making those same moves over and over."

Huh, his body telling him not to? Tidus gets out of the position he's put himself into and gives the guy a look over, humming quietly to himself. Really, from what he's hearing...

"Maybe you just need to get used to it? What kind of stretches do you do before dancing usually?"

Inigo does some kind, surely?

There's just silence on Inigo's end as he stands there, staring at Tidus. His gaze shifts to the higgledies for a moment before it slides right back to Tidus's face - though not looking any less confused.

"Before dancing?"

Dude.

People stretch before they dance?

...bro???

"Yeah?" Bro. Bro why are you looking at him like that, have the same look back. "To stretch your muscles? Like you do before practice. So you don't hurt them? It loosens them up, that's why we're repeating the motions."

Right? Right? Even guys back in the past for war did that, right?

...

He's thinking really hard over here. Did any of his friends do it back home? He's never seen Gerome do it before stepping on his wyvern before, for one.. Maybe Kjelle did it, considering she's so serious? But it's exactly that seriousness that makes him unable to imagine her moving like this.

The whole deal just remains confusing. Which is why, after a moment or two of really, really making those gears in his brain grind away, Inigo just says: "I've never done that before."

At least he's being honest, rather than stupidly bluffing his way out of this.

"....Oh."

It's that knowledgeable kind of oh, where he's thinking through a few things himself, like Have I ever seen Inigo do that? -- and realising, along with Inigo's response, that he never has seen the other guy do stretches. And he's never bothered to bring it up, since who's he to say Inigo was never doing them before he showed up for practices?

So he blinks, taking in this new piece of information.

"Well... let's do some simple ones, see how your body takes to them." Right? He doesn't want Inigo to pull a muscle here, so. He stretches out an arm in its opposite direction, hooking it with his other.

"You've seen me do this, right? These help your shoulders. You wanna do each side for ten seconds, and look the other way. Work on your neck too."

And you don't need to ask Tidus to do his stretches, since he'll stand posing in the way he means, then wait for Inigo to copy him.

"I've seen you do a lot of things."

It's mostly said with a bit of humor, because really, it had been impossible to not see Tidus constantly stretching - but Inigo thought it was just a Tidus thing. Or a blitzball thing. Not a general human thing that he just missed out on because his world seems to be so different from most other worlds represented in this place.

Which is a lot to process here - and honestly, there's a part of this whole train experience that's made more annoying because of it, that it's been almost a year and he's still finding out about new things that some people around him consider deadly normal - but Inigo tries to not think about it too hard for now.

Instead he just tries to do. Moving his arms to copy Tidus. It's a little uneasy at first, considering he's not exactly used to the positioning of this arms like that, but then he seems to get it and starts moving.

Though as he's moving, he slowly speaks up with: ".. Do you think these are just normal in Zanarkand, or in more places?"

There's not a lot of moving, really. They need to keep the pose with a countdown in their heads, though Tidus has done it long enough to figure when to switch and stretch the other side.

"Hmm - yoga's a form of stretching. So, I guess there's other places. You should ask Roland?" He might know, or at least it was another world to compare it with.

"I guess it depends on what you know, or what you've got going on. We learned to do this to help with muscles not cramping up. Trying to keep your body safe so you're not out of it for a week, you know?"

It's casually given, just information he learned from health training. He puts a hand to the side and stretches out the other.

"Try this one, see how it feels. Get it comfortable."

Hopefully, Inigo won't feel any real pain.

Inigo lets out a breath - it's hard to determine the emotion behind it, but while he doesn't exaclty look upset, he doesn't seem happy either, not really.

"I guess we were a little too busy to worry about muscles cramping up."

After all, most of the time they didn't even have time to prepare for battle. Maybe a few times in the past, but in the future? They hardly even had time to rest before they had to get up and run right back into battle, to not even start about the times they had been caught off guard mid-rest. What time to warm up had been there? What energy had been there to worry about how your muscles felt when you were busy just trying to not totally bleed out?

Inigo shakes his head to himself, moving to the other pose Tidus is using now.

".. I'm not sure I like how this feels though." Not that it really hurts, but it all feels so weird. And with how fussy Inigo is? Of course he's going to worry if it's just because he's never done this before or if there's just something officially wrong with him personally. (Thank god there was no way to google medical symptoms in Ylisse the way there is in modern worlds, or Inigo would always believe he was dying.)

That makes sense as Tidus listens to Inigo reflect on back home, nothing he comments on. If Inigo didn't do it, then that's fair; their experiences were different, and why would even that be the same? Did the people in the armies do it? The warrior monks?

Still, Tidus is reassuring, pausing before he moves to stretch his other side.

"That's fine - you're not used to it. It's gonna feel funny the first time you do it. You only spend about a minute doing it, then you get ready for your workout. You stretch your arms, your legs... it's like waking up your body before you really start moving."

Easy, no problem. And instead of doing the stretch he's supposed to, he's goes for one similar to the dance warm-up move: moving a leg behind him while he puts weight onto leg bending forward, hands resting on his sides.

"This one's good for your waist, and stretching your legs. I like these ones the best!"

Then again, he likes the arms one too... especially after getting into sword fighting!

Look at this expert over here.

Though it is true - Tidus has about a thousand lightyears' worth of more experience with this than Inigo, so why wouldn't he be inclined to listen to the other on this? It's why Inigo is following his every move here, although now the tables seem to have flipped. Whereas Tidus felt ridiculous doing the dancing moves, now Inigo feels like he must be looking ridiculous. Especially since he sure can feel that muscle in his leg when he stretches it backwards.

Maybe his body just doesn't want to wake up. Or maybe he's just bummed that even this, even dancing of all things, ends up evolving into something he doesn't understand. Just like everything has, for a long while now.

But Tidus seems so into it that Inigo tries to smile a little all the same as he does it, really trying to push down that mood, though he can feel it brewing in his stomach.

"You really thought before about which of these you like the most?"

"Sure! Everyone has a favourite something, right?" So why not favourite stretches? Though his choices didn't differ far from those that were recommended for blitzballers, and he shakes his arms now, like he's loosening them up that way after a few stretches.

"S'not so bad, huh?" ...though, he is picking up a leg and bending it behind him. He can never turn off the stretches. "You should try them before you do practice! You don't have to spend long, a minute and you're done. What do you think? We could see what other routines they have, if you wanna skip the one we were on."

That was just a warm-up anyway, right? A guy like Inigo would want to see what else they have, surely!

"It's not bad! Just.. strange. Is doing this for a minute really going to do anything?"

Other than make his muscles feel all weird, anyway? Or maybe that's the intended effect. Make his muscles feel weird in advance so they won't feel weird later. Inigo sure doesn't know.

And though he's trying to not show that uncertainty too much, it's hard to not let it slip out a little when Tidus goes ahead and asks him that question.

"And I-- uh, I don't know. I really thought it was going to be a different kind of dancing."

"Let's see what they have!" Oh, Tidus catches that look of uncertainty, and whether it's because he's asking Inigo what he wants from tech, he can take the reins here.

Plus, he isn't sure what this program has, thanks to being Mister 'I don't need to read instructions'. Except there's no reason yet to think that was a bad call while he's still managing to get through the thing, a 'End session?' voice heard in their ears as Tidus backs out of the current warm-up. Choices appear again as windows in front of the holo-figure, who has changed back to an idea pose.

Tidus eyes the different sections by types of dance and music, tilting his head. Then he looks to Inigo, nods to them.

"Why don't you pick one? You recognise any of the dance types here?"

It's time for Inigo to do the ultimate old person move. Apparently it's something shared by people over the age of 50 and medieval people - the thing where he moves his face closer towards the windows, as if he somehow can't see the options from a regular person range.

(Hey, at least the leaning might be its own kind of warming up, though unintentional.)

"I'm trying to look, but I'm not sure.." He glances over at Tidus. "Hey, is there any way to make these images bigger?"

Sorry that you have to deal with the teenage equivalent of a grandpa, Tidus.

"These are bigger than magazines!" Tidus protests, incredulous that Inigo can have a problem here. Look! They're single words on each of the window buttons! Tidus gestures to the selection.

"Just pick one and see what it does!"

Geez Inigo, do you need glasses?? Everyone can read Spiran on this train!

"Excuse me for not being up to date with your.."

Oh gosh, how do they call this stuff again. Inigo waves his hand at the images, clearly meaning to say 'holograms', but having a total brainfart over here. What did they call these things again back on that mission that was at least 70% walking? Why is the single braincell failing him now, in the middle of a protest?!

"Y-Your things!"

Best retort ever.

"I mean, are you really suggesting that I just press it," which he does as he says it, "and then I suddenly recognize whatever odd Spira dance it's trying to show me?!"

Coincidentally, the hologram dancer starts giving away a preview. Of this. And it shuts Inigo up, because the beginning of that? Well, it does seem not all that farfetched to him.

All the way until the lyrics kick in and the dancer starts doing the shoulder thing, and his jaw drops at the moves he then suddenly sees. "Is she imitating a monkey?!"

Your things. Your things!!! Tidus pahs, a scoff as he rolls his eyes, exasperated as Inigo gets whiny right in front of his salad instead of just playing around with the very nicely labelled buttons PROJECTING FROM THE HOLOGRAM. What's so weird about that!! Was he this bad back in Spira?! (yes)

"Well I don't know what you know!" Tidus shoots back, voice rising in that same whiny tone as Inigo is giving him. "Just mess around with it 'til you find something you like! I don't know dances! You're the dance guy!"

All said before the woman gets into the groove of her dancing, and Inigo is just balking.

"Don't ask me," he huffs, but he's watching as the dance continues, and...okay, maybe it's stupid, and so reluctantly - and with a huff - he moves them other of the dance preview, hovers his forefinger in a circle as he looks at the options and picks one at random.

This one can't be stupid, can it!?

Hah! See, he knows Tidus is totally agreeing with him if the other is actually bothering to try and select another song. You can't fool him! Can't pull the wool over his eyes!

And this new one seems.. kind of weirdly theatrical? Dramatic? He can't exactly imagine Tidus being very much into this, but maybe they should just pick something and do it already, or all they're going to do here all day is just stand there. Maybe Inigo can adjust to all this newfangled weirdness somehow. Maybe he just needs to buckle up.

(Not that he knows just how much it goes faster and more intense later on..)

"Alright, let's just do this one." And since he is learning.. a little bit.. he presses the button that makes it start.

The lady's voice rings out in their earpieces again to signal the start of the dance. Better be ready for this dramatic intro, Tidus.

If Inigo's going to settle on this one - and because of the (fighting!!) mood he's already in - Tidus answers with a 'Fine!' that's getting prepared, even as he's shaking his arms again, getting ready for the song and dance to start up properly. He said he was going to dance with Inigo, and if he has to slowly wave his arms around, then that's what he's going to do - without thinking about it! Except for thinking about how he's gonna win this.

Or get through it, anyway, that's mainly the goal. And it seems easy going with the slow intro, but then they're being chucked into tapping their whole leg. The higgledies are down for this, Gibbers ecstatic to be wiggling his tiny leg and squeaking! Waving arms! Hopping side to side!

Tidus isn't thinking about how stupid this is anymore, at least. It's GO TIME.

Maybe this is all the boys needed.

An incredibly dumb distraction. Something to keep their jumpy minds occupied.

And if there's anything this song and dance routine is good at, it's exactly that. Because it starts to speed up, and it just keeps going, making them pump their arms, jump up, kicking up their legs without a break. Now that's a workout.

Inigo isn't realising that though. He's just focused on trying to copy the movements as well as he can, even as sweat slowly starts to drip down his forehead.

The only thing he's able to say while he's still moving is just: "Can you keep up?"

You hanging in there, bro? Pal?

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the outfit that woman is wearing would fit in zanarkand

NOW I'M JUST IMAGINING THE PANDA SUIT INSTRUCTOR

unlock the panda suit for ur holo-coach by dancing More

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