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Weyrlinghood: Month 2
Ground Drills
Before you can learn to fly in formation, both you and your dragon will have to develop some understanding of what those formations are and how they work. As this is one of the core skills of a dragonrider, training starts early.
During your first forays into ground drills, weyrling and dragon will stand side by side in formation and then practice moving around the bowl while maintaining that formation. Special attention should be paid to keeping steady distance between pairs. Once they get the hang of that, the challenge will be changing formation and then changing formation while executing turns around the bowl.
It's not just leg work! Dragons are expected to keep their wings spread to build muscle and help them learn to judge the space between themselves and the dragon beside them. Incorporated into movements will be simulated flying manuevers, tipping to the side to execute a turn or tilting the wings up or down to mimic rising and diving in the air. While weyrling won't have to keep their arms up the whole time, they may be asked to perform these changes in direction or imaginary altitude too, helping to prepare them for for the sensations of these drills during flight. It's also a good way to including stretches during exercise.
As the weeks progress other activities will be added to the task of executing formations. Weyrlings may be asked to throw sandbags of increasing weight between one another in preparation for passing firestone. Pop quizes may be delivered in the midst of a drill, to train the mind of both rider and dragon for quick-thinking in the air. Eventually the formations themselves should become second nature.
Around the time that dragons begin flying on their own, weyrlings will begin riding their lifemate during ground drills, growing accustomed to the the feeling of their dragon beneath them, with both rider and dragon learning to balance their shared weight. As the dragons grow big enough and strong enough to carry their lifemates in the air, ground drills will become a resource used mainly when new, more complicated formations are introduced and the process of practicing these drills will be taken to the sky where new variables such as wind, weather and manuevering in three-dimensional space will be faced.
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