Aighrit matched Rags smile for grin. Her guard hand had indeed been his target, and her having used it to grab for his sword arm showed strategy on her part far beyond what would normally be expected of a beginner. She was learning, and matching him blow for blow, swipe for swipe, counter for counter. His next would show how well she could adjust to one of the fundamental aspects of arena fighting and combat in general, however. In the wild it was usually over once a human got its mitts on something, be it a rat, a snake, or even a large animal without the hands and leverage necessary to overcome the hinderence. Against a human opponent, however, having a hand gripping your opponent’s wrist meant little more than your opponent having a grip on your own wrist. Both resulted in having a point of contact that could be utilized by the other, the only difference being who was in the position to release. As her hand made contact with his left wrist and stopped the downward swing he had been intending on attempting Aighrit stepped forward and to his left, Rag’s right, with her arm either accompanying him or not at her discretion. Either way, her body was now in between her right arm and the blade held in it and his own body. 

Had he tried to stand and wrestle for control over his sword hand she would have been in a great position to simply run him through with a thrust from her blade into his abdomen, but those who stand still usually die on the sand. She could either keep her grip and allow Aighrit to move with her arm or release and pivot to try and strike him across her if she still intended on landing the thrust he was expecting to follow her grab. If she had something more exotic in mind then he may well have walked into her trap, but the numbers were on his side so far as he could see it. He hadn’t waited around to see what her other hand would be doing, and had simply accepted that his arm and sword were now in her grasp, and he had accepted this as such because he knew how to take advantage of an opponent who was grasping you. With another step he could be well behind her, but he was also aware that in that time she could simply turn her arm, step into the grab and chicken wing his arm. Likely strategy for a beginner? No, but Aighrit didn’t have time to think that far ahead. 

He had stopped considering Rags a beginner when she managed to get to her feet after their short stint at wrestling on the ground, and was for all intents and purposes fighting at his best so far as a practice bout was concerned. Because of the skill of his opponent he would treat her as an equal regardless of her never having taken the sacramenta, a notion important to the thinking time away from the sand and considerably less so in the fighting, doing time upon it. She could have yanked back on his arm while thrusting upwards or slashing high and downwards from her left to her right while turning at the hip and managed to hit him in the back or the back of the head, something he wouldn’t be able to stop her from doing without the second step which would place him in danger of giving her all the leverage over his awkwardly situated sword arm in her hand needed to break it in twain, so he attempted to change the paradigm as would be expected of any competent fighter. 

He didn’t consciously think it, but his subconscious mind which the fighter or the hunter reverts to instinctively in the midst of a dangerous meeting with a second predator intent on your own destruction told him that as he was moving to the right and she in the same direction as him if she kept the grip on his arm. This he knew would put her into a position where, unless she released and dramatically changed her course or pulled away would put her into a tailspin should he manage to keep her momentum following his without taking a blade to the gut, and so he attempted the best he could to accomplish the feat despite the silliness of the technique with which he accomplished the task. Shooting his right arm around Rags back while continuing to move to the right while pivoting in the same direction and assuming that Rags wouldn’t release the grip, something he didn’t have time to consider the alternative to before jumping into action and which should she have released and simply slashed might well catch his right arm as he moved it out and into her potential strike range, and attempted to grab at her waist or flank. 

He used his right hand mostly because it was available unlike the left, though it would take a quarter second or so longer to get around her than the left and closer arm would have, having to travel across his own body as well as her’s in order to find purchase on her opposite side. Should she slash or throw her body weight into him after he got to her side she would certainly succeed in hitting his right arm or knocking him to the ground conversely, but he didn’t have time to consider these options. He instead attempted to grab, and if successful he would pivot on his right hip once more, stepping outward with his right leg in some macabre version of a waltz. He wasn’t trying to be obnoxious, but that’s the closest to keeping his arm in a relatively unwieldy but safe position and not take a blow or risk her getting leverage on the arm. If she had kept the grab and continued moving to her right, the direction his arm and body were moving, and assuming he had successfully grabbed her he would pull back on her with at least the arm she was grabbing and the potentially successful grab on her left side into himself and, unlike in a sweet ballroom dance, or depending on your partner exactly like in a sweet ballroom dance, aim his forehead downward and forward towards Rag’s own. 

A headbutt from an opponent pulling you and potentially your momentum in a centrifugal direction into their strike would almost certainly cause her to lose her grasp on his arm if not be knocked to the ground and, should he send her bouncing off of his head and towards the ground he certainly would not try and stop her from falling, but he had offered her a lot of potential chances at taking advantage of his strange and largely on the spot technique. A better trained fighter might have tried something less silly, but Rags was keeping Aighrit on his toes and at this point it was the best he could come up with on the spot.