Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-26512661-20200125162058/@comment-4010415-20200202043824

Another thing that helped RWBY is that the Ace-Ops themselves trained them, which means they learned the Ace-Ops' fighting styles and abilities.

Yang and Blake knew what Elm's Semblance is, and that's why, toward the end of their fight, Blake distracted Elm so that Yang could break the rest of the floor that hadn't been broken by Vine's landing. That made Elm's Semblance useless. In Mantle, they had witnessed the power of Elm's rocket launcher, which led Yang to change her attack when Elm brought out the launcher.

During the training montage, we saw Ruby and Harriet racing each other in circles, which means Ruby practiced trying to keep up with Harriet. This eased her fight against Harriet at least a little bit.