Indigenous Ability

  There is often more to combat than meets the eye. It is the milieu that forms the athlete. The social environment. The vocations and avocations of the individual. Today we primarily make the milieu the training, the limited gym time we can muster. In the past, the milieu was, well, life, the chosen occupation[s] of the athlete often aided, abetted, and bolstered the combat overlay. Some milieus were more conducive to combat overlays than others. More feared. Among them lumberjacks, gandy dancers, and muckers. A mucker was a miner or canal worker whose job was to man a shovel. Good muckers, like good lumberjacks or good timber beasts had whole body power and coordinated technique that translated into whiplike action of the body as a whole. Shoveling then is not the afternoon shoveling we do now in our yard work. Tree-Felling then is not the winter weekend wood-splitting we do now. Jack Dempsey on Mucker Milieu Mr. Dempsey, among many occupations, came up as

  [ Caution : At some point in this essay, we will be discussing fighting dogs, if thou art one whose parlor-bred disposition cannot encounter, even in abstract, such topics proceed no further. This is an essay of Men and Fellow animals born and bred for the edge.] Feist Dogs Let us begin with a definition. Feist Dogs [Sometimes rendered homophonically in journals as “Fice Dogs”] A Feist Dog was a hunting dog that was the offspring of Native American hunting dogs and those dogs brought over by colonists and settlers. A feist dog was not so much a particular breed as an amalgamation of the elements of the hunting and work dogs used by indigenous tribes and the more meticulously bred Old World dogs. To some, a feist dog was an ungainly cur that didn’t take to commands [obedience] well. To others the feist dog was an admired crossbreed that seemed to benefit from the mix of the “savage” or “wild” elements and the “cultured.” An animal that possessed the best of both tra

  “ All plants are our brothers and sisters. They talk to us and if we listen, we can hear them .”—Arapahoe Warrior Adage Ready for the Pop Quiz? Question 1 : On this morning’s commute, you saw birds perched on telephone lines and road-signs, which way did they face? Question 2 : What does the birds facing direction tell you about the day? Question 3 : At which precise landmark did the sun rise over your home this morning? Even if it were cloudy, you should still be able to ballpark the rising point. Question 4 : Where will it rise over your home 6 months from now? And, how do you know this? Question 5 : I want to conduct a night-raid this evening, is the moon conducive to cover for this proposed raid—Yes, or No? [ Answers at the end of this musing .] There is not an Indigenous Tribe on the face of the globe that did not value wide-awake awareness. Not lip-service awareness, but toes-in-the-dirt here-here-and-now present knowledge. This “Nature Awareness” was a ke