Indigenous Ability

Rough ‘n’ Tumble, scufflin’, illegal boxing, boombattle, and all the various and sundry names that go to describe the all-in melee that is truly no-holds-barred, no-strikes-off-the-table uses the entire body as a weapon. Let’s take a brief sojourn with just one of those weapons—The Shoulder. Due to obvious range restrictions, the shoulder is part of the closed-quarters arsenal.  [ Notice, in deference to the origin of the word, I call it “closed quarters” in the piratical naval melee sense and not the modern and incorrect perversion to “close quarters.” Yeah, I’m that guy, a stickler for the details. Consider this, if the name ain’t right, what else might be wrong? If a guy calls a jab “a fisty puncher” and is oblivious to the word “jab” we’d suspect something was a bit awry in the boxing research, would we not?] To the Shoulder! We’ve got three broad ways to use it [Slams, Butts, & Grinds] and essentially only two attack paths [Inward & Upward.]...

The American Frontier was an ever-expanding loose boundary of westward expansion that began with the coastal exploration along the Atlantic and then made inroads into the thick forests of the east. It is tough to imagine now, but, at one time, practically the entire Appalachian and Ohio valleys were so thick with woodland single-track traces [trails] through thick forest was about all that could be managed.  Once the Mississippi was crossed The Great American Desert [The Great Plains] with perspective skewing grasslands stretching from horizon to horizon was encountered. And, of course, the vast fastnesses of the Rockies, Sierra Madres, boiling deserts from the Sonoran to the Mojave, unforgiving lands from the Malpais to the Llano Estacado [Staked Plains] saw remarkably different terrains and environments from territory to territory. Within these varying terrains isolated by the natural features themselves entire cultures and traditions would spring up, and all cultur...