I turned off the music on my phone. I had arranged the target dummies around me, so I was surrounded by enemies. But they were not in a simple circle, they were in a more strategic pattern.
I stood for a moment, tall, with my back straight and abs pulled in, and had my hands, palms together, near my chest. I took a deep breath in and let it out.
Now, I begin, the type of dance that is an exercise I enjoy. It would look strange, but sort of interesting, to a casual viewer, who didn't know of the art form.
I believe the easiest way to describe it to someone is like if you put the slow deliberateness and purpose of Tsai Chi, the smoothness and elegance of belly dancing and the raw aggression and power of street fighting into a blender. It is many things, it is how we learn to fight.
It is only until later we learn to use our magic while we dance-fight. Over the years of mastering the art, we learn progressively more powerful techniques. Each tribe specializes in mastering this art with one specific element as their source of power.
You can tell who belongs to what tribe based on the colour of the visible traces of the power they use, and hence the source of their power.
While each tribe can feel free to try and use another tribes' techniques or power source, most don't. It is because they are simply unable to. Only one tribe is able to wield all types of power sources.
So, it is a way to fight, to defend ourselves, a way to practice and wield our magic as has been handed down through the generations, as well as an art form in its own right.
But it is also a holy form of fighting. It is seeped not only in our history but our religion.
It is through the dance- like moves that can be strung together in so many different ways, to tell so many stories, that we also use to peacefully dance on festival days to our Goddess.
I always take into consideration the ways of my people that are generations old. Some things I agree with, some I don't.
But I do agree that all my people learn to fight and be able to defend themselves. For myself, I train every day, except for the one day a week when I do lots of meditation. Tomorrow is Sunday, so I will be just meditating.
Presently, I roundhouse kick a practice dummy, do two back- flips and aggressively elbow the neck area of the last practice dummy, located behind me. I turn in a slow circle, taking in all the fallen dummies in the clearing.
"Ok, well… not bad." I say to both myself and the fox up the dead tree.
I set the practice dummies upright and change their locations. I took a quick sip of water and got mentally prepared for round two.
By 9:30am, I felt exhausted. I used my cell phone to call my roommate Amanda. She answered on the fourth ring.
"Hello?" Amanda asked sleepily.
"Hi" I answered. "I was wondering if you would be able to come pick me up?"
"Sinead?" Amanda asked.
"Yes." I giggled. "I went out towards the national park. Can you come pick me up at the usual spot, down the road from the entrance to the national park?"
"Umm, yes. Just give me a bit to get ready. I will call you when I go to leave." Amanda informed me.
I double checked that I had all my stuff in my bag and wasn't forgetting anything in the clearing. Then I let out a call.
"Eeee! Eeee! I whined screechily. The exact same call was repeated back to me tenfold as the red fox left the dead tree and made his way over to me, in the leaps-and-bounds way only a fox can manage.
He continued to talk to me as he jumped up on my legs, his tail wagging like it was the blade of a helicopter. I told him about how handsome he is and how nice it is to spend time with him too, as he got calmed down a bit. His body might have been calmer as I pet him, but he still continued to talk quite a bit.
It ended up being about 20 minutes before my roommate called again and said she was leaving soon.
I chugged the last bit of my water, and as the red fox and I got up from the clearing, I slung the bag over my shoulder. We left the clearing, taking the path back the way we had come.
The entire way along the hiking trail, the fox and I shared the atmosphere of being in a good mood. As we travelled, I skipped and sang a song handed down by my people, in the ancient language, while the fox lept about and looked like he was dancing.
The song was about a small, fox-like spirit creature, who taught my ancestors that all is not what it appears to be; that things like intelligence, sacredness, and serendipity are found in places and creatures at times most unexpected.
When we reached the junction, I made sure to hum only, as I looked both ways and we ran across the paved road and continued down the hiking trail, where my singing continued.
I missed some of the aspects of life from where I was born; some days more than others. Days like today brought back the good memories of growing up, of singing with both my Grandmothers.
My Grandmothers' were my main source of formal instruction in the arts of singing, story telling, and religion.
My Mother taught me healing and survival skills, what different plants are medicinal; and their uses, and how to apply their properties, what plants are edible; how to prepare them for eating, or drying or preserving, what plants are poisonous; the levels of toxicity, how to make and administer poisons and antidotes.
She also taught me how to find all the previously mentioned types of plants. Mom also taught me basic household skills; how to cook, bake, pickle, preserve and dry, how to clean clothing, how to plant and care for a herb garden, how to clean a house.
My Father attempted to teach me to hunt. But I hated the thought of killing the animals myself. I refused, with the argument that I could just use the knowledge taught in the various combat training classes and apply it to prey if I needed to.
In the lessons run by the Masters, we were all taught to dance-fight, as well as fine- tune our control on magic, the essential topic of religion, a meditation class, a fighting with weapons class, reading and writing, critical thinking and a class called life- skills basics (math, currency, farming basics and trading basics).