Making FIRE

This weekend I went to a program where I learned how to make fire. Without matches or a lighter or anything.
It was so exciting! There were about ten people in the class, and everyone was so thrilled the first time they were able to blow their tinder into flame.
We used a bow drill.

It doesn't seem like it would be hard.
It is.
Rubbing two sticks together will not give you fire.
There are so many different factors - the type of wood, the hardness of each piece of wood, the way each piece is carved, the friction for each piece, how hard you press, how wide and deep the notch is.
the first day, we practiced with the kits the teachers brought. Even that is tricky. You need to brace your foot over the board, and kneel at the right angles with your legs and feet. You also need to make long strokes, keeping your hand parallel to the ground (it's a lot easier with two people). At first I was pressing too hard. And then the handhold wasn't waxed, so too much friction was going up there. And then it turned out that my board was too hard of wood.
It's really easy to get smoke. It's hard to get a coal. Once you get a coal started, you need to take it very slowly to let the coal stick. And then you wrap it up in its little nest and keep blowing until it ignites.
It probably took me ten tries the first time.
And then everyone howls and goes "FIRE!"

Yesterday - the second day - we all made our own fire kits. We didn't gather our own materials. That would make everything much harder than it already was. We did gather our own bow and we carved everything out.
I was the first one to finish and get fire.
For my second fire, I built it up and we kept it going as other people added their flames to it. It was still going by the time I left. It was like my baby. XD

Always pray to the fire spirits, and thank them for their lovely fire~

I started 3 fires - one the first day, and then two yesterday, on my own kit.
This kind of stuff will be great for my stories. We also learned to make cordage, which is great because that's the kind of stuff Katani likes to do . Now I know how it works~

A long time ago, I wrote about this book called Tracker, by Tom Brown Jr. As a kid, he was taught everything by a Native American shaman. That first book actually gave me some great ideas for my Ashes story. I'm reading another of his books now, and there are several others (I want to read them all). He has a survival school in New Jersey, and our two teachers were his students.
I really want to go to that school... his books are amazing.