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Most of my adult life, I can safely say I haven't lived on "easy" or "casual" mode, but neither have I played on Epic or Legendary difficulty either. I think a lot of people can relate to that: "enemies" don't just fall over dead after a quick poke with a stick, but neither do they roflstomp your ass in 2 seconds flat. I am going to be missing the first week of the next Challenge series, because tomorrow morning, I leave on a fire assignment: taking a 20-person Type-2 handcrew out, hopefully to punch some good line and/or lay down some fire in the goal of suppressing one of the several high-impact and destructive fires burning around the state. But quickly, back to that "easy mode", "legendary mode" comparison. One of my Epic Arc goals (taking place with several "sub-arcs" and resulting in a couple of level-ups worth of XP) I am setting for myself is to apply, be accepted to, and successfully complete, the 2014 fire season with the Redding Interagency Hotshot Crew's Fire Leadership Development Program, to give permanent career Fire personnel quality education and real-world experience in leadership and fire behavior, first-hand, as a member of that Hotshot crew. For those who don't really follow Fire, especially of the wildland variety (or who, upon seeing Orange County/Malibu/San Bernardino engulfed in flames for the umpteeth time, go "huh. California's burning again. News at 11. *click*), Hotshots are to Wildland Fire as the 75th Ranger Regiment is to the US Army (in case you were wondering, "Smokejumpers" are the "Green Berets/Delta Force"). These crews are the elite of ground-pounding Wildland Fire forces -- they go where no other crews dare tread, and take on the assignments no other crews can successfully accomplish. In our National Mobilization system, we "type" crews, engines, helicopters, Incident Management Teams, even individual overhead positions. In all of these cases except Engines (where "typing" refers to more to what specific job it's best at), "Type 1" is the best, most capable resource of its kind available. All Hotshot crews meet the National standard as "Type 1" handcrews. Earlier this season, the Yarnell Hill Fire claimed an entire Crew of them, minus their lookout. Even the most elite of elite sometimes lose, sometimes catastrophically. Up until now, my Fire career, all 9 years of it, has been spent mostly in Engine Companies (both structural and wildland), a couple years in Prevention/Patrol (which is, I have to say, the most fun I've ever had in the Fire Service), and a season as a Squad Boss on a Wildland Fire Module (a different type of "Type 1" crew -- smaller and designed to monitor/herd beneficial remote backcountry fires ignited by lightning), before bumping to my "cushy" Captain's job in the ECC last year. I have, to be honest, always been deathly afraid of Hotshot-type work. As an Apprentice, I was offered a spot on my Ranger District's Hotshot crew. I declined and asked for the Squaddie assignment on another District for my crew time requirement. Why? I was afraid. Afraid I wouldn't keep up, afraid I couldn't hack it, and afraid I'd let everybody down and be "that guy" that screwed the whole pooch for everyone. Hotshots work in rugged, steep, quite frankly "fucked-up" terrain. I am well-established as being Most Likely to End Up On His Ass in said terrain. Hotshots PT hard, just as hard as Rangers do. Even at my "best shape" of my adult life (which actually was pretty damn good), I still couldn't keep up with the slowest guy on the Shot crew. Hotshots work hard, cutting huge swaths of fireline through heavy brush, in 100+ degree heat, often cutting "hot line" or "going direct", working RIGHT along the fire's edge, adding another couple hundred degrees of heat. Generally, Hotshots are also some of the most fire-saavy dudes in the business -- and if you want to develop that level of "been there, done that" with fire behavior, you need to do a season or two on a Hotshot crew. I never believed I had it in me to be successful as a Hotshot... I didn't even think I could begin to hack it. A lot of unhelpful people fed into that mentality and belief, and thus it came that I denied myself the opportunity to even try. Thanks to Steve's articles, I've taken back that power, began PTing hard, watching what (and how much) I eat, and starting on the road to making that season with Redding's training program at least a possibility. Every journey, even of a thousand miles, begins with one step. Tomorrow, I am taking out a Type-2 Handcrew as a trainee Crew Boss (under the supervision of a fully-qualified one, of course) -- Step 1 happens first thing tomorrow morning. So now the question goes to the rest of you: What's holding you back? What's keeping you from living YOUR life on Legendary mode? Most importantly: What can you do to mitigate that, and make Legendary mode a possibility, then a reality?