Just had my second
lesson of Charms and that got me thinking. I wonder if anyone has ever done a
genetic analysis on witches and wizards to see if magic is actually a part of
genome or something. Maybe some of us have a dormant magical gene and it is
unlocked only under some circumstances, making someone magical. I wonder if other
magical creature would also share that gene… Anyways I’m off track right now.

I did that
exercise about feeling the energy in our centre, feels a bit like the chakra
stuff to me (maybe I should start watching Naruto again). Chakra and meditation
actually. It took a couple of tries to get the sparks, but that’s probably
because I’m not all that good at meditating. I can sit quiet and all, but don’t
ask me to empty my mind. I can concentrate on my breathing for a couple of
seconds and after that I start noticing things again, which leads to thinking.
It’s like that dog in the movie “Up” that gets distracted mid-sentence by
squirrels. Well, I get distracted by things new things I want to analyze or
sudden ideas I should write down… But I still got the sparks, eventually. I’m
not one to give up either, I can actually be pretty stubborn. Even with things
I am not good at.

Anyways, this week
was about Flight Charms. There was four of them developed, each new one better
than the last. First, the Hover Charm. The incantation was easy enough,
Levioso, pronounced “Lev-ee-O-so”. The movement stumped me a bit tough. An
inward spiral then up. But Quintessential
Magic didn’t say whether the spiral should be clockwise or
counter-clokwise. And making sure my wand was in contact with the object I
wanted hovered by the end of the upwards movement and incantation was a
nightmare. I can understand why this charm is not really popular. For the wand
movement, I went with was felt natural to me: a counter-clockwise spiral starting
from the bottom. But the going up after was so counter-intuitive if you want to
hover something that’s lower than your wand as I realized fast. So I forgot
about hovering my pen and went to my bedroom to hover my big Winnie the Pooh
plushie.

Next came the
Rocket Charm, Alarte Ascendare. Didn’t have too much problem with the
pronunciation, though when I first read it, I thought it was “a-sen-DA-ray”. So
I practiced the “a-SEN-day-ray” a couple of times. I wasn’t sure what to try
this charm on, since I didn’t want to risk breaking something (either the
target or the room I was in), so I went to get one of the feathers I found. The
timing between the incantation and the wand movement (a quick swish at the end
of the incantation) was still hard to get, but I’m challenged in term of
coordination. Nothing that a bit of practice won’t cure and after a couple of
tries, I had a rocketed feather.

Then, there was
the Floating Charm, Fluito. It is actually pronounced “flew-EE-toe” and is
accompanied by a jab and an upward flick, which was surprisingly easy once I
understood the movement. I didn’t have much trouble with this one and so I
tried floating heavier targets. I went all the way to a small bookshelf before
I really started feeling the strain.

Last, after a little
break for an apple, was the Leviation Charm. The wand movement, a swish (which should end
just after you start saying Leviosa) and flick (to be timed as you end Leviosa)
was easy enough, but the incantation was a nasty piece of work. First you have
to remember it’s “wing” not “win”. Then you have to put the accent on the right
syllable: “wing-GAR-dee-um leh-vee-O-sa”. A couple of times I thought I had it
down and went to try it only to mix it up once the time came to incorporate the
wand movement. As I said before, I’m not really a coordinated person. That’s
when I decided I need to get the incantation so ingrained in my brain that it
would become second nature. Bottom of
FormIn some martial arts (mostly the self-defence ones), they say that
you need to repeat a movement 1000 times before your body register it as a
reflex. I don’t know if I repeated the incantation a thousand times as I cooked
supper and did my dishes, but it sure felt that way. By the end of the day, I
was lucky not to dream about it. It may sound crazy, but that technique
actually worked. As I picked up my wand again to give it another go, it only
took three tries (to time the incantation with the wand movement) to get it to
work. That was quite the experience. At least now I know how to memorize
incantations without just sitting there repeating words (which gets boring
fast).