BUSHCRAFT EDUCATION:

There are a lot of survival and outdoor schools that you can find scattered all throughout the U.S.and even new places that pop up even today. And the guys teaching these course can range from extremely knowledgeable to well you might not find yourself being that impressed. But before you know what direction you want to take weather its spending time paying for some week long survival course or learning more on your own knowing where to begin can seem well a bit intimidating. So before you find yourself struggling to know where to begin let me give you some foundation place to start. Before I do so let me introduce myself my name is Avi and I served in the U.S. Marines and was trained and served in an infantry unit back in 90's. So what does that mean to any of you who have never been in the military or know nothing about what we do in the infantry. Well first off in the infantry we go to a school called SOI School of Infantry where we are taught close quarter combat, land navigation skills, a large variety of weapons training, cover and concealment, understanding how to pack essential gear, wet weather training, field first aid and some other cool 

stuff. When we get deployed to the fleet or as you might call it get finally stationed in our assigned units we continue and further our training even more. At the time of my being assigned I was stationed at 29 Palms Desert where my main focus was desert operations and combat. So my main focus was learning how to live and understand desert life and living. Being in the desert you have a lot to learn concerning the animal life, weather patterns, water needs ect. But that is not all we did. We also cross trained in multiple environments in the, jungles of Okinawa to the mountains in the US where we learn as a unit how to do river crossings, mountain rappelling, climbing, jungle survival. But to be honest that training was more as a unit and was not very individual based. You see we learned how to do things in general in some things because well more than likely someone else in the unit was going to be in charge of certain tasks, which meant your purifying water, or making a fire or setting up a rappel line most likely would not be you. So yeah we learned these things but not to the level as one really needs to as to personally function on an individual level. Which means your over all knowledge was not going to be as intimate as you would have liked. And it because of this that many guys like myself who are Vets have sought out to 

learn on a more personal in depth approach concerning wilderness and survival skills. Learning fire skills was not so tactical so although we were taught them, we never used it. We learned certain navigational skills like using the stars for direction, but never actually practices them, as they where more for knowledge if needed to be employed than for everyday practice and use. So in truth it just was not as personal as I and I am sure others would have preferred. We all had a knife but unfortunately we never seemed to have a need to use it let alone carry it out in the field except a Leatherman. So yeah our training was more about waiting for some CH-53 to resupply, or some 1/2 ton truck to bring us what we needed, even though we were trained in multiple situations and environments we really were not trained to function on an individual level. It kinda reminds me of the time I went paint balling with a buddy of mine who was not in the military and well once I began to play I saw real quick how much I was dealing with some wild west stuff. Here I am using the tactics I was taught, but found the whole crazy wild west attitude was no match for one individual who was used to working on a team level and unit level, where you rely upon those who train with you to function as a body, not as an individual. So that being said, let me share with you an excellent place to start your learning and a good place to begin.

Dave Caterbury book "Bushcraft 101" Helps you begin your journey with knowing and learning to understand the essential gear you need to get out in the woods and start practicing some skills. It is important that you know this book is sincerely the kind that is not going to explore all the points in depth so what do I mean by this? For example Chapter 8 Navigation Dave does not give you a lay down of knowing how to use all the tools of navigation, but merely the importance one is going to need to look into along the road. The best part of this book is going to be Chapter 1 Your Pack, this section will sincerely give you the needed food for though in thinking about what you want pack wise and how to begin this journey. Chapter 2 Tool, will cover the needed bushcraft tools you will want or need out in the field. Chapter 4 Containiers and Cooking Tools, covers the items you need to put to mind in regard to cooking and different ideas for outdoor use. Chapter 5 Coverage, will go into talking about sleeping systems, tents and help open the door way to thinking about what you will use to stay warm or sleep under. Chapter 6 Combustion, focuses upon the different fire starting materials and fire needs. Chapter 7 Setting Up Camp. will focus on how to think smart in regard to setting up camp and the safety measures as well as fire lays. After this I would advise one go from here to Mor Kochanski books and begin reading "Bushcraft" He, I feel carries you where Dave left off and immerses you right into the needed beginners knowledge of bushcraft skills. The chapters I would indeed focus upon are chapter 1 Firecraft, where he teaches you how to make a fire, and what kinds of multiple fire lays can be used for. Chapter 2 Axecraft, when you 

begin you will find how he helps you learn about how to use an axe as well as axe safety, and in Chapter 3 Knifecraft where he helps you define how to define how to search for a good bush knife as well as covering the basics of knife safety. In Chapter 4 Sawcraft he crosses over to using a saw and the safety rules to employ. And lastly Chapter 6 Sheltecraft in which he go and explores many different types of natural shelters one can construct in the woods. The rest of the book covers other things but by far these chapters hit home the most exhaustive points. In "Boreal Survival" Mors goes into more depth on topics like setting up camp which brings back the topics Dave Canterbury spoke on but in more depth. As to really hitting all the main points you need to focus upon, food storage, fire, cooking, sleeping systems, clothing, and later on really dives into survival topics and really brings a lot of clarity as to how vast this issue of outdoor wilderness survival is. Once you have read those books you will be well on your way to begin planing your own gear list and trips. 

Paul Tawrell "Camping & Survival" Is a excellent resource book as he covers so many topics with tons of reference pictures to look at and follow. By this point you probably really wanting to get your feet wet and want to know where to go in order to really grow in your skills, and would like to know where to begin list wise to really know what other skills sets should you begin to look into. Here is where Mors "Grand Syllabus" plays a huge part in listing these very things. However, let me mind you he list the skills he does not in this book tell you where to gain these skills. And this is where a lot of people might begin to say, "ok so now where do I go?" 

Well if you have come this far join me and let us explore the "Grand Syllabus" together!