We all learn best when we are getting our hands dirty (metaphorically). Survival and bushcraft are both physical and practical skills combined with more internal personal strengths and maturity. Through connecting to the outdoors and putting ourselves into unfamiliar and even challenging situations we grow as people.
Covid-19 has put many people at home and working and living in more isolation. Nature has become the place to go to to restore and rejuvenate. It is an integral part of our being that fundamentally underpins the essence of what is to be human. Our courses aim to both help you spend more time in nature to connect with yourself and get a greater understanding of our recreational environment. We aim to provide each of the stepping stones to having a full recreational interest and skills in the woods and mountains. Either from making crafts derived directly from our natural resources or immersing in the environment.
Bushcraft and survival strip away our phones, our gadgets our creature comforts and our centrally heated houses. We have to provide for ourselves. Get intimate with our heat source, our food and water. “Chop your own firewood and it will warm you twice” is the saying that comes to mind. This kind of immersion creates a different dialogue with our resources and it becomes more personal and direct. There is far more nuances than can be explained now, in just gathering firewood, that aren’t appreciated until you rely on it for warmth, food and water.
Our philosophy and ethos of learning is about allowing exploration and experimentation within a supportive structured framework. There is never just one way to do any particular thing. We actively encourage students to test their ideas and themselves. A mentor of mine, Tim Smith, used to say “we are trying to fail” In failing, we learn something, we learn it whole heartedly. If everything is just handed out on a platter lessons are harder to assimilate. I am sure we can all recall failing at something, often associate with humiliation. We are interested in the failure and have no time for humiliation. I am sure that whatever it was you know the lesson though to your core. We aim to guide our students in those moments to see the success, to see the window of light and not the cold fireplace. How to apply that lesson and try again.
We are all aware of the macro in our environment, global warming. It is a favorite topic right now. As I write this in the mildest winter with such little precipitation, climate change and global warming. Our disconnection, urbanization, increasing population, consumption, capitalization and globalization cited as the root causes. Bushcraft and survival can’t remedy all of that but we can offer a local connection to nature to counter the “age of despair”. By foraging for seasonal foods, preserving homegrown produce for winter. Learning how to live simply and what is really truly important. Learning how to hunt and study animals tracks and behavior. By doing so we can connect and become more aware of the micro. The challenges the changes pose on different species or the extension of species range threatening others.
Nature is not as forgiving as we are so we like to prepare everyone for the realities of being in the woods. It is our original learning environment and on a good day you can feel perfectly at home and on another day wish that you had never got out of bed. But even in that there is often a beauty at watching 50mm of rain fall turning a track into a creek whilst simultaneously enjoy the dry ground under a mature spruce. There is beauty everywhere if we can slow down enough to allow ourselves to see it!