We all learn best when we are getting our hands dirty (metaphorically and literally). Survival and bushcraft are both physical and practical skills combined with personal awareness and growth. Through connecting with the outdoors and putting ourselves into unfamiliar and even challenging situations we grow as people. Facing increasing challenges builds our sphere of comfort and gives us greater ability to adapt to challenges.
We use bushcraft and outdoor experiences to develop as people. By focusing on skills and of overcoming challenges we push comfort zones in a supportive and caring environment so we all grow as individuals. Lessons that are learnt in the woods will carry with you for the rest of your lives.
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. To try and ask and to push the limits of a construction, a craft, a technique. A mentor of mine, Tim Smith, used to say “we are trying to push things till we fail” In failing, we learn something, we learn it whole heartedly, we learn the limits of a thing. I am not so keen on the word ‘fail’ but the idea is sound. If we never extend beyond our comfort zone, if we never try till we can’t then we never really know.
Bushcraft and survival strip away our phones and our dopamine hits along with our creature comforts and our centrally heated houses. We have to provide for ourselves. Get intimate with our heat source, our food and water. “Gather you 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.
We are all aware of the macro affecting our environment, climate change. It is a favorite topic right now touching every aspect of our lives. As I write this in the mildest winter with such little precipitation, climate change and global warming feel ever more real. 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 and what is most relevant. By living simply we are living richly.
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! If we can escape the pressures of the latest car, app, gear, rent mortgage, boat, atv etc etc.