Survival Part 1 – The Two Main Reasons Why Shit Happens

John Muir ForestReading real life survival stories makes me think that in most cases finding yourself in a survival situation isn’t something to be proud of. Unless, of course it’s caused by unforeseeable events. It seems like survival situations can surprise us in remote (wild) places as well as urban areas and are caused by two main factors.

1. External – natural phenomena, accidents and armed conflicts.
– Earthquakes, tsunami, mudslides, avalanches, tornadoes, fires, floods and so on.
– Broken or otherwise injured limbs, sudden illnesses, animal attacks etc.
– Terrorist attacks, wars etc.
Not really your fault and there isn’t much you can do to prevent them. However, you can and should know how to survive should any of those disasters happen.

2. Self-generated – mistakes and miscalculations.
– Recklessness, lack of forethought and insufficient preparation.
– Lack of experience or practice.
Usually our own fault, which doesn’t mean we deserve to die and shouldn’t try and fix things. These often accumulate as a chain of, seemingly harmless, bad decisions with serious consequences, leading up to worse and worse situations.

So how do you prepare for everything? You don’t. It’s simply impossible to predict every likely and unlikely scenario. The best solution is to stay flexible and openminded. Ready to improvise and react quickly to changes.

I’m deliberately not digging deeper into the psychological aspect of survival and mental preparation. I do realize it is probably the most important part of every survival story but I am not a psychologist and honestly wouldn’t know what to tell you. My methods of motivating quitters tend to be a bit rough and wouldn’t suit everybody.

I practice survival skills for fun almost everyday. Hand drill, bow drill, feather sticks navigation… I also try to stay in best possible shape, pushing myself physically and mentally on long hikes, I try to do once a week. I understand this isn’t for everybody but I like it. Keeps me healthy and happy. It’s like going to the gym, which I do as well, only this one is free and the views are a lot better.

Planning your trip and carefully selecting your equipment is just as important as staying fit. Here’s one example of what not to do if you want to make it out of the wilderness on your own.

Weak Hand Fearher Sticking and Fire Starting

curlsSome time ago, under one of my YouTube videos, a viewer asked me if I was up for a challenge. The challenge was to make a feather stick with your weak, non-dominant hand.  I sure was up for it as I had experienced the need to use my weak (left in my case) hand for about three weeks when I stabbed myself in the right hand, which effectively made me left-handed for a period of time.

I could still use my right hand to some degree. Hold or maybe even lift things without overloading the palm of the hand. But anything requiring grabbing, squeezing and manipulating using the fingers was out of the question. So if I had to start a fire at that time I’d have to do most of the fiddly work with my weaker hand which has no experience with this type of tasks whatsoever.

Should such injury create or worsen a survival situation, I’d have to be able to do most ‘right-handed’ tasks with my left hand. And believe me if I tell you it’s not easy! Of course, since I’m pretending my right hand is injured, I thought I should strike the ferro rod with my left hand too. But then I realized that holding the rod in my right hand isn’t exactly something I’d be able to do with my injured hand anyway. So I added a new skill to the challenge – lighting a fire with only one hand.

The trick is to use your foot to immobilize the handle on your knife resting on your feather stick with its blade sticking up, and use the exposed sharp spine to create sparks like in the pictures below. It takes time but it’s possible and quite reliable.
One handed fire  trick

Perfect Feather SticksDon’t expect things to go smoothly or be perfect. They most likely won’t be. Under normal circumstances, I can make feathers that look a bit like a piece of art and it’s really frustrating to see myself struggle to make a single curl with my left hand. It’s a bit like being a child again. Only you already know what it feels like to walk and run without falling down on your knees every other step. You just can’t do it for some messed up reason. Really annoying feeling.

Bear in mind, that in a real survival scenario things are going to be even more difficult, frustrating and the injured hand will most likely hurt like a bitch, which does not help focusing on the job. To make everything even more ‘fun’, add a possibility of strong wind and rain (which happened to me when shooting the video below), and the fact that you will not be ok with just one stick. You’ll need more like four to six nice and big feather sticks with the feathers attached to the main shaft.

 

Feather Sticks

Why attached? Well, if you’re lucky and it isn’t windy and rainy, you can afford to collect whatever’s fallen off to the ground. But if you’re not, the wind will blow away everything you incautiously cut off, and drench it in the wet grass or mud. And it’s not easy to make those curls stay attached when carving with your weak hand. Especially when the strong hand is hurting, you are cold and wet, and under a lot of stress and pressure to make that fire going as soon as possible.