Back in March, I had another opportunity to help out with the 2 Day Basic Survival Course at Green Earth Survival School. The course covers Shelter, Water Purification, Lost-Proofing, Signalling, Map & Compass usage, a nature walk to identify currently available edible and useful plants, and my personal favorite and one of my obsessions, Primitive Fire Making.

Upon arrival, everyone set up their own tent/sleeping area, and started to get to know each other. Once we all had a personal “base of operations”, we did intros all around and got down to work.

The instructor, Hank, has been around the world a few times, and having grown up in the hills of Kentucky then served in the military during the 60’s and 70’s, has had ample training in the realm of survival. From what I know of the man, I’m positive he could walk barefoot into the brush almost anywhere on this continent, and come out a year later (if you could get him to leave the wild) and he’d have gained a few pounds, built himself a NICE permanent structure (with hot and cold running water) to live in, and come up with a way to turn the experience into a money making opportunity. The man amazes me in his ability to adjust. What most folks would consider “roughing it”, he considers fun, and probably not even much of a challenge.

And that’s not even mentioning his time as a survival consultant on various TV shows and published works. Here he is on the Travel Channel:

In the class, Hank walks the group through the different aspects of a survival situation. Mental preparedness, to signalling, fire making, wild edibles, and “lost-proofing” yourself are a few of the topics he covered in the two-day class. As he walks the students through each lesson, you can see him guiding each one into thinking for themselves on options in each scenario. His is method is to have each person learn the concept, then teach them to adapt the knowledge to the situation.

Having been to several of his classes, this one was no different in that the fire-making was the most popular lesson. I am still on a personal quest to make fire with a bamboo fire saw, so I understand the feeling of great accomplishment you gain once you can prove to yourself that you can master fire with a primitive method. Hank took the time, all 12 seconds of it, to show us how to make an ember with a bow-drill. Yes, 12 seconds to an ember! He then went on to apologize for taking so long, almost twice as long as his best time. Each of the females in the class stepped up, and were also able to create an ember, though with far more effort and time. Most of the men also eventually mastered it, though not quite as well as the women did. He said this was actually very common, and that apparently, women in the class pay closer attention to the details of the process.

As the class drew to a close on the second day, it was obvious to everyone attending that this was only the first step on a long, never ending journey of self discovery. Hank merely exposed each student to the basics, and showed how continual practice can improve each of the skills, and thus the likelihood of being able to draw upon those skills should the need arise. More than a couple asked about more advanced classes, and asked to be kept informed of future class dates.

===========================

I’m posting this now because our summer weather has finally started to ease off a bit. This means Green Earth Survival School is back in session, with the first class being this weekend, October 6 & 7. If you are interested in learning a little bit about survival skills, and a lot about yourself, I cannot stress how much you would enjoy this class.

Hank can be reached at www.greenearthsurvivalschool.com, or from his website:

Tell him FloridaHillbilly sent ya….and you may even see me there too!

Peace,
db

PS- I am not a paid instructor for GESS. I get to help out, and in return get to brush up on my skills. So I suppose you can say I am getting compensation. I have been offered a paid instructor spot, but have deferred – my choice. This was NOT A a paid advertisement. I simply believe in the product described.