If you’ve ever watched the popular personal survival programmes – hosted by the likes of Bear Grylls or Ed Stafford – on the television, you might have asked yourself whether the skills on display are just so much entertainment or whether they might actually be of any use to you.
Step back for just a moment and consider how survival and bushcraft training – which is widely available in the UK – might prove very much to your benefit.
Benefits
The UK’s Primal Survivor website lists some of the benefits you might get from hands-on experience and training in some basic bushcraft and survival skills:
Learning valuable skills
- learning new skills is typically at the core of practically any training course;
- one of the most important lessons from a bushcraft or survival course may satisfy the even more basic quest to discover exactly what skills will help you survive and thrive in an emergency or crisis situation;
Challenge yourself
- there are always benefits in challenging yourself by taking calculated risks in a safely controlled and monitored environment;
- by putting yourself through it the first time around, you will be so much better prepared the next time, when similar circumstances appear for real – without the safety-net of potential rescue by a training instructor;
Joining ranks
- bushcraft and survival training courses attract like-minded people;
- if your fascination – or even obsession – with such things had put you in the position as the odd man out or slightly weird, the camaraderie of a training course with others just like you might settle any doubts you previously had;
Interpersonal relationships
- since you’ll be in a group, you’ll also learn valuable lessons about group dynamics – learning not just about yourself and the way you react to new and challenging situations but also how you relate to other members of the group;
Life skills
- if you can develop the skills and tools necessary for surviving in a hostile or challenging wilderness, you can turn those lessons to your advantage in any aspect of your daily life – valuable life skills aplenty.
Typical Lessons
Bushcraft and survival courses have become so popular that you may have a number to choose from – and one course might vary quite considerably from another.
The following, though, are just some of the skills you are likely to learn on any course aimed at teaching you some of the basic lessons of survival – namely, fire, water, shelter, and food, suggests the UK Preppers’ Radio Network:
Fire
- the UK’s damp, wet weather makes for a challenging environment in which to learn fire lighting skills – difficult at the best of times, you may need special abilities and confidence in starting a fire when everything around you is sodden;
Water
- from your first day in any survival situation, finding drinking water is fundamental;
- you will need specialist skills to discover some of the more unlikely sources of water, how to collect it, purify it, and store it;
Shelter
- once again, the damp and often chilly UK weather is likely to provide all the challenge you need for building a shelter that can keep you dry, warm, and protected from the elements; and
Food
- it’s certainly not all a question of exotic and almost inedible “bush tucker” fare you’ve probably seen on TV. There are courses where you can learn how to forage in the woods and along the coast, learning what is and isn’t safe to eat. These courses also give you the knowledge you need to cook locally foraged food over an open fire.
Practical skills that lend themselves to application in practically any aspect of your everyday life – those are just some of the lessons you might take away from a survival or bushcraft course.
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