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Whether you’re interested in preparing for a cataclysmic event or just a rough camping trip, it’s valuable to know basic survival skills. But if you’ve lived most of your life in comfortable, abundant environments, you may not know where to even start learning them.
What’s the first step to becoming a veritable survival expert?
Learning Options
There are several sources you can draw upon to learn survival skills, and the best approach is probably utilizing several sources simultaneously. This way, you’ll get many perspectives and you’ll be able to reinforce some of the most important fundamentals.
· Courses. A survival skills course is the best place for most people to start. In one of these class settings, you’ll likely work with an experienced survival expert alongside multiple peer students who have the same level of knowledge that you do. You can choose a class that’s perfectly suited to your current knowledge and experience level and continue taking on new courses until you’re satisfied with what you know.
· Videos. For some people, attending a class simply isn’t practical. While you’ll be missing out on the practical experience component, it is possible to learn at least some survival skills through online videos. They’re highly convenient and often quite informative, though it’s always important to scrutinize your sources.
· Books. Books are another option. Like videos, they don’t give you any practical experience, but you can always practice on your own. Also, certain survival skills (like tying knots) are hard to describe in words, and therefore are difficult to learn in book form.
· Friends. If you have friends, family members, or other contacts with survival skills, you might be able to learn from them directly.
· Practice. And, of course, you can get better at certain survival skills simply by practicing. You wouldn’t want to figure out which foods are edible by experimenting in nature, but you can tinker around with things like bushcraft to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t.
No matter what, it’s important to do your due diligence and evaluate your learning method critically.
· Authority. Who is teaching you? What are their credentials? Why should you trust them above other sources, and are there any sources they rely on? Not everyone is equally suited to be a survival skills teacher or author.
· Experience. The more practical experience you get in the learning environment, the better. Knowing how to build a shelter is a lot different than being able to build one in the wild.
· Reinforcement. It takes significant repetition for human beings to learn anything. Accordingly, you should prepare for ongoing reinforcement. If you learned how to tie a specific knot in a random class 20 years ago, there’s no guarantee you’d be able to replicate it in a stressful or demanding situation.
The Most Important Fundamentals
Regardless of which learning method you choose, these are some of the most important survival skill fundamentals to start with:
· Food and water. Lots of people interested in survival think of self-defense first, but self-defense isn’t going to help you if you run out of food and water. These are arguably your biggest priorities, and you’ll need sustainable sources of both if you want to survive anywhere. Gardening, foraging, trapping, and hunting are all great things to learn.
· Shelter and fire. You’ll also need to figure out some way to get reliable shelter and fire. If you don’t have an immediately available shelter, can you build one? Would you be able to start a fire without a lighter or a match?
· Navigation. Persistent reliance on GPS navigation has led many of us to lose our ability to navigate without it. In a world without digital navigation tools, you’ll need to rely on physical maps, compasses, and your own instinctive navigation.
· Defense/safety. You’ll also want to learn at least some fundamentals related to defense and personal safety. Even the most elementary skills in this area can help you stay alive in dangerous situations. Additionally, in the context of the evolving geopolitical landscape, exploring this article on how to prepare for war as a civilian 2024 could offer essential guidance and strategies for safeguarding yourself and your community.
· Medical care/first aid. Finally, you should learn at least some aspects of medical care and first aid. Would you be able to treat wounds with basic dressings in the field? Do you know the biggest health and medical threats in survival situations and how to address them adequately?
The Importance of Ongoing Development
No one on earth is a truly comprehensive survival expert. That’s because there are always new things to learn, there are always more things to stockpile, and there’s no upper limit to how physically fit or intelligent you can become. Taking classes, reading books, watching videos, and getting practical experience is going to put you in a much better position than most people. But if you want to be even better, you need to commit to ongoing development. Never stop learning.
