Practical Wilderness Skills and Thoughts on Survival

By White Wolf Von Atzingen

Copyright 2012 White Wolf Von Atzingen

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Table of Contents

The Key Factor in Survival

Survival Fact

Awareness

Web Healing

Water Truth

Pee Talk

Dehydrated Brain

Heat Loss - 5 Methods

Self Defense

Social Collapse Concerns

Survival Reality Check

Smoldering Coal

Fire Burial

Wilderness Food Preservation

Wild Water Well

Wilderness Pit oven

About the Author

The Key Factor in Survival

Around the globe there are people who practice “survival skills”. From many traditions and cultures stemmed many different techniques to make living in the wilderness successful. Today schools are everywhere teaching “survival skills”. There are even TV shows about people going off to brave the wilderness areas of this world to compete against the wild and “survive”. The whole point to their philosophy is that the wilderness is something to fear, something aggressive and dangerous. That philosophy can never bring peace of mind and body, but rather launch a person’s entire existence into a state of struggle and fighting.

I have mentioned many times before that the word “survival” immediately invokes a percentage of fear in the mind. Instead of the word “survival” I prefer the word “living”. Of course many times I have found I had to use the word “survival” in my advertising because that is what people today are conditioned to associate with Wilderness Schools and Teachers. No matter which word is used, it comes down to the skills being taught. That being said, what does it come down to in a primitive setting? Do your skills count for everything? Does the amount of practice you have invested into the skills you know count for everything? Or perhaps it is how much money and time you have spent studying that counts. The simple fact is that none of the above are what really count.

Let us think for a moment. Think of the many types of environments that are in this world; there are many. Now go a bit further and let us look into the actuality of having to live for a time in a primitive situation in those wild areas. Let’s assume that you have studied “survival skills” and you have been to many schools. Your skills are decent, though you never had to actually use them in a “survival” situation yet.

1. You find yourself deep in the northern boreal forests. It’s summer. The days are warm, but nights are cool. The insects travel in hords and eat anything that possesses warm blood. There is no cover from them. They are out day and night. You cannot leave your skin exposed without hundreds of them feasting on a couple square inches.

How do your survival skills fair now?

2. Knee deep in the southern swamps you land. Water is everywhere and what is not in water is coated in thick mud or tangled branches and roots. Poison snakes, insects and plants are all over the area. That doesn’t cover the fact that there are also alligators living in the murky waters. All wood you find is wet and molded.

How do your survival skills fair now?

3. High in the alpine tundra you wander. It is fall. The days are crisp with the blistering sun, but the howling winds that sweep the barren landscape are always cold. The nights are below freezing. Snow is coming and once it gets there you will be snowed in for the winter. Nights that seem to last forever and wind that never stops. Cold that cracks the huge boulders that have stood for millions of years.

Will your survival skills be enough?

4. Lost in the deserts you find yourself. It is late spring and the daytime temps are rising into the high 90’s. Water is slim and the main plant is creosote bush. Not many cactus in the area. Poison snakes roam the shadows and scorpions roam the nights. There is nothing for miles upon miles except empty desert land. You will be there for a while.

Will your skills in survival be enough to see you through?

5. Maybe it is just in the Northeast wilderness areas of America where the vegetation gets so think in summer that feelings of the world closing in around you could easily set it. Heavy rains soak the ground and not much sun penetrates the thick canopy to dry it out. Heavy humidity settles in upon you and the insects come out in force.

The fact is that survival skills, or any physical skills we may possess, are not nearly enough to ensure our survival in one of those situations. Yes, if we have practiced long and hard, our skills may be to a point that we can use them to meet our most basic physical needs. However, when those long, dark nights come again and again, when that wind never rests and the insects never tire of feeding, when everything on us is wet to the bone and just when we find a dry branch to hang something out on, it rains torrents. The physical skills we have are not enough.

Under severe circumstances, the skills we have practiced can assist us greatly, but it is not the physical skills that will help us attain a comfortable level of living. They won’t even help us attain a comfortable level of “survival”. The key factor in these types of situations lies within the mind. It is our ability to be able to control our minds completely. If we cannot control our minds, our emotions will get the best of us and all our skills will be for not. In any true wilderness survival or wilderness living study, a serious focus on the mind and how to work mental techniques/skills to allow us to gain full control, remain in full control and capitalize on the power of our mind is essential. I have taught many students and each and every one has gone away with this knowing and these skills. I make it very clear that physical skills alone will not be enough to ensure our “survival” in a primitive, wilderness, “emergency” situation for more than a couple of days. This is why so many “survival” oriented schools try to focus on skills and mind sets that will help a person survive for 3 to 4 days before helps arrive because they do not teach the deeper aspects of the mind and how important it is in any “survival” situation.

Without full control of our minds and the understanding of how to utilize techniques to retain this control, the energy of the “emergency, primitive” situation will eat through our skills and consume us. I have known many who have tried to go primitive and take their skills to the wilderness for long term time frames. They all returned within a maximum of 2 weeks because they came to understand they did not have what it took in the mind to live under those circumstances. Fear, guilt, depression, and anger are just some of the emotions that can take over the mind in a situation of solitude.

Survival Fact

Every time I teach a course or workshop on outdoor skills I find the same thing. Someone in the group is out of shape enough to dramatically interfere with their own learning process of the skills at hand. As time goes on I see this more and more. When I look beyond Ways Of The Wild Institute it is no wonder that this issue is rising. As I have posted before, much of the population is highly unfit and unhealthy. The contaminated foods, water, air, land, body products, clothing, etc are seriously taking a toll on the health of the masses. However, this does not mean that we cannot keep or regain our health and fitness. It simply means that we must be vigilant in how we live, what we consume and what we do day after day.

I have said this many, many times before and I will continue saying it; true survival depends upon the individual’s mind set and physical capabilities. If you somehow get truly lost in a wilderness setting of desert, mountain, grassland, swamp, woodland or perhaps jungle you may have to walk out. You might be in a location where a search party would not look. You may have to cross rivers, mountains, expanses of desert to get back to the modern societies. Are you fit enough to do this? You may have to trudge through miles of deep snow and subzero temperatures. Are you able to realistically do this? It matters not what your mind says, the fact comes down to whether or not your body can do it. You can have the mind set of never quitting, but if your body is not physically able, it doesn’t matter what is in your mind.

Many students who come to Vermont are fit enough to work with what they must in a wilderness survival situation. Some come out and they have the physical strength to lift and carry heavy objects. Their physical strength is good, but when it comes to walking cross-country for a while, they tucker out quickly because they have no aerobic ability. Others are the opposite. They can walk forever over any terrain but have no strength to properly execute hands on skills that may be required to survive.

Both strength of physical body and aerobic ability are required in an outdoor living or survival situation. Not only that, but the mind must also be in good shape. I continually see many students defeat themselves in the mountains with their minds. Even if they have the skills and fitness they struggle because their minds have been conditioned to think they cannot do “it”.

Being in shape with strength, cardiovascular and mind is essential to dramatically increasing your survival chances if you ever find yourself in such a situation.

Something else I have said many times before is inner health. Many folks find it surprising at first to hear that many people who die in long term survival situations do so from detoxification of their body. This is the truth. Too many people in modern civilization feed themselves toxic garbage on a daily basis. Contaminated foods, water, body products, clothing, food storage containers, “medicines”, emotions and thoughts fill the modern societies. ALL of those weaken the entire body and mind. This toxic waste gets packed away in the organs and tissues of the body. Now what happens if you find yourself in a survival situation? You are forced to eat less and more healthily. The body automatically begins the detox process. The liver dumps long held toxins into the bloodstream. Other organs and tissues begin the same process. All these toxins then poison the entire body and must exit through the kidneys. Sure, some can exit the skin pores and other body excretions, but the majority of it must pass out of the body through the kidneys. With the amount of toxins that many people would be dumping in a dramatic detox, the kidneys would shut down. The body would become septic and quickly.

These are all questions to ask yourself:

Are you fit in strength?

Are you fit in cardiovascular ability?

Are you fit in mind?

Are you fit in health?

Are you low on stored toxins?

If the answer to any of these is NO, then you might want to look more deeply at how you can turn that into a YES.

On occasion I will get emails or phone calls from people who know someone who has gone missing in the wilderness somewhere in the world. They tell me the story and ask if I could help or if I know of someone in that region who could help. This becomes very tricky because many times they contact me days after the individual(s) go missing. Also, the normal circumstances point to the facts that the lost individual(s) have no outdoor skills or equipment with them. Sometimes the individuals have gone missing after a drinking party or after they left a bar in the middle of nowhere. The point is that most of these stories included details that told of the individual(s) lack of preparedness, mental and or physical fitness. Alcohol in the system my heat the body up at first but once it wears off, the core body temperature plummets and in an outdoor situation that can be fatal.

I know it is never easy for those contacting me, but it is very difficult to tell them the truth of the matter gently. I tell them that they can hope, but the details supplied point heavily to the possibility that the individual(s) are dead. The untrained human just cannot survive in the frigid mountains with no equipment or skills after leaving a bar. Especially after three days have passed. Humans untrained cannot survive in the winter desert with no equipment for very long. Especially after 5 days and nights have passed. Yes the body is capable of amazing things but most of the time such cases are dead ends. Why? Facts.

In every case that someone has contacted me with, many days after the search parties began looking and found nothing, the lost individual(s) were either never found or were found dead.

Be smart, get yourself in shape, learn some skills and get your system healthy. The natural world is unforgiving to weakness. If you are lost, the world will not grant you leniency and breaks. Be truthful with yourself because the wilderness does not suffer self lies. It does not matter what you might tell yourself that may not be truthful, in a survival situation the facts will always come out. You do not have to become a marathon runner or a body builder. Simply get into shape as your unique body and mind allows and requires.

Awareness

My Lenni Lenape teacher Meechgalanne always said that awareness was the key to the hidden spiritual secrets that underlie all life. “Awareness is the key to life”, he would tell me. He said awareness and survival skills were the first steps to being truly connected to all things. Complete awareness of wilderness (the external world) and self (the internal world) is the truth and power of life and the sacred path through it. Meechgalanne told me many times that this level of awareness was so important to learn and incorporate into the everyday life before I began the rest of my skills in life. No one could learn these things by cheating or shortcutting. There are no quick ways to obtain this knowledge. It would be impossible to know, understand and venture into the spiritual realm of life without first understanding and seeing the physical realm completely, but whomever did this would be pulled out of the physical realities of this dream and they would lose all grounding. One day they would be confronted with a wall that would show them their separation with the physical aspects of living in this world. So it is that Awareness is the pathway to the true spirit and full understanding of self and who we are.

I began learning all the skills of camp and living comfortably in the wild. This included cooking, gathering food, building shelters, making fires, finding clean water, reading the weather, making clothes, making tools, setting up wind breaks and making baskets and containers. All the materials were natural. We never had anything made by or from modern society. These skills I learned very quickly and they became easy for me to do.

Meechgalanne taught me that every skill I learned had a deeper, sacred meaning that tied it to the Great Circle of All Life. For instance, the wigwam is a symbol of life and fertility. The wigwam is a dome shaped dwelling with one door and one smoke hole in the roof. The wigwam itself symbolizes the womb of life. The door represents the vagina, entry into and out of the womb. Entering the wigwam’s door represent the penis entering the vagina to harbor peace and harmony within the earth’s womb. The smoke from the fire, or life force, exits the smoke hole and acts as the umbilical cord to the spiritual and physical realms. Exiting the wigwam is symbolic of birth into the physical world of being. Just as the wigwam has meaning, so do all the other skills that were taught to me.

Survival skills followed in my training. These included telling the direction, camouflaging, hiding, building quick fires and shelters, collecting and finding emergency water, learning medicinal herbs and their uses, hunting, snaring, fishing, travel, and of course, awareness. These skills also came to me fairly easily. As all skills go, the longer you use them the better you become at them. I had a lot of fun learning all of these skills. I was amazed at how much you could accomplish with natural materials. Anything I wanted came from nature.

Since awareness ties all skills, knowledge, understanding and learning both physically and spiritually together, this area of my training will go on forever. I would spend hours upon hours studying, watching, smelling, tasting, listening, feeling and sensing everything I could in life. I stalked everything. Even my family and pets were not exempt from me standing in their footsteps. I saw how every little movement in the woods affected everything around for sometimes miles. I learned to feel energies that radiated from all living things. I could sense something moving off in the woods before I could see or hear it. I could tell if a hunter was around, even if he was sitting quietly and camouflaged, just by his energy. Everything I saw or felt became sacred to me. All things natural became a necessity in my life. Without them I felt lost and empty.

The more aware I became, the more comfortable I was in life. The more things came together with awareness, the more I understood all aspects of everything I saw. Meechgalanne was right; awareness was the key to knowing. My awareness level became so in tuned I could feel a buzzard so high in the sky that I could hardly see it. My Teacher would say that on a good day it became next to impossible to sneak up on me. I could even describe energy that passed on the wind and was emitted from the smallest insect, plant or the mind of a human. The “Wild Tongue” was what Meechgalanne called the voice of the wilderness. Everything has its own language he would tell me. Learn to listen to these languages and learn to understand what they say. They are all based upon a unique set of energies/frequencies. “Awareness is the doorway that we can walk through; out from the limitations of the room many live in and into the great expanse of life.”

Web Healing

I was about six or seven miles back in the Rocky Mountains on the side of a 13,000 foot mountain some years back. It was a late summer’s day and the skies were clear. The unforgiving sun beat down on the boulders and cliffs, as well as my body.

As I was climbing, my foot slipped on the side of a rather smooth rock and as I reactively shot my hand out to brace my fall, my palm caught the side of another rock that wasn’t so smooth. For my troubles I received a cut which bled quite freely in the high altitude. It really wasn’t a big deal, but fresh blood on your hands while climbing isn’t the best things. I knew very well that ashes work to stop bleeding just as many plants, like birds nest and yarrow. But at the elevation I was at I wouldn’t find the giant bird’s nest and I was in the wrong climate for yarrow. I could burn a small bit of something to get the ashes. I had cloth and there were small dry twigs and clump grasses jutting out from the rock cracks. That would stop the bleeding, but it would not seal the cut.

So, I began to look around the rocks for something I had used before to stop bleeding and seal cuts. It was a good time of year to search also. Late summer is prime time to find a large abundance of spider webs. That’s right, spider webs! In short time I located a spider web and knelt down beside it. Gently I used a twig to break off the connecting threads which freed up the web’s mass. I laid the spider web over the cut on my palm. I made sure that the web completely covered the cut and waited a few minutes. The bleeding stopped and I could see the web had actually begun to create a nice bandage over the cut. I found two more webs and layered them over the first web bandage and within a short time, the cut had sealed up with the help of the sticky webs. With no more bleeding, I continued onward.

All spider webs work well to stop bleeding and seal cuts. The ones that I find to work exceptionally well are the large orb spider webs. They are very thick and sticky. They have the ability to seal quite an extensive cut!

The next time you’re outdoors and looking to stop the bleeding and seal up a small cut, look for some spider webs to help you out.

Water Truth

I often have people asking me questions on the topic of water. I had a student show me a booklet they had gotten from another school where they had taken survival classes. They told me, and referenced the booklet, that they were taught we could survive 6 days in the wilderness in a survival situation without water; 6 days.

I know there are a lot of schools out there teaching a lot of things but the baselines facts should NEVER change or they are not baseline facts; water and our physical requirements fall into the baseline fact category. I found this student’s statement and the booklet they showed me to be so ludicrous that I had to write a short article here explaining the actual facts about this.

Fact number 1: Yes the average, healthy human being under absolute ideal conditions (in mind, body, emotions, environment, etc) could live for 6 days without water.

Fact number 2: In all my 40 years, I have never found an ideal condition in a wilderness survival situation.

A survival situation is just that; an adverse set of challenging conditions of mind, body and environment. There is no ideal survival situation. We as humans cannot survive 6 days in a wilderness survival situation without water. I don’t care what any “survival” booklet or other survival school tells you. If they are telling you that then they clearly have ZERO practical and actual experience in true outdoors survival situations. Furthermore to tell people who are coming to them to learn the truth of it is simply irresponsible. To say there is an ideal survival situation is like saying there is an average survival situation. Both are incorrect.

If you are in top health and can keep your wits about you and have some honed wilderness survival skills, you have at most 4 days before you perish from lack of water. If any of those details are missing you have more like 3 days. If you are in a very cold or hot, arid, high elevation or windy environment; if you are injured or have health issues concerning poor circulation, weak heart or kidneys or have fallen to diarrhea or poisoning, you have more like 2 days tops. As you can see this is vastly different than 6 days.

Pee Talk

How long can you survive by drinking your own urine? Is it safe to drink?

The answer requires more explanation than just a “yes” or “no”.

For medicinal purposes, the people of the Middle East, India and many other areas of the world have been using urine for centuries or longer. The first morning urine is said to contain the specific antibodies your system has built for you all night. Traditionally the first morning urine has been drunk for health benefits with no ill effects. Prisoners of war as well as prisoners in many countries who are awaiting torture have reportedly drunk their first morning urine to keep up their strength and to give their body that boost it would need in recovery time.

It can also be used as an eye rinse to rid the eye of infections and irritations. I have used this myself with great success on numerous occasions.

As a matter of fact, traditionally in those areas of the world people would use the first morning urine for more than just health. They would, and in many places still do, use it for hair cleaner/rinse among many other external applications! The urine of a human after the first morning, begins to accumulate toxins and then liquid waste removal is in full function.

What about in a survival situation? How long could you drink it and would it be safe?

Most people will tell you, “NO”. The reason for this is the fact that urine contains contaminants that the body was trying to flush out of the system. The kidneys work to filter out toxins and flush them out of the body through the urine. Interestingly though, about 95% of urine is water and sterile water at that. The 5% of toxins contain a variety of calcium, potassium, nitrogen among other chemicals that were consumed and not absorbed by the blood and organs. Those percentages are from an average healthy individual. Those who are unhealthy and consume dangerous chemicals in food, water and air will have higher toxin percentages.

If absolutely necessary, drinking your own urine for a day or two could keep you hydrated enough to survive. However, the 5% of waste products each time you consume the urine will eventually build up in the kidneys. Each urine sample will become more and more concentrated if no other liquid is consumed. Pretty soon that 5% waste will dramatically elevate. The kidneys will no longer be able to function properly and they will shut down causing complete kidney failure. This would result in death.

If you are injured, the drinking of your own urine is not advised either. The type of injury will dictate what is in your bloodstream. If bone, muscle tissue or fascia are in anyway crushed, they leech phosphorous and potassium into the blood. This can be detrimental to kidney function.

With that said, drinking urine in a survival situation is not advisable unless under dire circumstances where rescue within two days is highly probably. However, using the first morning urine for medicinal purposes for a limited time works quite well.

Dehydrated Brain

Keeping yourself well hydrated in a wilderness survival situation is just common sense and most people automatically look for water sources when in such situations. I have spoken a great deal about this topic many times before. Why then did I write this article?

While most people know about good hydration in a wilderness setting, many people I meet are quite dehydrated in the pace of their everyday lives. Dry mouth, dry nose, dark urine, headaches, tight muscles, overheated head and foggy thinking are all signs of dehydration. They can of course be signs of many ailments, but they all go hand in hand with lack of proper hydration of the human body.

Did you know you can dehydrate your brain? Well you can! The brain is made up of a huge amount of water for its weight, just like our bodies. When we become dehydrated, the fluid in the brain dissipates and creates a dehydrated brain! On average there are 10,000,000,000 individual neurons. About half a million different chemical reactions take place every minute in the average human brain. This number can be many times higher than that during hard physical activity or stress. All of this takes proper fluid in the brain. Dehydrate the brain and serious complications begin to occur in these normal chemical functions.

When the brain begins to dehydrate you can get lightheaded, feel ungrounded, have a hard time focusing, become depressed, feel like your head/brain is overheating, get headaches, become disoriented, get the “space cadet” feeling and begin disassociating from the physical reality of your body. I find it amazing how many people exist in such a state on a daily basis as their average reality! Doctors, medicines, alternative health methods and on and on gain lots of attention from simple dehydration.

DRINK and keep yourself well hydrated every day and night. The mucus membranes in the body are responsible for trapping and flushing germs out of our systems. If you are dehydrated the mucous membranes cannot do their job.

If you need to think clearly and stay focused, drink a lot and do your brain a favor.

Stay healthy, stay sharp. DRINK good clean fluids.

Heat Loss - 5 Methods

In life there are 5 main methods of heat loss. This becomes very important to understand when we place it in the context of wilderness living or wilderness survival. Within this writing I will list and describe these 5 methods and how they pertain to wilderness living.

The 5 methods of heat loss are as follows:

1. Radiation

2. Respiration

3. Convection

4. Conduction

5. Perspiration and Moisture

Radiation - This method is simply the loss of heat, outwardly and upward into space. Our bodies create heat from energy and so we are always venting this heat through the process of Radiation. Approximately 60%-85% of our internal heat vents out our heads, faces and neck regions. That is a lot of Radiation! This is especially so when we are in extreme conditions. When it is very cold outside, if we don’t make sure our heads and necks are covered our bodies are going to have to work extra hard to stay warm within. This extra work will wear us down and make us susceptible to coldness. This goes the opposite if we are in extreme heat. The neck and head should be allowed to vent this excess heat from within our bodies. Look to the fire for the properties of Radiation. Light a fire and stand by it. Observe where the heat goes and you will have a good idea of what happens with our body heat. 30-35% of our total body heat is lost through Radiation!

Respiration - When we breathe we exhale heat from our lungs. This is not much of a heat loss but in extreme conditions it can make a huge difference. When it is very hot, birds will sit around with their beaks hanging open. This is the same as dogs panting. It is a way to vent heat from the body. The same thing happens in extreme cold. This is why when you go outdoors in subzero temps for a good while or plan on spending the night outside, it is wise to cover your mouth with a face mask of some sort. A good 10% of our heat is lost through Respiration, breathing.

Convection - How does a convection oven work? Air flow. Convection outdoors is the process of heat being affected by the movement of air. This can also be termed “wind chill”. If it is cold and you allow wind to access your body, you are losing alot of heat through Convection. It is essential to protect the body from the wind during times of coldness. Houses lose heat through Convection all the time. In winter you may notice it is much harder to keep your house warm when it is windy outside. This is due to the process of Convection. The moving air blows away our heat that exists between the layers of our clothes. About 50% of our heat is lost through Convection.

Conduction - This method of heat loss is when a warm object comes in contact with a cold object. The fact is Cold draws and shrinks while heat pushes and expands. Our inner heat is in a constant state of expansion out and up. If we sit on a cold surface, our body will lose heat through that cold surface because the heat naturally vents out and cold naturally draws. So the cold surface draws the heat right out of our body and drains us through Conduction. This is why you should never sit on the cold ground when you are cool or trying to conserve your body heat. Never sleep on the cold ground without an insulating cover between you and the earth. A solid 5-10% of the body’s heat is lost through Conduction.

Perspiration/Moisture - This is a 2 part process. Heat carries moisture which is how perspiration works. Heat draws moisture and carries it into space as a vapor. When we breathe it is not only heat loss through Respiration but also through the act of “Mouth Perspiration” and thus evaporation. It is a fact that humid air feels warmer than dry air of the same temperature . This is also why the earth stays warmer under cloud cover than under clear skies at night. When we sweat, we lose heat through this process. It is a way the body cools itself down. This is a negative thing when it is very cold out. If it is freezing out and you do hard work snowshoeing up a mountain, you will sweat. This is heat loss through Perspiration. If the moisture from perspiration stays on our skin, we are chilled even further. This holds true anytime we get wet outdoors in the cold. This could happen from Rain, snow, mist, immersion, etc. Stay dry at ALL costs if you are outdoors in cold weather and plan on staying outdoors. If you get wet in the cold and remain so, you will fall to hypothermia. It is more than just “evaporation”. Our bodies loose vast amounts more heat when we are wet than if we are dry. Remember that water can take heat away from the body up to 27-30 times faster than the normal air. When we are wet, the water is what it stealing the heat from the body, not the act of evaporation. Evaporation can fall into two categories; Perspiration and also Convection.

Those are the 5 main methods of heat loss that we must be aware of when existing outdoors in cold weather. I have come across far too many outdoor travelers who had succumbed to hypothermia because they did not observe the 5 methods of heat loss and take precautions. The fact is if you fail to heed the warnings of heat loss in cold weather, you will eventually fall to hypothermia and if not treated, will die from it. True, you cannot get hypothermia as long as you are moving, but eventually we all must stop and rest.

Self Defense

Many people are out there today claiming they teach self defense for real situations. Even looking through many wilderness survival and wilderness skills schools, I see sections and classes dedicated to self defense. This makes me take pause and look behind the scenes. Why, because this is a claim that is telling people that they will be taught proper ways for real self defense that works in real situations when self defense becomes necessary. It is the same as telling a heart attack prone person that the medication the doctor is prescribing will assure the individual does not fall to a heart attack. If the claim holds no weight or truth, they could easily be endangering that individual’s life. Self defense is no different.

If the techniques being taught in self defense are not tested in actual combat situations, then they are truthfully not proven. If the teachers who are claiming to teach such self defense ways have no real experience in the ways of true combat, then the techniques they are teaching are empty. Even if a technique does work, if the teacher has no real experience then they cannot present the technique with any truth or reality. This means that the student will not be able to gain proper methodology or even get correct answers to detailed questions about the techniques being taught. Thus the technique will be presented in an incorrect way because details that can only be learned in combat situations cannot be taught with the technique.

To me this shows serious irresponsibility. After all, it is not like the student is being taught how to sew. If they get a stitch wrong it will not kill them or someone they love. I mean if a seamstress freezes up halfway through a stitch they aren’t going to end up raped and beaten to death because of it. These are techniques that are supposed to keep people alive in a real combative situation that requires methods of real defense. If the student was taught by someone who has no real background experience in true combative situations, then the techniques and methods of defense they carry with them have a strong percentage of failure.

There are those who would strongly disagree. These are the people who have no combat experience and have no idea what I am talking about because their ego is in the way. A technique learned in a controlled environment by someone who has not but school experience lacks reality. Tried and true defense and combat methods are the ones honed by situations where the life of the practitioner has been on the line. Need is the best teacher and real experience beats school practice any day. Even tournaments are bound by rules and referees to make sure participants do not get seriously hurt. The practitioners know this. They are not out to kill one another, but beat each other in a game. That is not combat. In combat there are no rules, no pads and no cushioned ground cover to land on after flying through the air. There is nothing but hard core reality and truth.

The next time you see a wilderness school or a “defense” school advertising self defense classes, take the time to look at the instructor. What is their experience and where did they get it? Are you going to trust your life or the lives of those you care about to someone claiming to teach defense methods that have no REAL experience in combat? Many wilderness schools nowadays are claiming to teach Ninjitsu as real wilderness defense. Most of them are taught by very young people who have ZERO combat experience. Sure they make look impressive to the unaware and untrained, but do not be fooled by their claims to know what they are doing. It is merely a sales pitch and tactic to prey upon those seeking real training in defense methods.

When it comes right down to it and a physical confrontation occurs, reality strikes hard. When spit, sweat and blood are flying, yells and screams of fury and primal emotions echo; when pain rakes your body and adrenaline courses like a raging flood through your system and mind; when a single mistake could claim your life or that of someone you are trying to protect, REALITY HITS. These people claiming to teach real defense or real combat martial arts who have no true combat experience have no clue what this reality is and so how can they teach this reality to a student??? The fact is they cannot!

After 16 years of combat experience I can tell you that I know exactly what I am talking about. For those of you who wish details and have not read the book Shadow Scorpion, you might want to. You will know exactly what I am talking about. Self defense is very real when push comes to shove.

This is not a blog about boasting and ego feeding, but rather plain and simple FACTS and TRUTH. Make your own decisions, but do so with the power of your own mind and not based upon the advertisements being presented. After all, when it comes to defense, it is truly your life at stake.

Social Collapse Concerns

In times of stress, uncertainly, economic hardships, dangerous governments and powerful militaries; in such times of lies and deception, programming and mind control, we all need to step back, slow down and regroup. If we continue running forward at full speed the way most people do, there will never be change, at least not beneficial change. Pain, suffering, torment on all levels and the seemingly chaotic existence of this world will continue and increase.

I get emails from people on a global scale asking me if there is any hope. They ask me what they can do to help and if all that is being said about “End Times” is really true. People today are more heavily concerned about the potential collapse of the modern world by way of the disintegrating economic status, increasing “new” diseases as well as old ones, the building of insane amounts of toxins in our environments, food shortages, war, depletion of natural resources, habitat destruction and on and on and on.

The majority of people today in industrial countries live in the cities and suburbs of them. In such large concentrations, people are far more vulnerable to the stresses of toxins of life. A single catastrophic event near cities can decimate large amounts of the population. People living in such places must fully rely upon the system to supply them with food, water, shelter, and protection. Skills of survival, whether wilderness or urban are seriously depleted and even non-existent in so many areas of the modern world. With a lack of such basic skills, people have little hope of surviving if things non beneficial occur, as they do all over the globe.

If people can learn to slow down and acquire survival skills, their chances of surviving and yes even surpassing adverse conditions dramatically increase. But such skills do not simply include the physical skills of finding shelter, water, food, medicine, knowing first-aid, natural navigation, etc. They also include skills such as self defense, both physical and energetic, strategy and tactics, evasive techniques, basic weapon usage and other highly practical and essential skill sets to face and stand a chance in such adverse conditions that could be brought on by the many systems I listed above.

What many people who seek such physical skills may not realize is that even though knowing those skills can greatly increase your chances of survival, they alone are not enough. A much greater skill set must also be learned, practiced and honed for actual survival to become a strong possibility. The ability to master the mind and emotions are an essential part of this process. If you do not have such a skill set, then when placed in adverse conditions your mind will destroy you faster than anything else. I have seen it happen time and time again. If you are a master at lighting fires in the wilderness but have failed to learn to control your mind and emotions through and through, your fire skills will not save you.

Survival Reality Check

When speaking with folks who are aware of the global issues and the potential of social collapse in certain areas from major non beneficial events, I find many telling me they have “Bug out bags” ready to go. They go on to tell me that they have a “Bug out bag” for every member of their family, normally parents and children. As the conversation continues, they tell me that if they ever have to leave their homes and take off into the land, they will be just fine because they have this “Bug out bag”. They proceed to tell me that they could simply forage off the land for food as they go.

A big warning sign comes up in my head when I hear of people talking about such things and feeling content about it. I have been in major adverse situations that required survival skills and other abilities of the highest degree. The simple fact of the matter is that if I didn’t possess such skills and experience there is high likelihood that I would have died during the extremely challenging events. Simply having the tools does not make one an expert or proficient in anyway. Reality will set in within a very short time frame if an event occurs to bring about true adverse conditions in which you must flee from your home into the land.

The reality that will set in is one of grave danger and the absolute necessity of true, time tested and well honed skills based upon real time experience. Anything less than this dramatically decrease the chance of survival.

You may have a high quality “Bug out bag”, of which I call a Track Pack, for every member of your family. Wonderful! However, does every member of your family possess the necessary skill sets with such tools found in your pack required for adverse conditions? Have you practiced these skills in the outdoors for varying lengths of time with these members of your family? Have you utilized such skills and tools in a wide variety of weather and seasonal conditions to where you are truly proficient?

Children can be a real challenge in outdoor adverse survival situations if they are not trained for them. Sure, children can adapt far easier than most adults, but at the same time they normally do not possess needed skill sets for ongoing survival situations. They need the support, protection and care of adults. Are you trained enough to give them this? Can you honestly look in the mirror and say that you are?

The problem that I immediately see when folks tell me they have a “bug out bag” ready to go in case they need to flee their homes is that most of these people have no training. They are not seasoned in such survival ways. Many of them have families and kids who have never embarked upon mock situations where they had to function as a team in adverse conditions.

With that being the case if an event occurs that creates such “survival” situations, these folk who have spent top dollar creating elaborate “bug out bags” have a very low percentage of survival. This isn’t doom and gloom but absolute fact. Anyone who has trained in such ways and actually experienced such circumstances knows full well the truth of this statement. It isn’t a game and when you are out there you will find no rules. If your physical skills are not honed and you have not done deep mental and emotional healing work, your survival percentage is very low. This is an indisputable fact.

Such situations almost never happen under “ideal conditions”. Many occur during the dead of winter, during violent storms, in harsh environmental conditions, etc. Will your Track pack and skills, your experience and fortitude allow you and your family a chance to survive with 4 feet of snow on the ground and subzero temps at night?

If you are out of shape and unhealthy because of lifestyle and or poor diet, your chances of survival in a real situation are also very low. “Survival” situations are physically, mentally and emotionally extremely demanding and highly challenging, make no mistake about it. Are you truly prepared or are you saying you are out of fear or even laziness because you don’t want to think about it or face the possibilities? During such intense adverse “survival” conditions, fooling yourself will only kill you in the end. There is no shame in saying you need work, practice and training. The only shame is in telling the mirror untruths.

Smoldering Coal

I have been asked recently, and many times before, how to keep a coal smoldering for a long time. Well I decided to write a small bit here about how to do just that.

First off you need to realize that a coal needs air to keep burning, but too much air will cause it to burn out quickly. The question then is, how do you keep the coal alive with air, but keep it from burning rapidly to ash?

There are a number of methods that I have personally used and have found to be effective for this. I will not be listing them all. However, I will give some examples for different regions, since different materials are found in different environments.

North Country - Chaga works wonders in the far north of the world. This is the Birch fungus that can be found growing mainly on birch trees and cherry trees. It is a layered cancer fungus found on weak trees of those species. After the Chaga is broken off the tree, light the side that was closest to the tree, not the black crusty outer shell. Once this lighter colored, corky material is lit, the coals will smolder for a long time. Too much air will cause it to smolder too quickly, though. Make sure to wrap the smoldering chaga in leather or bark to that the wrapping does not touch the coals. I have buried lit chaga in earth overnight before, but it tends to go out.

Islands or tropical areas - If you take a coconut shell and scrape out the meat, it becomes a bowl. Make sure the shell is dry and then take the fibrous shavings from the outside of the shell and pack them densely inside the clean shell. Place your coal deep in the shavings and they will keep the coal smoldering for quite some time.

Prairie or Highlands - The dry dung of cow, buffalo, horse and even bear, during the moist season, make good coal holders. Place the coal inside the dung and the fibrous material will hold the smoldering coal and keep it alive. I don’t recommend basking in the smoke, though.

Swampy areas - The palm family has good material to hold coals. The fibrous dry stalk of the large leaves can be slightly hollowed. Then take the fuzzy shavings from the outer bark and pack them in the leaf stalk. Bury your coal deep inside like you would with the coconut shell.

You can also use the hollow shell of the turtle to do this. Pack the shell with a dry fibrous material found on the outside of many swamp trees and plants. Then place your coal in the bed to smolder away.

Skulls of larger animals can be used the same way. Pack them full of dry dung or dry and course grasses, fibrous bark material and then place coals inside. The skull acts like a basket that has many handles to carry it by.

Camping - If you are camping overnight, you can bury your coals. If the soil is an average pack, you can bury coals with about 5 to 7 inches of soil and they will remain alive until morning. If the soil is very sandy or a light loam, you will need more soil on top because too much air flows through. At least 8 to 10 inches should be used in this case. If it is cold out, you can lay on this at night and it will keep you warm like a heating pad! Make sure you let the soil on top dry before you lay on it or it will steam you and soak your clothes. That will not do anything to keep you warm. Also make sure you have at least 6 inches of soil on top of those coals before you lay on them or you will wake up quickly in the middle of the night!!

These are just a few ways you can keep a coal smoldering so you can carry it from place to place, or keep it alive at camp until morning comes. This way you do not have to get a fire started from scratch every time. This becomes important when it is raining or it is frigid cold outside.

Experiment with materials and methods. Find out what works best in your area. Materials vary and so do conditions. Have fun with it and learn with the light heart of your inner child.

Fire Burial

I was prompted to write this short article since the warm season is upon us and many people will or have been taking to the land to camp, backpack and picnic. At Ways Of The Wild Institute we do our best to teach people how to live with the land and not against it.

Over many years I have traveled to many places in the wilderness areas and open spaces of North American. The one thing that I constantly find are old campfires that litter the ground like canker sores. Black coals heaped up in an ugly mound where nothing can grow. Trash scattered about and laced through the dead ash. Pre-technological peoples did not leave such scars as their old fires upon the land as they traveled. They understood how all things are connected and how everything can be used to support something else if the basic components were understood. Fire is no different.

It is true that fire produces ash which can fertilize the soil so other plants can grow in abundance. However, this does not mean that the ashes do any good heaped up in a massive mound at an old campfire site. Campfires become so hot in such a localized section of soil that it sterilizes the soil it burns upon. The ashes can help to bring life back to that soil again. How this works is simple; BURY YOUR FIRES!

Traditionally, the people always dug a small hole and made their fires in the hole. They did not burn their fires on top of the ground. They placed their fires in a hole for a number of reasons. One reason was to keep the fire contained so it was harder for it to spread across the ground. Another reason was to keep the coals hotter longer because the dome shaped hole forces the hot coals to fall downhill onto the center coals and thus keep all the coals hot. If the fire is laid flat, the outside coals die fast because they lose heat due to exposure. Fires were also burned in a hole because less heat was lost since the earth acts as a natural insulator and also helps to reflect the heat more evenly around the fire. If a fire is in a hole, it is also easier to cook on because of the ledges around providing support as well as a more condensed coal base. One of the most excellent reasons to burn fires in a hole is that when you are done with the fire, you can bury it and make it disappear from the landscape. The soil snuffs the fire out and buries the ash which then fertilizes the soil from underneath. Much like when farmers fertilize their fields, they turn the fertilizer under and do not leave it on top of the soil.

If you are in an area where you cannot dig because of rock or the ground is frozen, you can still disperse the old fire. After the coals are completely doused and you can put your bare hands in them without feeling heat, scatter them far and wide. Do not leave them in a heap as a scar, but disperse them so that the small pieces can leach into the soil in small amounts with the rains or snow melt.

It is a wisdom way of the land to erase as many traces of our presence as possible, and this includes campfires. With little effort you can make your camp look like you had never been there and one main way to do this is to bury that fire. Scatter the charred logs and rocks and place them charred side down. It takes no time at all and makes a huge difference! Try it and see.

I have buried so many old campfires of other people I can’t even count. You can do the same. If you are wandering through the land and find an old campfire mess, bury it and scatter all the charred wood and blackened stones. It doesn’t take long to do and you will be helping the environment in many ways. If you can’t pack out the trash you find, bury it deeply.

It is a simple thing to do and assists the environment greatly. Many people head to the wild lands of the world to get a break from the polluted and crowded places. If we wish to be able to keep going back to the wild places, then we need to take care of them and this means erasing our impact upon the land by way of simple techniques like burying our campfires and packing out the trash we may have created, including any man made items that were thrown in the fire that did not burn.

Wilderness Food Preservation

Many people do not find themselves in a position in life where they have to be concerned about wild food preservation. Those who do, normally turn to the common methods of smoking, drying or salting. These are the most common methods for food preservation in the wild because they are highly effective, but they are not the only ways of food preservation.

Another way to preserve food in the wilderness using only primitive skills and tools is by burying it. Animals do this quite often and it is referred to as a cachet. However, if we just bury our food like many other carnivorous animals in a cachet fashion, we would find that it would rot and be consumed by flies and worms in a rather quick time frame.

One of the first things we must be aware of when we speak of food preservation is the fact that water is the main component needed in the wilderness for decay to take place. By utilizing the following instructions for a cachet pit, or catch a hole, you will successfully be able to store fresh food for lengths of time in a wilderness setting without resorting to drying or smoking.

The first thing to do is dig a hole. The size of this hole will depend on how much food you are burying. You need to make sure to the hole in the proper area. Your hole should be dug either inside your dry shelter that is also cool, or under neither rock areas such as overhangs and cliffs. One problem with this is that normally where there are rock overhangs, there is also extremely rocky ground to dig in. A way to fix that issue is to dig your hole where there are many rocks nearby that you can use to easily cover the ground area over your cachet. The main point is the hole should be in an area that is cool and dry as possible.

Just like using hot rocks to keep yourself warm in the shelter, you need to steam the ground before you place the food in the hole. So you need to have a fire and you need to heat your rocks up until they are red-hot. Remember to not gather river rocks for this because they contain moisture that could expand in the heat and explode. Use rocks that you find away from water sources. After the rocks are red-hot, place them in the bottom of your hole. Make sure the entire bottom of your hole is completely covered by these hot rocks. Then allow the hot rocks to remain in the hole uncovered for a good 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the size of your hole. The heat of the rocks will steam the moisture out of the ground, thereby creating a dry hole to place food in. Once the rocks have cooled, you want to leave the rocks in the hole and cover the bottom and the walls of the hole with a thick layer of dry grass, or some type of material similar to dry grass. Once the rocks and the walls are covered with dry material, you want to place your food inside the hole. If you wrap the food before you place it in the hole, make sure you do so with dry material. Do not wrap your food with green leaves because they will add moisture to the hole. After you place the food inside the hole, you then want to cover the food with some type of a non-poisonous dry bark. Again make sure the bark is dry. Of course, you need to know a little bit about plants to understand what bark might be poisonous and what bark might not be poisonous. A general rule of thumb is to use barks that are very high in tannic acid, which is a natural bug repellent. I have found Cedar to be a very good choice. I’ve also found Tamarac and Hemlock to work very well. It is important to know what naturally grows in whatever area you are traveling. After the dry bark is covering the food in the hole, you want to cover all of this with dry, non-poisonous leaves that have a very strong odor. Such plants as Sage or needles from evergreen trees, which include Pine, Hemlock, Tamarac, Cedar work well. Mint can also be used. The purpose of this is to scent the food hole, overpowering the smell of the food. Once this is all finished, you want to cover your hole with a good 6 to 8 inches of dirt which you can easily get from the dirt that you dug out of the hole. Then weight it down with rocks. Don’t just place one rock on top, make sure to line the area out around the edges of the hole a good foot or more. This helps to prevent animals from digging in to your cachet hole from the sides.

As long as this is kept cool and dry, it will preserve your food much like a refrigerator does by dramatically reducing the amount of air contact with the food. Depending on the type of food, how much and the specific environment you are digging the cachet hole in, will greatly determine how long the food will stay preserved. This is something that takes practice and experience to know. What I advise my students at Ways Of The Wild Institute is to make these cachet holes intending them to be short duration food preservation methods until they are comfortable with how the environment and the type of materials they use work together.

You can practice this in your own backyard if you wish. Remember that practice makes knowledgeable, and knowledge goes a long way in any area of life, including the wilderness.

Wild Water Well

If you find yourself traveling through wild land that contains wetlands, such as a swamp or pond, and have no pure water for drinking, what do you do? Well, there are a couple things that you can do to obtain clean and healthy drinking water.

The first of these is, of course, to make a fire. Once your fire is going nicely, you will have a chance to make a container to hold water. Before you go after materials to make a container, you will need to find stones that are away from the watery ground. Look to higher ground or hillocks in which small stones are embedded. Place the stones in your hot fire coals and leave them be. Now is the time to make your container. This could be a wood container that you use coals from your fire to burn out a hollow, or it could be a container you make from the bark of a tree. Once you have successfully fashioned your container, the stones in your fire will be hot enough to boil water. Filter the swampy water through your clothing or handfuls of grasses and into your container. Then carefully place the hot stones into the water and watch it boil! After a solid 5 minutes of hard boiling, the water is ready to drink. But all this take a lot of time. Maybe you are on the move and need water more quickly.

A faster way to obtain clean drinking water from a wetland area is to use a Wild Water Well. You can dig a Wild Water Well in half an hour. It’s just a hole about 18 inches across and down about 6 inches below water-level, a few paces from the swamp water or pond. Dig it out with a sharp stick, rock, knife blade, bone or your bare hands if needs be. After the hole is dug, bail it out quickly. Then let it fill up again. Now bail it out a second time, and the third time it fills with water, it will be full of drinkable filtered water. This filtered water will be clear of everything except “matter actually dissolved”.

The ground itself acts as the filter from the water entering the Wild Water Well. You see, regular vegetable matter does not cause disease. All contamination in the water is from animal urine or excreta. So it is that a Wild Water Well in a truly wild region is as safe as a natural spring. Just remember that it will not filter out chemical toxins that may leach into the ground from human pollution. So you must check the health of what is growing by the water before you decide to drink the water by way of boiling or a Wild Water Well. Chemical toxins will dramatically affect the growth of the natural plants in the area. If the plants are flourishing and there are many animal tracks around the water source, then you can be fairly sure the water is cleanable by way of wilderness methods.

Always remember to filter/clean ALL surface water in the wild before drinking it. The question you should always ask about water is this, “Will I risk my life drinking this water?” That is exactly what you will be doing in a wild situation if you do not properly assess your source of drinking water.

Wilderness Pit Oven

The wilderness pit oven is a wonderful creation for anyone who wishes to explore the depths of the wilderness. It’s also wonderful for anyone who simply wishes to try something natural on a camping trip or in the backyard. I have personally used the pit oven many times with delight.

I have tried variations of the pit oven on numerous occasions, but the way I am about to describe seems to always work best. The benefits of a pit oven are that you don’t need to pack in a stove of any kind. You also do not have to carry in large pots or dutch ovens that are ridiculously heavy! Cooking without those large, heavy pots can limit you in making certain meals over the flame of a fire. But one nice thing about a pit oven is that you lose very little nutrients from the food, unlike boiling or coal cooking. The downside of a pit oven is the time you must invest in working with it.

First you need to find a section of ground with plenty of fuel for your fire, rocks for hot stones, and drainage so your pit oven doesn’t fill with ground water. Build your fire as you normally would; dig a hole and make your fire lay within it. While the fire is growing and coals are building, gather stones that are NOT FOUND BY THE WATER’S EDGE. Place the stones in the coals of your fire and leave them until they are glowing red through and through. While they are heating, dig a hole about 2 feet deep and 2 feet across. Once the rocks are glowing red (about 2 hours), remove them with tongs and place them at the bottom of the hole. Place some coals on top of the rocks to keep them hot. Allow them to sit there for one and a half or two hours. This allows the ground dampness to evaporate. If you do not do this, your food will taste musty and a bit like dirt. After the coals have sat for that time, remove them, but keep the rocks where they are. Then put about 7 to 10 inches of green grass on top of the rocks. If the rocks are so hot they burn the grass, place a small amount of dirt on top of them to cover their surface. If you do add more dirt at this step, allow the dampness time to evaporate. Then place the green grass on top of the dirt. Now place your food directly on top of the green grass. Cover your food with 7 to 10 inches of dry grass. Layer some bark on top of the dry grass to cover it. Lastly, mound soil on top of the bark so you end up with a small hill about 6 to 10 inches high. Leave the pit oven for a solid 2 hours. After 2 hours has passed, dig it up and your food will be fully cooked and ready to eat!

Try it out and play with variations! Have some fun and enjoy your meals!

Medicine Blessings,

White Wolf

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About the Author

This book is a short compilation of articles written by White Wolf Von Atzingen. White Wolf is the founder and lead guide of Ways of the Wild Institute in Vermont.

Ways of the Wild Institute is not your typical wilderness skills or survival school. It is the only current wilderness institute that combines wilderness skills with awareness of and healing from mind-control/programming through deep and universal spirituality.

This institute works with the deeper areas of life through the wilderness. If you can understand the deeper aspects of the wilderness skills and deep philosophies behind it all, then you will be able to learn the surface skills so much easier and be able to utilize them in actual situations with complete knowledge. We teach about the wilderness and Old Way of life through the deepest aspects of yourself. At Ways Of The Wild Institute we do not see wilderness skills as separate forms of knowledge. We see the wilderness skills as a medium between self and wilderness. The primitive skills are nothing more than an expression of self into the wilderness and truth. At Ways Of The Wild Institute students will find that primitive skills are the working grounds between their true inner self and the universal ways of the wilderness.

Visit the Ways of the Wild Institute website to learn more about White Wolf, read his blog, sign up for a course or webinar, or visit the store page.

Visit White Wolf’s You Tube channel for numerous free videos of White Wolf demonstrating the wilderness survival skills that he teaches.

Find more ebooks by White Wolf.

Table of Contents

The Key Factor in Survival

Survival Fact

Awareness

Web Healing

Water Truth

Pee Talk

Dehydrated Brain

Heat Loss - 5 Methods

Self Defense

Social Collapse Concerns

Survival Reality Check

Smoldering Coal

Fire Burial

Wilderness Food Preservation

Wild Water Well

Wilderness Pit oven

About the Author

The Key Factor in Survival

Survival Fact

Awareness

Web Healing

Water Truth

Pee Talk

Dehydrated Brain

Heat Loss - 5 Methods

Self Defense

Social Collapse Concerns

Survival Reality Check

Smoldering Coal

Fire Burial

Wilderness Food Preservation

Wild Water Well

Wilderness Pit Oven