Survival Knife! Learning the hard way

On a plane heading to some islands off the Western coast of Canada, I met some guys who worked for a moving company. They had a large office move contract and offered me some work. I agreed, and when the job was completed, they asked me to come work with them in Vancouver, BC. I ended up working for them for 6 months. After a few months of working with them, I did not meet many people, so I was excited when my boss at the moving company asked me to go hunting with him and a few of his friends.

We drove many hours to a place called “Hundred Mile House.” During the drive, we were drinking beer and listening to Metallica's Black Album and being rowdy. On our drive, we were pulled over by a policeman. As the policeman approached our vehicle, the driver (my boss), who had previously rolled his large pickup truck over a few months ago, totally cracking the windshield, greeted the police officer. I distinctly remember the policeman telling him that it was illegal to drive with a windshield that had a crack longer than 12.” My boss, said, “sir, I don’t think there is one crack longer than 12” on the whole windshield.” We all burst out laughing. The whole windshield was like a spiderweb of tiny cracks. He let us go with a warning to fix the windshield. We began drinking beer again. Someone in the car said they left their flask in the back bed. I volunteered to climb out of the moving vehicle and retrieve it. Driving at night in the woods, I climbed out of the window and jumped into the back bed, grabbed the flask in his bag, and climbed back in. We finally and uneventfully pulled up to our motel. We were all pretty drunk. Next thing, I remember we were up at 4 am getting dressed and heading out into the woods.

It was a very cold, rainy November morning. My boss gave me a shotgun, pointed in a particular direction, and told me go out there and if I see a deer, shoot it. I had never been hunting before. I had been walking for a hour or so when I heard a shot. I walked over and my boss had just killed a deer. As I approached, I could tell the deer was still moving so I took out my knife and stabbed it in the throat. He was so impressed by that, he cut the deer open and removed its heart, and said I had to take a bite because it was my first kill. I balked, but he was insistent, so I reluctantly bit a chunk of the warm muscle. I immediately felt an adrenaline rush deep in my body. I now wanted to get my own true kill. Like a bloodhound in search of a fugitive, I charged off following deer tracks without taking my eye off the ground. I really do not remember how long I was searching, but when I looked up, the sun was just about to set.

An eerie chill went through my spine as the trees looked black and gnarled against the smoky pink sky. I simply didn’t notice where I was or what was happening weather-wise. My cotton jacket had a shell of ice from the rain, and the snow turned to sleet. The winds picked up, and I started screaming for help. Realizing I was totally screwed, I frantically yelled, but no one could hear me. I yelled till my voice was hoarse, and then I cried hard. The winds were so loud that it was useless even trying.

After a good bit of crying, A great fear hit me, I realized that wolves and bears could be out there stalking me. I searched for a clearing in the dark, and I took a long hard look around and realized I needed some protection from the elements. I started to get cold, really cold, and I remembered I had some power bars on me. I knew if I ate them, it would generate some body heat. I think I ate three. I felt around in the dark for a tree and cut off some cedar boughs with my Cold Steel SRK knife. It had a 6” blade and barely enough to cut through the boughs. I really had to use force. I remember the impact of those cuts on my wrist. As I started to make a crude shelter from the freezing rain, I found a piece of corrugated metal that was just lying a few feet away, and I surrounded myself by it and the boughs. I was still cold, so I would periodically get up and do some jumping jacks, and martial arts strikes. Those martial arts strikes really felt empowering in that dark, icy forest.

The thought of making a fire never entered my head. I think back then, I knew so little that the fact it was raining, with snow everywhere, meant it was impossible to make a fire. I am not even sure I had matches on me. I seriously doubt I would have made it through the night without becoming hypothermic. Luckily, after 6 hours or so, the winds died down, and I figured it would be a good time to fire the shotgun into the air as a signal device. After a short pause, I heard a shot. We continued to communicate with each other through gunshots, and I was finally able to find my way to them in the pitch dark. It was about 11 p.m., and they said they were just about to leave and notify someone. I can’t express how happy I was when I finally burst through that dense icy forest into an opening where my boss and his friends were.

Lessons Learned

Obviously, an experience like this is life-changing. I couldn’t help but think of how naive I was going into the woods and all the thoughtless decisions I made that led me into a life-threatening situation. There was a temptation to beat myself up; there was also a temptation to eschew ever going into the wilderness again. But as I thought it through, I realized who I was, and I used it as a way to improve myself.

So I set out to take my outdoor skills to a deeper level. After much reflection, three major areas can get you into and out of a survival situation: Decisions, Knowledge and Skills, and Tools.

Decisions

After being a father of two young boys, I realized just how stupid it was to get into a car that was already damaged from a previous drinking and driving accident. There was also the fact that I chose to walk out into a very unfamiliar forest in poor weather conditions without any training whatsoever. I am not beating myself up here, but I am examining some of the decisions I made leading up to my survival situation. Prior to that experience, I hadn’t spent too much time in the woods. Being a city boy, I didn’t grow up learning how to survive in the woods. This is why we can’t always make the right decision. I had always desired to go hunting but never knew anyone that did it. So I overlooked the bad cues because I really wanted to get out there and hunt. Still today, many people go for a hike and don’t even bring a water bottle or even carry a swiss army knife.

Knowledge and Skills

In short, I had none of either. Although I had never heard of hypothermia, I did know enough to keep my wits about me. I was fit; my martial arts background had given me a way to keep my body heated up. Eating something really helped me with increasing body heat, comfort, and keeping a positive outlook. Also, I intuitively knew I should cut some cedar boughs down to protect me from the icy rain. I had zero knowledge of shelter building, but somehow, I made a crude shelter in the night without a flashlight. I also didn’t know anything about navigation, and I lost contact with my hunting party. I am not sure I would have survived the night. I have not dressed appropriately for the weather. Back then, I knew nothing about gore-tex and the difference between waterproofing and water resistance. Most wilderness survival sites and instructors will tell you that knowledge and training are the two most important things to keep you from becoming a tragic news story, and I also endorse that thinking here. There is a wise saying in the survival world, “the more you know, the less you carry.“

Tools

If you search "survival situation preparedness”, you will find a ton of survival kits that talk about the gear you need. There is certainly a bunch of things I lacked in that situation. However, I did get four things right: I had a shotgun and shells, a decent-sized fixed-blade knife, really good boots, and those power bars. I lacked a proper jacket, a fire-starting kit, a whistle, a flashlight, and an emergency blanket. If I had all of those, I could have easily spent the night out there in the woods. I neglected to include a cell phone since this occurred way before the days' cell phones were carried regularly. If I had one, I would have called my boss, and we would have found each other in probably 20 or so minutes. But it is important to remember that a cell phone doesn’t not obviate the need for solid skills and training; batteries run out, and signals can be hard to come by in remote areas.

Going Forward

I should also mention that my experience was, typical of most survival experiences, a lost hunter, which is similar to getting lost hiking or fishing. It is important to acknowledge that while my experience was very challenging, it wasn’t as hardcore as Robinson Crusoe or plain crash survivors in the Andes. So I never would equate my 6-hour or so experience with people who were lost for days on end. But it does bring modest insights into the harshness of nature and what it takes to survive. I hope reading about my experience, you learn from my mistake and get inspired to learn a few skills and ensure that you have at least a few items in your bag to prevent you from getting into a survival situation. And if you are an experienced outdoorsman, look to my experience as a person who did not have many opportunities to get out in the woods and jumped at the first opportunity to get out there way too early and reflect on possibilities to share your skills with people who do not have opportunities to get out there.

The Yin-Yang of Survival: Toxic Masculinity, and Taoism

Once in awhile when I am resting on the weekends I will watch a reality TV show. Unlike many people I find of them interesting to see how people behave in certain stressful situations. Last week, I got caught up in the Naked and Afraid XL season. This latest offering featured 12 people who had already survived for 21 days in the wilderness with a single partner totally naked. So these 12 naked veterans were tasked with surviving in the wilds of the Orinoco river basin in Colombia with two other veterans, who were chosen by the producers. They were only given a knife, a bag, and each person got to chose one survival item: either a water container, a net, a fishing kit, or a fire making kit. So no one person had everything they needed to make it the whole 40 days. They were not given food, or water, or clothes.


There were four groups of three. The only group I am going to analyze is the one with a male, who described himself as, “The Alpha Male” and specifically said that he is not “an” alpha male but “The” alpha male. He was matched with two women, one of whom was a vegetarian. Literally within minutes of arriving the alpha male started cutting large trees down and building a massive shelter. The one item he chose to bring along was a bow and arrow. He tried hunting for food but was unsuccessful. In the first few days he expended lots of precious energy doing many tasks. He derided the women for being lazy and hurled other abusive insults at them. The women stood their ground and cautioned him against expending too much energy. At one point he moved into a separate camp, which he had to build himself. After he had completed that and expended even more energy, he realized he had no means of making fire, as the women had the fire starter. So he went back to them asking for the fire starter. He tried to make amends but he was not clear in his intention and could not resolve the conflict he instigated. This decision left him without the means to start a fire, a necessary part of surviving. Needless to say, the women chose a better survival strategy and they made it the full forty days by having a wise understanding of resource conservation and “the” alpha male tapped out early and was sent home.

The reason why I took the time to explain that show is because this is a clear cut example of how Taoist principles can work and how toxic masculinity can lead to one’s downfall. I say Taoist principles, but clearly the women in the show did not say what their philosophy was so I am kind of using their survival strategy as an example of Taoist principles in action. Come to think of it, these woman gave a better demonstration of Taoist principles than some old dude with a man bun posting his lecture on YouTube.

The alpha male in the show was the poster boy for toxic masculinity, with his need to be right, to not listen to “weak” women, and a vegetarian no less. He ignored numerous cautions, at his own peril. As a Tai Chi instructor who has been teaching older adults since 2001, I have seen this play out time and time again. In fact, most older males do not chose Tai Chi as their exercise and would rather drop their wives off to their “dance-like” exercise. Those women being dropped off have taught me many lessons about checking my own masculinity. I have learned that women are more likely to go to the doctor’s and older men who live with their wives go to the doctor more and live longer. Women are open to feedback and listen to others more and they live six and a half years longer than men in the U.S.. Whether by script or by personal choice the women in the show clearly demonstrated the qualities Taoists would characterize as Yin, or soft.

Taoist models of gender account for the fact that feminine qualities are important and even superior to male qualities. Before we go any further, it must be stated that Chinese culture did not bring about a gender revolution by any means and there are numerous accounts of women that have been persecuted. However, it must also be acknowledged that Taoism is unique in that it gave a highly significant placement of women and feminine qualities in its value system, especially when comparing it to other systems of that era like Christianity, and Buddhism etc..
The main symbol for Taoism is the Yin-Yang symbol, or Tai Chi doh, with a Yin half, that is soft, dark, and feminine, and Yang half that is hard, bright, and male. Yes, it is a binary view of the universe but it is important to note that each half has a bit of its other within it. That significant dot means that each has the other within them, meaning there is always a little masculinity in a female, and a little femininity in a male. The most important part of the symbol is that both aspects are intertwined and equal in the creation of the universe.

In chapter 6 of the Taoist classic by Lao Tzu, as translated by Gia Fu-feng and Jane English, he mentions the valley spirit,

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 6

The valley spirit never dies;

It is the woman, primal mother.

Her gateway is the root of heaven and earth.

It is like a veil barely seen.

Use it; it will never fail.

Stand by the door of any Tai Chi class in the world and you will hear talk about using hard force as opposed to soft force. Hard force is usually characterized as a male trait, which is in juxtaposition to the female trait of yielding, that is considered to be the highest level of internalizing the Tao.

The ultimate expression of Yin energy is in Wu-Wei, or non-action. I was always thrown off by that, and many Americans have difficulties grasping it, instead they see it as Jesus-take-the wheel, kind of non-action; totally letting go without any “human” help. I confess it took me a while to understand, but now I have come to understand it as “strategic” or thoughtful non-action. So the women in the alpha male’s group definitely exhibited Wu-Wei. They did it so well that the alpha male called them lazy but they were not lazy at all. Instead of cutting massive trees down they used a sparce shelter, even though they used the shelter the alpha male built, remember they did not ask him to build it, they would have made a simplier shelter. Additionally, while he was out hunting and climbing trees, they wove a fish trap and foraged for fruits and nuts. The vegetarian was practicularly smart in her awareness of her nutrient intake. She rationed her foraged food to make it until the 40 days. They also met up with another group which created a larger team effort. The women were able to work with in another group and therefore increase their chances of surviving.

The Yin, feminine trait of yielding allows clarity and opens up the opportunity of using the force of the earth. So in Tai Chi we relax so that we can use the force of the earth (gravity and leverage) more effectively. If we relax (let go) and don't force it, we can increase our impact. If we move with fear and tension Yang or male qualities, then we have to use even more non-Wu Wei force. Thus creating a non-harmonious trajectory. Often Wu-Wei is poo pooed by martial artists and fighters as weakness or fantasy. More on that in a few paragraphs but first I have to address the binary approach.

I can see that feminists might object to this binary approach because Taoism assigns traits to gender. But this is where the Yin-Yang comes into play, a female can have male traits, and a male can have female traits. So in Tai Chi, I consciously cultivate Yin- female traits to temper my Yang- male traits. Sometimes in everyday life, I get frustrated and become aggressive, which leads to as my wife says, me manhandling things. Tai Chi, helps me temper that Yang aggression and bring about a clarity of action and peace of mind. Just because we say that there are male traits and female traits doesn’t mean that gender assignment is rigidly in one group, the Yin-Yang symbolizes fluidity between gender and the transformation of energy from one group to the other.

All this talk of Yin energy does get dicey though, especially when it comes to martial arts, In combative situations things happen fast and there is a time and a place for the use of Yang force or violence. But right now in our time period violence is low but this could change. The alpha males of the world might rise again. This is why I see liberal idealism as too idealistic because it doesn’t acknowledge a world in which there are violent alpha males. All too often, liberals try to explain that behavior as it being socially constructed, where as the Taoist approach understands it is a way in nature, but not the best way, not the way of the Tao.

I grew up in Brooklyn in the late 60s and early 70s. It was not for the faint of heart. Men there were very aggressive, I witnessed my maternal grandfather beat up a guy and his wife after we left a restaurant. They had a disagreement about who had the right away and it came to blows. All this is typical male machismo of that era, but liberals seems to think this behavior is gone for ever. Unfortunately, I believe it is just dormant. I have a Hobbesian view of nature. So if the group from Naked and Afraid XL that I have been discussing were in a Hobbesian world, where there is no governing body, he could have cannibalized one of the women, taken the fire starter and made the other women his wife or in a less dramatic turn of events, the women might have seen him as more of an asset than an ass because of his 6 foot 5 stature and bold nature. So even the alpha male strategy is a viable solution in certain contexts and it is not socially constructed as many social scientists would have you believe. But again, following the Tao leads to a more fruitful relationship and even in a Hobbesian world working as a team with full support is better than cannibalizing each other. My point here is that hyper-masculinity is not socially constructed and it is important to practice martial arts because the Hobbesian world is never far from civilization.

This is why martial arts, especially Asian martial arts, like Tai Chi, Aikido, Judo, Jiu Jitsu, Wing Chun and others preach tempering hyper-masculinity and using one’s mind to leverage the anger in others. Anger creates a loss of balance and a lack of clear vision, and tempering doesn’t only work on Yang energy, it also can bring up Yin qualities. My friend Bishop, who is a university policeman and a Wing Chun instructor, told me that he discusses the balance/blending of Yin and Yang energies to his students all the time. “Too much of one or the other is never a good thing, but when COMBINED in the right way, the result is greater than the two parts.”

My close friends in martial arts, Dave, Larry, and Bishop all work on using Yin traits when dealing with angry male behavior, specifically Dave and Bishop who work directly with that behavior in public settings as a bouncer and a university police officer. I have heard countless stories of how they have used their martial training, specifically leverage and a cool clear head to not engage in the heightened emotion that often happens when young males, who have been drinking alcohol, come in contact with the opportunity for sex. My other friend, Larry teaches younger professional fighters the discipline it takes to check your wildness and throw accurate punches that hit their target with brutal efficacy. Larry and I often discuss the difficulty many of his students, mostly males have with listening and controlling their hyper masculinity. He has said that the ones who do become great are the ones who don’t get trapped by their hyper-masculinity/overly aggressive nature.

Practising martial arts and internalizing the principle of Yin-Yang deepens one’s understanding of themselves. It shows one how to take control of anger and hyper-aggression so that one can think clearly and make better decisions that lead to positive outcomes. Moreover, it also gives us an insight into human nature because you have seen the ugliness become tame.

The A.B.M.S. Mindest

• Always
• Be
• Making
• Stuff

As I have mentioned in other posts, my parents were hippies that made hand-sewn leather goods and sheepskin coats for people in the 70's. As a young child to young parents I would play with the scraps while they were working-I have the scars to prove it. I specifically remember gluing together a leather bag with those scraps. My parents were very creative people and set me off on the road towards making stuff.

When I graduated high school I wanted to be an artist and began taking classes at a community college. I started in drawing and painting but soon found myself in sculpture. I started carving wood and researching primitive carvings and carving across cultures. I loved anthropology and incorporated many styles in my work. I have carved totem poles and small work alike.

Then my wife and I decided to move to Mississippi, where she was born. Whenever we visit her parent’s land I head off to the woods. They live in a small rural town that doesn’t even have a police station. I call my jaunts in nature, a bushcraft walk because when I go I always do some bushcrafty activities like, build a shelter, identify wild plants or make cordage from plants. I also gather materials and spot and identify them. It is a like a mini-adventure. When I was a kid I loved those shows about a jungle expedition where someone always got stuck in quicksand. Anyway, this is my little way of having an adventure. I have been doing that for over a decade and haven’t gotten caught in quicksand yet.

After doing some research I purchased VHS tapes from Ron Hood’s Woodmaster series. In them, he demonstrated all kinds of projects to make with wood and other natural and found materials. Watching those videos I realized that I could make that stuff while I was in the woods. What really grabbed my attention was the innovative, out of the box thinking, which I think is the hallmark of bushcrafting Ron displayed. In one, he magnetizes a small thin piece of metal and places it on a leaf in a cup of water to determine north, and in another, he sharpens both ends of two 12” long sticks and interlocks them to make a primitive weapon. There were tons of ideas that you can make from everyday items around you.  From that moment on I was hooked and it became a life long hobby. It also paired well with my background in the arts and it made me feel more confident in nature.

To me ABMS is a daily mindset, I am always looking for a resource and seeing what I can make from it. I also try to make something everyday, even if it is a little feather stick and a small fire. Now these things are not pieces to sell at a crafts fair but they keep the juices flowing. The ABMS mindset puts me in creative mode, it builds body heat (during cold days), teaches me about the properties of different materials and finally it keeps my mind occupied. I don’t know if you are like me but my mind is constantly racing around, so this activity keeps me positive and focused.