What are Survival Skills?
August 26, 2011, Submitted by: Ken Tweet
Survival skills are the combined knowledge and abilities of methods and techniques that will be used in situations where modern conveniences and infrastructures don’t exist or have been damaged.
Survival skills are typically thought of in the context of wilderness survival. The term is a very broad and general one, and applies to many ‘levels’ of survival, from the simple ability to cook your own food, make your own bread, shut off the electricity-gas-water to your home, successfully build a fire, build your own shelter, purify drinking water, all the way to identifying outdoor wild edible plants, trapping, hunting, evasion, field dressing game, building a fence, preserving foods, growing a successful garden, and on and on.
The underlying theme is the general ability to be self-sufficient.
Everyone has their own unique interests and abilities, and really, no one person can know it all. People will gravitate towards the skill set that they find natural or enjoyable for them. However, it is also a very good thing to challenge yourself and get outside of your comfort zone. People usually need to be pushed to get into that zone, but these same somewhat stubborn people (I’m one of them) will often find it very rewarding after having conquered a new skill.
The thought of being able to survive and make it on your own, is just that… a thought. In reality, it would be highly unlikely that even the best could succeed for long. OK, maybe the best could… but you know what I mean. We will always need support from others. After all, this is how we built ‘civilization’.
Having survival skills will allow you peace-of-mind. They will also allow you to enjoy the outdoors to a further extent than others (except for the foolish). They will enable you to adapt to situations without panicking and enable better decisions during times of crisis. Survival skills are a valuable commodity during times of disaster.
Having survival skills, even if not ‘required’ in real life, will make you a different person, one who knows that they do not need to fully rely on the system.
Survival skills also include those that aren’t necessarily primitive. Having an open mind, a logical mind, a mind with experiences, will enable you to adapt. Adapting, or adapting successfully, is probably the greatest skill of all. It’s a very general term, but the ability to do, go, change, or make something else with the resources that you currently have, is a great asset.
So, in summary, to have survival skills doesn’t require that you necessarily learn how to go off and live by yourself in the woods. You might say that ‘modern survival skills’ could be defined a little differently – having the skills to work outside of the system while still functioning in the modern world.
Start small. Examine what it is that you are ‘chained to’, the things that are holding you down. Figure out ways to break the chains. Become slightly more self sufficient by growing some of your own food – even if it is only seasonal. Learn some of the basics like how to read a map and navigate without a GPS receiver. Learn how to ‘can’ and preserve foods (it’s pretty easy). How about stepping out of the ‘comfort zone’ and considering working for yourself instead of ‘the company’. Think about the skills that you have now, at your current job. Are they something that you could do on your own? Maybe you have other skills that could be utilized in a side business for yourself – something you enjoy, part time on the weekends. That’s where it starts…
Survival skills… think, ‘self sufficient’, and go from there.
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Argueably survival skills in the modern world spell the difference between being poor and being middle class. However I know of some panhandlers who stake out good corners and with a few of their friends spend maybe 2-4 hours a day holding a sign asking for money and “earn” between $40-100 a day each. The rest of the day they hang out, sleep on the grass, drink or do drugs and even eat now and then. I suppose for them that equates to survival skills. But I prefer the middle class lifestyle myself.
You make a good point that no one person can know it all and that we will have to rely on others. Regardless of how much I try to “know it all” the reality is that I can’t know everything, prepare for everything, and have all the abilities, supplies, equipment, and even time to deal with whatever comes up. The plain truth is that I need others as much as they will need me. Thanks.
Another good article. Good in the sense that it starts to get people thinking. This is my second post to this blog in a month and I have some criteria to inspire confidence or to practice now BEFORE the advent of disaster. By the way, during the years I lived off grid, I was working in emergency services in a primitive area. The government agency that employed me hired me off an ambulance company within a large metro area. A good place to begin your skill set is in medical/first aid training. I was an EMT/Paramedic, I now work within a hospital. I did this for about 8 years. I have now been in health care for over 20 years.
The disasters I have responded to have been in the forms of large, wildland fires several earthquakes and two notable riots. It was not fun in that I would have rather been at home protecting my family. First aid will be important and I would encourage anybody who is not afraid of blood and bodily functions to get first aid training and even volunteer at your local fire dept, emergency room or nursing home. My career began many years ago as a volunteer.
Other skills I became proficient at while living off grid include: Dutch oven cooking, Bar-b-que and outdoor grilling, safe use and sharpening of knives, axes and chainsaws, starting of the one-match fire, finding dry wood in rain and snow, fishing, Meat hunting and field dressing for small game as well as deer, table-top gunsmithing to fix a rifle, scope or mounts. The whole point of living off grid was you have to do these things on a daily basis in order to be comfortable. When you go on family camping trips, these can be wonderful times to practice many of the above mentioned skills.
To GoneWithTheWind: I too am middle class and my wife wants to make sure that we stay that way. That does not mean I left all those wonderful skills behind. Today I am retired from emergency response work. I have a house with a mortgage and a steady job. I still light the fire without petroleum accelerant, I still enjoy target shooting and helping others fix a weapon that just will not hit the mark. I mostly catch-and release my fish but my wife and I still enjoy a platter of crappie fillets that have been flash-fried an hour after they were caught. Survival practice can be fun. I say enjoy yourself out there. Don’t just buy gear and lock yourself into a basement,
To many people who want to learn more survival skills and practice, I would hang out with hunters and fishermen. They not only survive (most of the time) but they tend to survive in relative comfort under adverse and primitive conditions. Besides, when you DO return home to the land of flush toilets and light switches, you have a new appreciation for the laundromat and the local diner. (In these tough times, I try to keep my money within my local small town)
By the way, the one gun I used to place more meat on the table with during those long-ago college days was my .22 pistol. I would enter multiple turkey shoots during the fall and win a turkey at many of them. In the spring, I would hit the same circuit during the ham shoots held around Easter. The resulting meat was shared among at least four of us undergrads. Two of the four had families with children. Nothing went to waste back then.
I Just had to say, Many thanks. Coming from 60 miles North of Aberdeen it’s good to keep returning to a great site like yours, especially with useful additions like the one above. Many thanks and keep up the good work.