- Prerequisite: Native Skills 1
- Duration: 12 months
- Cost:£2200
This course is designed to enhance and expand on the skills taught in Native Skills 1 and 2 as well as teaching new and advanced skills. It is for those who are committed to immersing themselves in the subjects of primitive survival, tracking and awareness. Each session will focus extensively on one subject area and we will concentrate on implementing those skills into our everyday lives. The course will be very experiential, as our aim is for the students to come away with not just vast knowledge but also the ability to use it.
The programme spans the four seasons of the year with ten structured sessions and three online seminars. The ten sessions will vary in duration, ranging from two to seven day classes. Throughout the year there will also be an element of supported self-study available to enhance the student’s survival skills and naturalist studies. We encouragestudents along the way with a private, Earth Living Programme forum.
Below is the basic outline of the programme. There will be additional topics included and the subject matter may vary slightly. A few of the sessions, are open to other advanced Native Awareness students. We feel that this is a good way to keep you involved with the other mainstream students and for them to be inspired and to learn from your experience.
Earth Living Intoduction
Date April
Duration 2 days
Self catered
Topics covered.
- Intro to the course
- Bow making
Medicinal Plants
Self catered
Date May
Duration 3 Days
Topics covered
- Please see link Med Plants
Tracking 1
Date June
Duration 3 days
Catered
Topics covered
- The Sacred Question
- Macro and Micro pressure releases
- Track ageing
- Night Tracking
- Tracking as a group at speed
- Track ageing
- The Tracking stick
Advanced Skills 1
Date July
Duration 3 days
Catered
Topics covered (50% of these topics are covered in Advanced Skills 1 and the remaining 50% in Advanced Skills 2)
- Pottery
- Advanced friction fire
- Weaponry
- Cordage
- Caretaker
- Crafts
- Baskets – coil, withy, bark
- Awareness
- Camouflage
Brain Tanning
Date Aug
Duration 3days
Self catered
Topics covered
- Pease see link Tanning
Wild Food And Trapping
Date Sep
Duration 3 days
Catered
Topics covered
- Water collection, purification
- Edible/ medicinal plants
- Jerky
- Pemmican
- Deer butchery
- Aboriginal cooking
- Storage
- Advanced Trapping
- Baiting
- Ethics
Online Sessions
December – February
The winter months are a quiet time and one for reflection. We encourage our students to use them to perfect the skills that they have thus far acquired on the Earth Living Programme. To aid this development, to maintain motivation and to provide our students with even more information, we are offering three monthly online sessions using video link.
Advanced Shelter and Camp Crafts
Date February
Duration 3 days
Self catered
Topics covered
- Group shelters
- Fire lays
- Bedding
- Primitive lighting
Advanced Skills 2
Date April
Duration 3 days
Catered
Topics covered (Some of these skills will be covered in Advanced Skills 1)
- Pottery
- Advanced, friction fire
- Weaponry
- Cordage
- Caretaker
- Crafts
- Baskets – coil, withy, bark
- Primitive lighting
- Wet scrape buckskin
- Awareness
Stone And Bone
Date May
Durration 5 days
Catered
Survival Immersion
Date July
Duration 7 days
Self catered
The climax of the class will be the Survival Immersion and this will be a time to test the skills that the students have developed. The majority of the week will be focused on the students going out onto the landscape as a small tribe. They will carry with them very little equipment apart from the tools, crafts and provisions that they have made during the year. The Survival Immersion will be a celebration of their journey during the year.
Prerequisite
The prerequisite for this course is Native Skills 2 but we permit Native Skills 1 students to attend if they make the commitment to take Native Skills 2 within 2016.
Catering
Depending on the type of class, some of the individual sessions are catered, where others are self catered. Please view the individual classes to see.
To Apply
Please fill out the standard application form as well as completing a short letter outlining your reasons for wanting to take the class. Within this letter please remark on what brought you to want to learn the skills as well as your hopes for the course. We ask for a deposit of £400 before the course starts in April 2016 and we can arrange for the remainder of the course fee to be paid in instalments during the course. If you have previously taken any of the classes separately, please contact the office for a discount.
“The best survival course I’ve ever been on.”
Dave, Bushcraft instructor