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- Jan 6, 2005
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Story time...
I was in a group of 5, doing some winter skills training. The whole day was spent on primitive fire making. As the Sun was setting our instructor asked us if we felt pretty confident in our ability to make fire in the cold. Everyone agreed that we were comfortable with our skills. He said "Would you bet your meal on it?" (it was shortly after 6pm and we hadn't eaten since the night before.) ... "Sure!" one idiot piped up. (not me, btw.) So the instructor said "You are now in an emergency survival situation. Think of everything you learned today..... you have 1 minute to produce a flame or you aren't eating tonight." We scrambled for tinder and materials. "Can we use what we made today?" ..."You can use whatever you have on you." he answered. We had our firedrills from earlier, so no problem, right?... WRONG.... we blew it and marched back to the tipi with the sad realization that tea would be our only meal that night. "Boy, this jerky sure is good!" our leader taunted. "So why do you think you failed?" he asked. "We didn't work fast enough." someone said. "No... you guys were almost too fast, I should have given you 20 seconds!". "Who could go from nothing to fire, in 20 seconds?" one guy snarked... "You'd have to have the perfect fire kit, ready to go!"
Our intructor pulled a piece of paracord from his pocket.. "You wanna see fire in less than 20 seconds?"..... Okay, this should be cool. "Please, show us." He held the cut end of paracord out to me and asked "Melt this first, please?" With that, I pulled out my lighter and before I even flicked it, my stomach dropped. "But you said to think about what we learned today" I cited. "Yes.... remember how long it took you? Why do that, when you can just use your lighters? I made it clear that you were simulating a real survival scenario and you could use anything you had on you. Why play around with sticks and fuzz, when you needed fire NOW?".
Bawlz.
Rick
I was in a group of 5, doing some winter skills training. The whole day was spent on primitive fire making. As the Sun was setting our instructor asked us if we felt pretty confident in our ability to make fire in the cold. Everyone agreed that we were comfortable with our skills. He said "Would you bet your meal on it?" (it was shortly after 6pm and we hadn't eaten since the night before.) ... "Sure!" one idiot piped up. (not me, btw.) So the instructor said "You are now in an emergency survival situation. Think of everything you learned today..... you have 1 minute to produce a flame or you aren't eating tonight." We scrambled for tinder and materials. "Can we use what we made today?" ..."You can use whatever you have on you." he answered. We had our firedrills from earlier, so no problem, right?... WRONG.... we blew it and marched back to the tipi with the sad realization that tea would be our only meal that night. "Boy, this jerky sure is good!" our leader taunted. "So why do you think you failed?" he asked. "We didn't work fast enough." someone said. "No... you guys were almost too fast, I should have given you 20 seconds!". "Who could go from nothing to fire, in 20 seconds?" one guy snarked... "You'd have to have the perfect fire kit, ready to go!"
Our intructor pulled a piece of paracord from his pocket.. "You wanna see fire in less than 20 seconds?"..... Okay, this should be cool. "Please, show us." He held the cut end of paracord out to me and asked "Melt this first, please?" With that, I pulled out my lighter and before I even flicked it, my stomach dropped. "But you said to think about what we learned today" I cited. "Yes.... remember how long it took you? Why do that, when you can just use your lighters? I made it clear that you were simulating a real survival scenario and you could use anything you had on you. Why play around with sticks and fuzz, when you needed fire NOW?".
Bawlz.
Rick
