Masters of Survival

[onado2000]

Bear belongs on Fear Factor. That would be more entertaining than watching him give bad advice and free run through the wild.

 

[SemperParatus]

It says in each show, that many of the situations are staged to give him an opportunity to demonstrate certain survival skills. It also states that before he goes into an area that he is not familiar with, that he is briefed on the nature of the animals, and vegetation he will be encountering, and what to look out for. I seem to remember seeing it stated somewhere, that he is an ex-SAS trooper. Those guys are some of the best trained, and toughest soldiers on the planet.

EarlFH

Correct. I have no doubt in his survival skills. But he is a horrible teacher and his shows should only be used for entertainment, not education.

 

[WolfTrot]

It says in each show, that many of the situations are staged to give him an opportunity to demonstrate certain survival skills. It also states that before he goes into an area that he is not familiar with, that he is briefed on the nature of the animals, and vegetation he will be encountering, and what to look out for.

YES, exactly!

 

[threatx3]

It says in each show, that many of the situations are staged to give him an opportunity to demonstrate certain survival skills. It also states that before he goes into an area that he is not familiar with, that he is briefed on the nature of the animals, and vegetation he will be encountering, and what to look out for. I seem to remember seeing it stated somewhere, that he is an ex-SAS trooper. Those guys are some of the best trained, and toughest soldiers on the planet.

EarlFH

I know he is a well trained SAS operator but the truth is a lot of what is depicted on his show is not true. The horse thing was pretty hilarious but it think in that same episode he used a throwing stick at rabbits or something like that.

I really used like the show until I learned he was being helicoptered out to stay in hotels while making the viewers think he was roughing in the woods. Oh well, I'll stick to Dual Survival from now on.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2439321520070724

 

[Rapidray]

His camera man will jump right in there with him! Saw a special of all his shows and that guy said he had to be encouraged a couple of times. Over all his skills are there and you do learn some stuff. Collecting items along the way was one and pick it up for future use. Some stuff is just "shock entrainment" and something I would not do, I would take the longer route.

 

[jumpmonkey]

After the first one or two episodes they started to show a disclaimer that some of the actions are fake and that he is getting a special training from experienced locals whenever he reaches the next set.
In the end its just good entertainment when you get rid of the idea that the shown is real

I have to say, as far as getting training from locals, while my respect for Bear as a TV survival instructor is small, that right there is a great practice and a good idea if you can do it. Learn what you can on the front end and it can save you tons of pain, and may make life plain old pleasant. Remember, knowing is half the battle!

God bless,
Adam

 

[CM_Rick]

I think a lot of people forget about Bear being a high adventure expert. A lot of the things he does are of moderate skill for high adventure. The guy is x-special forces and is one of the youngest people to have ever topped Mt. Everest. His show is exciting to watch. Who wants to watch a guy dig up roots and make cordage for an hour, or set some traps and watch the grass grow waiting. Bear's show is only survival, because he is showing how to get out of a high adventure trip gone wrong.

That being said, about the knives he uses. I notice he likes the stainless blades. I have never seen an episode where he used high carbon, as he is always around water. He did a few shows in dry or arid conditions, but not many. I've seen him use quite a few different blades, but all tend to be about 5" in length, synthetic handles, stainless, and partially serrated. I was not surprised to see that Gerber stuff had the same features. I was surprised they are coated, don't know why, Bear has used his blades to signal before. I will not get one, but I would not have a problem advising someone to get one as a beginner blade/kit. That first knife kit on that link was well designed, I thought. It had all the basics covered everything is non-corrosive, sharpening stone attached, fire steel attached, whistle/lanyard attached, beefy pommel... I 'd buy my son one.

 

[StagLefty]

The one on last nights show had a shiny serrated blade, and a gray canvas micarta grip, like the Ontario RATS. That bright orange would have shown up quite distinctly. I believe the clip was from one of his old shows.

EarlFH

Sorry it was a guess-I don't watch his shows.

 

[scotsmanspride]

Bear grylls....if you wanna die in the wilderness...do what he does.
How he has made it this far without dying shocks me. I will stick to ray mears, les stroud, cody lundin and a little canterbury. Imho just because he has been to everest means nothing to me. If you have the $$$ almost anyone with decent health can get to the top! In reality i think he has made a name for himself with alot of hype and less on any of his knowledge.... SAS or otherwise.

 

[Boondock Saint]

OK here ya go. He used the Gerber Prodigy in the episode that aired before "Masters of Survival". If you are referring to the knife that he used close to the beginning of the Masters show to carve the fire board, it is most likely this one made by Bayley.

 

[FunkMasterFlex]

Cody Lundin FTW, if I bulked up and had some desert survival skills we would be pretty similar, personality wise.

 

[texas gun person]

He takes his books much more seriously than the show.

The show he does stuff that of course you would never do voluntarily... he does them just in case someone ended up in a certain situation.

You don't have a background like he has and not know anything about survival.


Bear doesn't tell you to jump into a frozen pound in order to survive. He jumps in to show you how to get out.

 

[scotsmanspride]

You don't have a background like he has and not know anything about survival.


Bear doesn't tell you to jump into a frozen pound in order to survive. He jumps in to show you how to get out.

Not sure who you are referencing. But if its me, i sure am glad that you're able to make such great assumptions about knowing survival info or the fact that i can apply it. Point taken on how to get out of frozen water, but how about squeezing water out of feces? Total survival info. How bout every situation he is in he hauls ass? Thats a great way to show people how to survive. I have no doubt about his credentials in the SAS however the survival advice he gives is horrible.

 

[M3mphis]

Ron Hoods
Dave Canterbury
Mors Kochanski
Cody Lundin
Lofty Wiseman
Tom Brown Jr

MANY more proficient than Behr

Have you seen The Hunted? Tom Brown Jr was the technical advisor. Given that knowledge, I have to question TB Jr's legitimacy as an outdoorsman at all. Take that with a grain of salt, because I don't know much about the guy. What do you think? The movie was pretty ridiculous.

Correct. I have no doubt in his survival skills. But he is a horrible teacher and his shows should only be used for entertainment, not education.

AGREED. I would say the same about Stroud. Their shows are made for the masses, not for the few whom really want to learn about survival. They both do a lot of things in the shows that I've seen that are bad ideas in a real survival situation - those bad decisions just make better "for the masses TV." Problem is, they don't usually give the viewer a reality check.

 

[spydiesenses]

Somewhere along the lines of "F*** that, im going back to the hotel, film this sh!t yourself"

I liked the one where once again, he was somewhere in Africa and began following a stream that was/went underground. He turned to the camera and said "I don't know what's in here, but I need to keep following this river. There could be bats, snakes, a drop off. It's pitch black and I won't be able to see so I need to be extra careful". Fine for him, but what do you think the camera guy is thinking in all of this?

 

[Magus]

Bear grylls....if you wanna die in the wilderness...do what he does.
How he has made it this far without dying shocks me. I will stick to ray mears, les stroud, cody lundin and a little canterbury. Imho just because he has been to everest means nothing to me. If you have the $$$ almost anyone with decent health can get to the top! In reality i think he has made a name for himself with alot of hype and less on any of his knowledge.... SAS or otherwise.

I strongly agree. I'm sure Bear is a very nice guy and has some actual bushcraft skill, but on the show he's pretty much a stuntman and most of what's done is for entertainment sake alone.

Bear strikes me as that kid you'd pay in school to eat something gross.

I'm sure he's got true skills, it would just be nice if he'd leave the "entertainment" aspect behind and get a little more realistic. But, it is Discovery channel, so I'm not expecting much.

 

[oruacat2]

That's pretty much how I feel about him
Bear is no doubt a bada$$ and has more survival knowledge/skills than I'll ever have.
But IMO he's a terrible teacher, and that's BECAUSE he's such a bada$$.
He does things he shouldn't do because he can get away with it (I also think the fact that he has other crewmembers with him contributes to this attitude) - silly little things for a TV show that would be potentially disastrous in a real survival situation.
Just one small example: he's always leaping off of rocks, jumping down the last several feet of his obligatory-at-least-once-per-episode rockclimbing stunt, hurtling off cliffs into rivers whose depths/hidden obstacles are unknown - etc.
No big deal if you're former SAS with a cameraman there to help should something go wrong - but a BFD if you're all alone, where something as usually tame as a sprained ankle could kill you. That's my main complaint with his show.

 

[dogboye]

And may we not forget Dick Proenneke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss&feature=related

Dick Proenneke is my hero. To do what he did, WHERE he did, is just amazing to me, and easily comparable to anything I've seen ANY "master of survival" do.

Sorry if this thread has been dead long enough to be a little smelly, but I don't think it has achieved zombie status ... yet.

Also, I'm a big fan of Bear Grylls. I watch his stuff for entertainment, not for survival. For that matter, I don't watch "Dual Survival" or "Man, Woman, Wild" either to learn how to survive. I watch them all for the entertainment value. I've seen every single person on all of those shows do stupid **** that would (COULD) get you killed if you attempted them in a survival situation and it didn't go well. The only one that I haven't seen to that is Les Stroud, PROBABLY because even though I THINK he has a life line, he is own his own. ALL the rest have a camera crew there, so they do stupid sh** at some point. Bear is just the MOST entertaining, to me. Probably followed by "Man, Woman, Wild," then "Dual Survival." But really, if it weren't for the interaction between the people in those last two, ESPECIALLY "Dual Survival," I probably wouldn't be watching them. The human interaction can be entertaining. With Bear, the stupid **** is entertaining. And I can't help but chuckle every time I think about the water from poo. If it even really was poo.

 

[Futz Brown]

I used to really like Bear Grylls, not knowing shit about the outdoors (I still don't) but I saw this one episode, I forget where he was, some place with reindeer. He tries to trap a reindeer, fails, so has his camera crew trap it so he can stab it in the neck. It just seemed like a bastard thing to do.

 

[KNIFEABILITY]

Dick Proenneke is my hero. To do what he did, WHERE he did, is just amazing to me, and easily comparable to anything I've seen ANY "master of survival" do.

Sorry if this thread has been dead long enough to be a little smelly, but I don't think it has achieved zombie status ... yet.

Also, I'm a big fan of Bear Grylls. I watch his stuff for entertainment, not for survival. For that matter, I don't watch "Dual Survival" or "Man, Woman, Wild" either to learn how to survive. I watch them all for the entertainment value. I've seen every single person on all of those shows do stupid **** that would (COULD) get you killed if you attempted them in a survival situation and it didn't go well. The only one that I haven't seen to that is Les Stroud, PROBABLY because even though I THINK he has a life line, he is own his own. ALL the rest have a camera crew there, so they do stupid sh** at some point. Bear is just the MOST entertaining, to me. Probably followed by "Man, Woman, Wild," then "Dual Survival." But really, if it weren't for the interaction between the people in those last two, ESPECIALLY "Dual Survival," I probably wouldn't be watching them. The human interaction can be entertaining. With Bear, the stupid **** is entertaining. And I can't help but chuckle every time I think about the water from poo. If it even really was poo.

I watched that movie a few months ago with my wife's step dad. That guy is his hero. That is total wilderness self reliance at its best. That man is a genuine mountain man. A true badass.