Ron Hood DVDs

S

Survivalboy

Joined
Aug 9, 2004
Messages
73
Are they any good? Are they worth the money? I was thinking about either Volume 10: Survival Camping or Volume 11: Solo: Quest for Survival. Any suggestions. Please be unbias, I know Ron Hood is a modererator here.

Thank you
 
The only Woodsmaster DVD I have is Vol 13: Desert Survival though I have Vol 1-12 on VHS. IMO Ron's information is great as is the production quality but those two volumes are not the best place to start. There are skills taught in those volumes but they are mainly demonstrations and integration of the skills taught in previous volumes. For example, the show the use of shelter and traps but those skills are taught in volumes 2 and 5. IMO vol 1-6 and 12-13 are the most important.

If you go to http://www.survival.com/IVB/ there will be more people who own Wooodsmaster videos and DVDs for more opinions on them.

It might be a good idea to get the "Survival Basics" DVD for previews of the other DVDs. I don't have that one so I can't give any details on it.
 
I have alot of the them on vhs and they are very good if you want all skills get the first ones on fire shelter and ect. if you want some all in dvds look up buckshots camp, if you get backwoodsman magazine then they both have ads there, they are both great sets. Buckshot deals with long term survival useing more modern gear as far as trapping but if you have the money get both they are both good sets
 
I have the Shelter DVD. I think it's volume 2. I thought the material was very good and presented in a clear and entertaining manor. I am planning on getting more of them.

S.
 
I just finnished watching Vol #11 before logging on. The Woodsmaster videos are some of my 8yr olds favorites.
Solo: Quest for Survival is a good one, but I recomend you start with volume 1-5 first. In these he demonstrates the skills you will see him use in the solo video.
Either way you won't go wrong.
Allan
 
As the others have said, go with them. He's the real deal and knows his stuff. Great sense of humor as well.


Joe
 
i own all his videos as well as karen's. i think you will like them as they are fun to watch plus they are full of good hi quality knives ;) (rinaldi, simonich, fehrman)
my suggestion is to start at the beginning of the series and don't bother with the basics vol.1 and 2
 
I have watched survival camping, there is a lot of information presented over a wide range of ideas. However there are also aspects introduced which are extremely dangerous, for example working with a dead and rotted animal, it isn't stressed about the huge danger of possible contamination similar with using various bits of garbage for cooking etc. . Some of the things done are also just odd, like cutting through a hot piece of metal with a knife (destroys knife in process). The metal would be easy to cut if cooled. Lots of info, as noted, however you could also get some very wrong ideas, so a word of caution.

-Cliff
 
Cliff,

The survival camping video is a documentary of students trying out skills that were taught in previous videos. Hygiene in the wilderness is very carefully covered in previous volumes of the series. The uses of "garbage" for the most part involve heating the materials to temps that destroy and microorganisms anyway.

Ron and Karen set the series up to be cumulative in knowledge, so that as you go from Volume 1 up, you apply skills taught in previous volumes to the new volume.

One easy way to know that the videos are very effective teaaching tools for skills is this: in Volume 10, Survival Camping, most of the students on the trip only learned skills from the Hood's videos -- they had no prior wilderness knowledge before getting the videos, and you can see that they have learned very well just from watching and practicing. The skills Ron and Karen teach, very simply, WORK in the real world. In fact, the beauty of the videos is that Ron demonstrates many things to show how many wilderness books include skills that don't actually work in real life. Plus, seeing Ron do the skills on video is vastly superior to the line drawings in a book. If you can't learn in person from an instructor, these videos are the next best thing available anywhere on the market.

Cliff...amusingly, I find it interesting that you of all people find it odd that someone showed the destruction of a knife during a test in a video or anywhere! :D ;)

Best,

~Brian.

P.S. You'll learn how NOT to throw a tomahawk in Volume 11 from yours truly...
 
I highly recommend MR. Hood, but one note before you order, this is from their website.

"Because these* DVD's are burned on DVD-R disks they may not be readable by all DVD players. The* vast majority of players (over 90%) can play them but some of the older DVD* players may be unable to read them. All computer DVD players tested have been* able to play them including laptop units. If your system is unable to play the* DVD you can return the DVD to us for a refund or exchange for a VHS tape."


My DVD player will not play DVD-R's, so you might want to make sure yours will before you order to save yourself some hassle.
 
Brian Jones said:
The uses of "garbage" for the most part involve heating the materials to temps that destroy and microorganisms anyway.
Click to expand...


I don't doubt that all involved understand all of this, but imagine someone not familiar. Any surfaces which come in contact which all such refuse are likewise contaminated, your hands your knife, and then everything they touch. In a real survival situation where it is very difficult to disinfect readily, and it is trivial to get small cuts and scrapes, I would be *very* wary of poking around such materials. Again, not stating that the people involved didn't know how to handle it - just considering how it could be viewed from someone not as experienced.

-Cliff
 
Thank you all for your kind words.

Karen and I have been working this project for many years now. Currently we have 20 videos discussing many aspects of wilderness survival and skills and we recently released the first video in our "UrbanMaster" series which deal with urban survival skills. We've received 8 Telly Awards for our efforts as well as a scattering of other accolades. We have about another dozen videos related to wilderness skills on the sketch board and nearly that number outlined for urban skills.

If anyone has a hankering to see some of our stuff we are broadcasting parts of our wilderness videos in association with Northern Arizona University on Dish network Channel 9411 Friday nights at 7pm. We are about 1/2 way through the season now. The show is Wild Ways TV and the website is www.wildwaystv.com

There seems to be some confusion about the Survival Camping video. The blade that was destroyed was destroyed at it's makers hand. That would be the Late Rob Simonich. Rob had made the blade and during the course of the trip some flaw in the steel began to manifest so he decided to give it the worst possible treatment in order to find other flaws. Anyone who has the ability can take issue with Rob. We filmed it because it was interesting to see and because Rob never wanted it said that we covered up a flawed blade by not filming it's destruction.

The rotten Elk was not an issue. We had a discussion about rotting meat on our forum at

http://survival.com/IVB/index.php?showtopic=2342

It is common for people who shelter in the friendly technologies of the urban environment to think that rotting flesh is by it's nature, dangerous. Such is not necessarily the case. It is a resource that can be used by anyone who has a knowledge of the actual threats posed by decomposing flesh and how that flesh can be converted into a resource.

While Cliff is correct in his assertion that there can be a problem from cuts exposed to rotten flesh, the danger is not as extreme as one might think. The body is well defended from that sort of disease vector particularily if the person has been an outdoors person and experienced dirt. The human bite is far more dangerous to another human than most of the stuff found in the wild. because the organisms in the human mouth are tailored for the human physiology. It is much more dangerous to hit another person in the mouth than to handle a rotten Elk.

http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic1033.htm

FWIW The rotten Elk yielded up some fine steaks and stews. Had I cooked them for anyone here and not told them about the source they would not only not become ill, they would think I had the best Elk recipes ever tasted by mankind. They would also understand what 100's of millions of people in 3rd world countries already know. Don't waste food.
In the course of my life I've eaten hundreds of meals made with questionable meats in these countries. Neither I nor any of my travelling companions have ever become ill because of the meats. Water, ice cream, uncooked fruits and vegetables have caused distress however.

Hope that helps.

Ron
 
Don't have the DVD's, but I do have 11 of the VHS tapes and they present some of the most useful survival info I've found. Very informative and fun to watch. Ron and Karen have a great laid back style, like they're just talking to friends. Highly reccomended.
 
I can tell you that ron is right my family has had to eat rotten food years ago, although dad wondered how it was he was so thin when young until we thought about grandmas old can of oil on the back of the wood cookstove that sat out for years and never got cleaned just added to, after leaveing home he put on weight like crazy.Haveing grown up haveing to eat foods like that makes me have to say that it is something your body get use to when I worked in town everyone order milk shakes and they all got gut cramps and went to the emergancy room and I was fine, I see now why grandma said we all had cast iron guts.
 
Doc Ron- Is there any chance a network like OLN will pick up your show? Sounds like just what I've always hoped for.
 
I REALLY dig Ron and Karens video's!! NOT just because my knives are featured in some of them but I really learn ALOT, and theyre very entertaining to boot!
There is no question in my mind that I have learned things that could possibly save my life and or the lives of my family, cause they have watched them too.. :cool:

BTW Ron caught your show on the Dish recently.. That was awesome!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top