Stealth and wilderness survival training.

[Jarvis]

I'm always looking for excuses and people to train stealth and survival with.  I figure that there may be a person or two at the school who is interested in this sort of stuff, so let me know what you're interested in and let's see if we can get some people together sometime.

I've attended Tom Brown's Tracker School, and most of my knowledge and techniques in both stealth and survival come from his books and classes.  http://www.trackerschool.com/  I've also worked as a wilderness instructor for a year leading back-packing trips.



In stealth I can help train the following ideas:
Natural camouflage, stalking steps and silent movement, obscuring outline and shape, scout crawling, dead-spaces, deception of vision and hearing, naturally masking scent and de-scenting techniques, manipulation of complacency and predictability, amongst various other ideas.

Though there is a bit of lecture and instruction involved in these techniques, as you all know the best way to train is to actually practice.  I'd love to pick up a few people who are interested in the occasional late night stalking game.  Sihing Chad and I have done this before, and we occasionally practice in 24 hour scenario paintball games as well.  Those cost money though, I'd rather just have a group of friends to train with.



In survival I can train these techniques:
Fire by friction(no matches or lighters), water acquisition and purification, natural shelters, animal tracking, and primitive trap-making amongst a few other concepts as well.

All of these can easily be taught and practiced in the open “lawn” next to the school.  Of course it's best to practice out in the wild, but we can make due.




So let me know what you think!  After a little time, Sifu will have his own band of ninjas.

[Amorak]

Sign me up!  I've read several books on the night stalking game and survival but never got to practice the skills.  I would love to have some hands on training.   

[Jarvis]

Nice!  Let me know precisely what you're looking for.  I'd eventually like to get a regular class going on this stuff, depending on when interested people are available and how we can logistically make this kind of stuff fall into place.  It makes the most sense to me to teach survival separately from stealth, since stealth and stalking is probably going to require more time and schedule coordination.  Not to mention a desire to crawl around in the dirt.

If there's enough interest, I'm thinking of perhaps doing a class per month, alternating between survival techniques and stealth.  If people like it well enough, I'd love to step it up to a couple of classes per month.  It all depends, I may be getting ahead of myself here.

Thanks for the interest Amorak!

[DangerDan]

That sounds freaking sweet.

[Amorak]

I believe DangerDan summed it up rather nicely.  I'm interested in all of it.  I would venture to guess that the classes would fall on the weekends, especially the stealth classes.

The survival classes would be spectacular.  Me and my fiance do a lot of hiking and we're starting to extend the day trips to overnight stays.  We eventually want to hike the entire Appalachian Trail.

I might be able to do a primitive blacksmithing demo.  Me and a buddy of mine built a regular forge in his father's studio back in June.  I'm not a master smith  or anything but can made a few knives and tools.  I still work there when I get free time.  I can show how to build a forge and how to repair blades and tools.  The most important thing to have when forging is creative thinking and the patience to experiment.


Anyway let me know when the classes are going to be and what we need to bring.

David
 

[Jarvis]

Tell you what, on October 13-14 Chad and I are going to one of these aforementioned 24 hour paintball games.  How about I run a course on stealth the Sunday before that, Oct 7th.  I can focus on applicable and easy to pick up on skills, like natural camouflaging and scout crawling, and then anyone that has the time and money to spare can join us in the paintball fields for some practice.

If that goes well I'll start putting together a survival class and we can start looking for places to do some stalking games.

Thoughts?

I like the blacksmithing idea, by the way.  I've never done anything like that before.  I'd be interested.

[Amorak]

Sounds great.  When and where do you want to set up at? 

[Jarvis]

For this, at the school.  I figure we could meet at 3 pm or so and use the lawn next to the school to practice a bit.  I don't imagine we'd be there too long, it depends on how in depth you guys would want to get with it.

I know Sifu does some stuff with the school on Sunday, but I think he's done by then.  I wouldn't want to disturb whatever they are up to.  In either case, I plan to be outside.  Hopefully the weather agrees.

BTW... a correction on the date.  The Sunday I'm referring too is the 7th of Oct.  Not the 6th.  My mistake.

[Amorak]

Cool, I'll definitely be there.  What kind of attire should we wear?  I know me and Sihing Chad discussed the uselessness of black.  Anything in particular?

David

[Jarvis]

I was just planning on covering some basic techniques at first, so I suppose this time it doesn't really matter.  I do plan on bringing some charcoal though, so if you want to try out natural camouflage then just bring a pair of earth tone or dark shorts.

Perhaps I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself here, but: Natural camouflage doesn't stick well to cloth.  The best materials are wool and buckskins, but I doubt many people have that laying around.  I don't, so I typically go shirtless.  Your choice if you want to wear a shirt or not.  Whatever you decide to bring, make sure it's something you don't care about because we will be crawling through the dirt.  If you do want to camo up, the AMAC doesn't have a hose (unless I missed something) so you may want to bring something to cover your car seat with.

I don't have a very good opinion of camouflage clothing, but it certainly is better than nothing.  More on that in class.

[Amorak]

I just thought about this, you might add the date and time to the calender.  It might let the people know who don't regulary participate in the forums but would like to be apart of the group.

I'm looking forward to having some stealth games.  Sihing Chad told me a story about you and some friends up at his dad's cabin with you stalking them. He also regailed me with some the paintball exploits.

I'm really looking forward to it.  I've read alot about it, just never had anyone to practice with.  I guess I should brush up on the reading.

 

[Jarvis]

Excellent Idea, but of course I don't have access.  I guess I'll message John.

[Jarvis]

Just a reminder:  Stealth training class is happening this Sunday at 3 pm.  Meet at the school.

I look forward to seeing you all there.  Thanks!

[Jarvis]

I'd like to thank Sihing Chad, Iris, and David for coming to the first class.  Several of you approached me in class this past week saying that you couldn't make it to this first class, but you were very interested in trying it out.  So by popular demand I'll schedule another class for two weeks from now.

Stealth class: Sunday, Oct 21

As previously mentioned, Chad and I are going to a scenario paintball game next week end, 13-14, and it'd be great to see some of you there.  It'd be a great opportunity to practice some of these skills. http://www.24hourgames.com/24HG-schedule.htm



In addition to that, I'd like to get started with the survival classes as well.  I'll go ahead and schedule that for Sunday, Oct 28.  Keep an eye out for that in the student schedule forum, I'll post all relevant information there soon.


As always, I'm open to feedback on these classes.  Sunday afternoon is a convenient time for me, but my schedule is flexible.  If there's a better time that would allow more people to attend, please let me know and I'll see what I can work out.

Again, thanks to those that came.  I look forward to many more of these classes in the future.

[Amorak]

Sundays are an awesome time.  I got such a busy schedule and so little time for me. 

Class was great.  I'm really looking forward to the stealth games. 

Jarvis, what's your opinion on sniper veils?  Like the ones that are pretty much just a cargo net.  Brush could easily be attached to something like that.