Choosing the right instructor
by Cody Lundin
Survival training is an investment of your time and money, and effective instruction will help you save on both. Many “survival instructors” exist on the internet and elsewhere. While most have good intentions, others see an opportunity
for extra income due to the increasing popularity of self-sufficiency
training. It's important that you choose your instructors wisely.
The advice you take dealing with the safety and lives of you and your
loved ones should come from a very knowledgeable source. You're learning
skills that could save your life- not buying a toaster oven. Regardless
of an outdoor schools apparent size and media appeal, the number-one variable
into the quality of their program is the quality of their instructors.
The following tips will help you choose a good instructor whether you're looking for skills in outdoor survival, primitive living, or home preparedness. Remember, any school is only as good as its instructors.
1) Ask to see
the instructor's resume. Has your potential instructor been teaching
for ten years or ten weeks? In general, self-reliant skills require many
years of training and practice before proficiency can be obtained. Ask
to see if the instructor has been teaching skills continuously during
their self-proclaimed years of operation. It's not uncommon for someone's “30 years of experience” to include the 20 years in the 1970s and '80s
when they operated a full-time bug extermination company. Keep in mind that resumes can lie.
2) Train from someone who teaches survival skills full-time. Would you feel comfortable seeing a physician who
practiced medicine three months out of the year? Large schools with dozens
of instructors have the impossible task of attempting to keep them employed
full time. Finding year- round work in this business can be challenging,
so locating an instructor that fits this category will tell you something
about them; they are either very good, very lucky, both, or someone
else is paying the bills.
3) Attempt to train from an instructor who lives what they teach. While this trait is more rare than hens teeth, it does exist. Whether you wish to learn outdoor survival, primitive living, home preparedness, or other forms of doing more with less, they all have one motive in common, self-reliance. Ask your instructor about his or her lifestyle. Would you call it self-reliant? An outdoor survival instructor who lives in the city will have less daily outdoor experience than one who lives in a rural setting. If you have the opportunity to see your potential instructor in person, look at their hands, their feet, and their face. Any calluses or tan lines? Any signs of bodily use other than typing? Self-reliant skills can be very physical, and one who practices them on a routine basis will show the signs, just like all native peoples did for thousands of years. The bottom line is this; an instructor who lives what they teach is passionate about their subject matter, and willing to lay their lifestyle on the line to prove it.
4) If your primary interest is primitive living skills, train
from someone who lives in your geographic region. They will be
the most familiar with your local flora and fauna. Learning to harvest
cactus fruit from an Eskimo is sketchy at best. If quality concerns you,
the longer dedicated instructors have lived within the geographic areas
they teach, the greater experience they'll be able to pass on to you.
5) Ask around about the instructor's background. Is your potential instructor known and respected by his or her peers? Are they known at all by their peers? Has their school been in operation
for as long as their web page says it has? If they claim to have nearly two decades of "desert experience", have they lived in the desert for that long? Are they in the trenches teaching,
or just a figure head for their organization? These days, unfortunately,
the school with the best web-page and brochure is thought to
be the best wilderness school as well. Don't be a fool with your time and money and cross reference your instructor the best that you can.
6) Beware the “expert” as nature is too full of variables to support this type of personality. Large egos and cocky attitudes are all too common in the field of wilderness survival. One of the more unfortunate manifestations of this mind set is the failure to be open to learning new material. Any instructor who tells you there is only one way to do a skill is destined to be upstaged by a humble student with no preconceived bias as to how that skill is done.
7) If your interest in learning survival skills runs deeper than experiencing a cool "Eco-vacation," study with someone who knows primitive living skills and modern survival skills. Most outdoor schools confuse "modern survival skills" with "primitive living skills". Although there is overlap between the two, learning to flint-knap a stone knife has limited value for your 59-year-old aunt if she finds herself thrust into a wilderness survival situation. Ultimately, and when taught in the proper order, knowing both sets of skills gives you greater potential for success when dealing with a survival scenario. When the chips are down, a bow drill is no substitute for matches and the know-how to use them.
8) Before attending a hands-on course, make sure the student-to-qualified-instructor ratio is low. Unless you're getting a price break, hands-on instruction involving more than ten or twelve students will cause the course quality to suffer because you'll spend more time watching than doing. I specify "qualified" instructors, as large schools often have a heavy instructor turn over, and therefore rely on "interns" (future instructors working for free to gain experience). It should go without saying that interns have not yet achieved the field experience and knowledge base of a lead instructor.
9) Is the field course you're thinking about taking really taught in the field or just “outside”? Training responsibly in a small group allows you to harvest materials directly from the wilderness for maximum learning and enjoyment. A course that supplies all of your raw materials could just as easily be taught in a grocery-store parking lot.
10) You get what you pay for. You're purchasing life saving skills that will benefit yourself and loved ones. If you ever need to use your skills, you'll find them to be priceless.
Happy Training!!