Naked Survival

[hootchi]

On one of Ray Mears older programmes in Bolivia he was speaking to a man who lived in the wilderness woods for three months with nothing but a knife and a cooking pot, and clothes!!, but he could not light fire by friction so he must have had a firesteel aswell. Good old ray taught him! :biggthump

 

[Andy]

Good old ray taught him! :biggthump

Only in return for vodka!

IIRC is was one about a group of people avoiding the german army in WWII who took anyone in that they found rather then just thoughs who could fight. living i the forest and taking food from the germans to back up what they could find. I can't spell the name but it was set up by a pair of brothers. They had over 1000 at one stage.

Which tribe is it where the men only wher a penis cord?

 

[James Watson]

I once came across a posting on a forum somewhere about some guy who was into wilderness survival with nothing more than a knife, no clothing or other items of equipment. I cannot recall where I saw this link but it sounds like it could be an interesting exercise, to head out into some secluded woodland or whatever, hide all your clothing and just see how you would deal with fire, shelter, food and so on.

Has anyone come across this type of thing?

Hi, I think your referring to Tom Brown. He did it in his early twentys. He told his parents that he was going for a walk and came back 18 months later a couple of pounds heavier. He took a flint knife. He refers to it in a couple of his books. I think mainly in The Search.
billy,one of TB instructors told me that the first thing he did when he came out of the bush was to look for change in public phones to buy a slice of pizza!

 

[SquirrelBoy]

I think the question about naked survival is quite a relevant one.
Imagine falling in an ice cold river, your clothes would hardly help to warm you and probably be better off without them - until you could get them dry of course. Not a long term survival thing if you had a fire but it makes you think what would I use to keep heat loss to a minimum...

 

[Great Pebble]

and isn't made of a load of potentially polluting chemicals.

Actually it is.... At least the contents is.

Not sure about this one, goes outside my practical view of things a little and into the realm of "extreme sport" or "self abuse" depending on your particular take on it. I can honestly not think of a situation in which I'd be likely to find myself nekkid but carrying a handy knife, other than being unfairly treated by a redneck sherrif, busting his coupon while being hosed down and then riding off to the boonies on a stolen motorcycle...

It's a looooong road, when you're on youuuuur own....

 

[arctic hobo]

It's a lovely idea, but deeply impractical in winter, or north of say Morocco. The stats say that it's impossible to survive naked below 10 degrees C :yikes:

 

[Roving Rich]

Er Guilty - I raised that one in another of those hypothetical your lost in the wood with nothing threads.
As not Bob said - I was referring to the Macphersons. Who have written a series of "Naked into the Wilderness" books.
This is Naked like the Naked chef Naked, only completely bushcraft "pukka".
They do have Clothes ! So no more obsessing over how you don't have enough fur on yer beer belly to do it in this climate !!!! It really doesn't bare( ): ) thinking about a Naked bushcraft meetup :shock: shudder

Its a Figure of speech , but more a Philosophy adobted by the Macphersons.
To enter the woods with absolutely nothing atall, no tools, rucksack sleeping bag or cooking pot. Ie you may aswell be naked - you have nothing.

From there on in you make everthing you need. Idealy a blade too. But they state that this is the one item you really need to start with, as flint is not available everywhere.
The first thing they make is cordage, miles of it. With that shelter and traps and a bowdrill.
I don't know the ins and outs of it, as I have not read the books fully. Only read bits and what friends have told me. They are bloomin expensive over here, about £25 for a paperback sized er paperback So I don't own them, but have managed to blag a friends copies so will be engrossed by next week.

From what i can make out, These guys are the real Macoy, Jerry and his wife did this for a long period of time, and later on with the Children too. So not just the theoretical approach that is so prevalant.
Everything they needed to live comfortably (including their clothes) is made from Mother Nature. And they managed to go from nothing to a comfotable Wilderness dwelling with all they needed in a short space of time. :super:
This to me is Bushcraft taken to its highest realm. I look forward to reading the full accounts.

Cheers
Rich

 

[Moonraker]

Aren't we being a little it prudish here? After all there are around 2.5 million naturists in the UK!. There is a nice article on naked hiking in the Yorkshire Moors written in August 2003 here:

The altogether odd attraction of naked hiking

Another related article in the Guardian:

Now which way back to the car?

I think it says it all when I tried to do a Google search:

The word "naked" has been filtered from the search because Google SafeSearch is active

 

[Carcajou Garou]

Depending where you are, naked survival may not be practicle eg. 10 million mosquitoes per acre. People who live naked do so by choice and practicality not just for survival. You can be naked and survive but I would think most would use the earliest access to materials to protect their skin from exposure in some way.
just a thought

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

Knowing how to survive, indeed thrive in the wilderness with essentially nothing is a usefull skill. I would suggest however that the proponents of such 'philosophy' are rather irresponsible to an ever decreasing and finite resource base, their students and promoting another form of one upmanship in reverse. Tom Brown teaches, or at least did personally teach a usefull course. His 'credentials' have long been debated, with no proof whatsoever of 'Grandfather' or Rick even existing. Several agencies, including the F.B.I. when queried about his assistance had never heard of the man. I attended an early class when Tom was still the primary instructor. I greated Tom in Apache, a skill I learned from a very real apache cowboy in 1959. He was no grandfather, drove a truck, paid taxes etc. Tom looked at me like a cow in the abatoir. Another student quite innocently took Tom to task on a statement that was patently wrong. Tom became enraged, announced grandfather had been insulted and kicked the poor man out with a full refund. Later attempts to ask about the rapidly emerging activist environmental movement elicited nothing but scorn and ridicule from Tom. He sits in a SUV chain smoking cigarettes, claims to track animals psychically,pushes a overpriced and essentially useless knife and books that sing paens to fountain of youth solar stills and feature the same misdrawn and unworkable trap found in numerous other survival tomes ad nauseum. I've never seen the man once put himself on the line for wilderness.The only humour in all this is his detractors are mostly other various survival/wilderness instructors trying to grab a piece of this small pie with little better ethics. People readilly go out and succumb to exposure enough without mythical graduate master scouts slipping past the timber company guards and Earth First! protestors to practise some voodoo oness with nature Rousseau Noble Savage sillyness in hopes of taking people's money and telling them they can do the same.

 

[Stuart]

i dont think its such a ludicras idea.. there are planty of native people who spend their whole lives naked or nearly naked...! ok so its not really a feasable idea round here.. but im sure if it was tropical jungle survival you could do it..

its true that many native people spend most of there lives almost totally naked, but you really have to grow up living naked for it to be fesable in this sort of climate.

I have just an hour ago returned from a day reccying a route in the jungle here in brunei, and I can state quite happily that i dont think my fagile body would last very long if I went out there naked.

it wouldnt be long before the endless assult by insects and less than frendly plants such as the 'wait a while' would leave me a sorry exhusted heap suffering from the effects of septicimea without clothing.

whilst the natives seem to be uneffected by the insects developing an imunity from a liftime of living in this manner

my wife who is a mauritian native can walk around barefoot in places my tender feet would find agonizing but she has grown up doing this and her feet are considerably tougher than mine.

this is not to say that going naked into the wilderness is not possible (british law not withstanding) but do not underestimate how difficult this would be for somone whos body is not developed for it

 

[Great Pebble]

Ummm... What Chris said.

 

[Not Bob]

Knowing how to survive, indeed thrive in the wilderness with essentially nothing is a usefull skill. I would suggest however that the proponents of such 'philosophy' are rather irresponsible to an ever decreasing and finite resource base, their students and promoting another form of one upmanship in reverse. Tom Brown teaches, or at least did personally teach a usefull course. His 'credentials' have long been debated, with no proof whatsoever of 'Grandfather' or Rick even existing. Several agencies, including the F.B.I. when queried about his assistance had never heard of the man. I attended an early class when Tom was still the primary instructor. I greated Tom in Apache, a skill I learned from a very real apache cowboy in 1959. He was no grandfather, drove a truck, paid taxes etc. Tom looked at me like a cow in the abatoir. Another student quite innocently took Tom to task on a statement that was patently wrong. Tom became enraged, announced grandfather had been insulted and kicked the poor man out with a full refund. Later attempts to ask about the rapidly emerging activist environmental movement elicited nothing but scorn and ridicule from Tom. He sits in a SUV chain smoking cigarettes, claims to track animals psychically,pushes a overpriced and essentially useless knife and books that sing paens to fountain of youth solar stills and feature the same misdrawn and unworkable trap found in numerous other survival tomes ad nauseum. I've never seen the man once put himself on the line for wilderness.The only humour in all this is his detractors are mostly other various survival/wilderness instructors trying to grab a piece of this small pie with little better ethics. People readilly go out and succumb to exposure enough without mythical graduate master scouts slipping past the timber company guards and Earth First! protestors to practise some voodoo oness with nature Rousseau Noble Savage sillyness in hopes of taking people's money and telling them they can do the same.

Not a big fan then?

 

[Not Bob]

Re the polluting value of skin:

Actually it is.... At least the contents is.

Fair point but I was thinking more of the processes of its production which, I'm sure you'll agree, is a lot more fun.

 

[acw_akkermans]

Knowing how to survive, indeed thrive in the wilderness with essentially nothing is a usefull skill. I would suggest however that the proponents of such 'philosophy' are rather irresponsible to an ever decreasing and finite resource base, their students and promoting another form of one upmanship in reverse. Tom Brown teaches, or at least did personally teach a usefull course. His 'credentials' have long been debated, with no proof whatsoever of 'Grandfather' or Rick even existing. Several agencies, including the F.B.I. when queried about his assistance had never heard of the man. I attended an early class when Tom was still the primary instructor. I greated Tom in Apache, a skill I learned from a very real apache cowboy in 1959. He was no grandfather, drove a truck, paid taxes etc. Tom looked at me like a cow in the abatoir. Another student quite innocently took Tom to task on a statement that was patently wrong. Tom became enraged, announced grandfather had been insulted and kicked the poor man out with a full refund. Later attempts to ask about the rapidly emerging activist environmental movement elicited nothing but scorn and ridicule from Tom. He sits in a SUV chain smoking cigarettes, claims to track animals psychically,pushes a overpriced and essentially useless knife and books that sing paens to fountain of youth solar stills and feature the same misdrawn and unworkable trap found in numerous other survival tomes ad nauseum. I've never seen the man once put himself on the line for wilderness.The only humour in all this is his detractors are mostly other various survival/wilderness instructors trying to grab a piece of this small pie with little better ethics. People readilly go out and succumb to exposure enough without mythical graduate master scouts slipping past the timber company guards and Earth First! protestors to practise some voodoo oness with nature Rousseau Noble Savage sillyness in hopes of taking people's money and telling them they can do the same.

Hi Chris,

I have taken several courses at Tom Brown's. I am (I guess) also one of the people you describe as "his detractors are mostly other various survival/wilderness instructors trying to grab a piece of this small pie with little better ethics."

While I agree that there is no proof whatsoever in Tom's personal history, and it is very possible that not all or none he describes has ever happened, I am not sure whether his ethics are as debatable. I guess that may be a matter of opinion. I agree he seems an unlikely Nature lover, driving humvees and smoking like a choochoo. To be honest, I am not always comfortable with his behavior myself.
But the more I think about it, the less I really care about his history or ethics. At the end of the day, the courses I took with him were stuffed with information, and I came away feeling overwhelmed with the amount of skills to practise. After all, I went to his courses to learn skills, not to admire the man!

I am a little piqued by your suggestion that his students are running courses or schools with little more ethics trying to grab a piece of the small pie. Maybe I should explain why I run courses;
When I started learning these skills all these years ago, I fell in love with them. Not only that, but I could also see what advantage these skills can bring to a personal life. As I grew up and got older (And wiser (Debatable )) I felt there was nothing more in life I wanted to do then pas these skills on to other people. Now I am, and yes, I run a course where people come for a week with nothing but their clothing. With the right skills it is easily possible as the graduates of this course can attest to (They are still alive...)
The reason you will find a lot of Tom Brown and Grandfather Stalking Wolf on my site is because that is where I learned most of my skills. It is a simple way of acknowledging my sources.

If Tom's ethics are wrong, then that does not neccesarily have to be so for his students who started a school themselves.

Have you ever attended a course offered by his students?

Chris, I would hereby like to invite you over for one of my courses. Come and see how I run my courses, and what my ethics are like. All I ask is that you pay for the food you eat and the materials you use whilst on the course. The rest of the course fee is on my tab!
Afterwards, I would appreciate it if you could tell us all about your experience and about your opinion of Tom's students, whether it is a good opinion or not.
Because it's the truth we are interested in.

I really hope you'd be willing to take me up on this challenge! If you do, you can contact me by e-mail ( info@wild-live.org ) or phone ( 02843 771 446 )and I'll set you up on a course in the new year.

Many regards,

Anthonio Akkermans.
Wild-Live

PS. By this message I am not defending Tom Brown's ethics and his description of his personal history. Merely my own.

 

[Adi007]

The only humour in all this is his detractors are mostly other various survival/wilderness instructors trying to grab a piece of this small pie with little better ethics.

Interesting statement Chris. What surprises me just how pretty much the entirety of the outdoor "instructional" industry revolved around a handful of people and their students nowadays (survival instructor "X", survival instructor "Y" who went on a course with "X" or "survival instructor "Z" who was chief pumbah to survival instructor "X"), creating some form of pyramid scheme that's quite hard to fathom.
Books are the same - it's been a long time since I've seen a original book with much in the way of new stuff in it ...

 

[Stuart]

I am impressed antonio

I am not a fan of Tom brown (far from it)

but there are few people who have the courage and conviction to openly subject there reptuation to public scrutiny as you are preposing and that alone wins you a measure of my respect.

if Chris takes you up on your offer (understanding of course that Chris lives on the other side of the pond and it would incur substantal costs to him even to attend a free course) I am in no doubt that his review would be honest and truthful in a manner for which he has earned a reputation

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

Ack, The literary confines of my reply give the impression I am slamming the entire industry. I am not,including some capable people who grew up from being "Brownies." And I would love to attend one of your courses someday, assuming my family members on both side of the troubles have sorted out even older, sillier arguments. The number of capable instructors is growing, oftentimes indeed second generation leaders as older mentors seek deserved rest. My comment was directed just as much to several other individuals I have personally met in this rather small community. My issues with Tom are NOTHING compared to a few other well known Alpha males desperately trying to replace a rusting truck with a SUV. If these individuals come up in discussion, I will be more than fair in pointing out "The emperor has no clothes" and really should be tossed naked into some wilderness

 

[acw_akkermans]

Dear Chris,

I understand very well that there are more issues, and that you only brought up Tom Brown because it was relevent to the subject in the thread.
Again, I do not defend or endorse Tom Brown's ethics or explanation of history. To be honest, I don't know either what's true about his past and what's not.
It is very hard to prove he's a lier, just as it's hard to prove he's not. If I were to spend my time (And some fans/enemies of Tom do) Arguing for or against Tom's case. I'd wreck my head and go mad. I just gave up on it, and decided that Tom does deserve a measure of respect in my eyes because no matter what his past, he taught me an awfull large amount of skills. This is the main reason for refering to him on my site and other advertising material.

I just wanted to point out that though the ethics of a teacher may be debatable, it does not mean his students would be too.

I feel happy that point came across, and am happy with your response Chris. I didn't have any hard feelings about the subject, and never will.

Many regards to Chris and others,

Anthonio Akkermans
Wild-Live

 

[bambodoggy]

whether it's possible or not I am not sure....I guess it must be as humans must have come from nothing in the first place...I don't know of anyone born with a bow drill in their hand ):

The thing that bothers, even upsets, me is that no matter how skilled you are you would never be able to do this in the UK.... the shear scale of paperwork you'd need to carry (hunting permits, fishing licences, land use permissions etc) would require at least a pocket to carry them in....but the point being that this country is so highly regulated that you just couldn't start from scratch here.
The country is also so over populated that there isn't the area and therefore the flora and fauna to support us.
I think I'm right in saying that thousands of years ago before we started farming and were just hunter/gatherers there was something silly like about 2000 people in the whole of the Britain....now that's about the size of a fairly small village!
Sorry to shatter anyones dreams but I just don't think it possible to do and certainly not while staying inside the Law and I don't just mean decency laws, the first time you make a natural bow and shoot something you've broken the law, the first time you light a fire in the wrong area....you've broken the law and so it goes on.
I do understand why we have these laws and agree that we need them to protect what we have left of our countryside but to the naked English Aborigoni they would simply make living impossible.

Be great fun to give it a go though! :super: