firstly before I start, I do not claim to be able to track these are just my observations
When I first read of this technique and even listened to Thomas Schorr-kon explain it I was very sceptical. Since then I have had the chance to spend time with people who depend on tracking to supply themselves and their families with food and others that track as a professional occupation, none of these people employ this technique or anything like it.
so talking with these people has done nothing to alleviate my scepticism of this technique in fact it has served only to strengthen it.
if the track is so clear that you can see the most minute details in it, you dont need to get down on your hands and knees and study it, just follow the track!
in the western world we often see tracking as a mystical lost art and believe that the native people who live by it can see something in a track that we cannot.
I shall recount a story which in an attempt to illustrate what I am trying to say
I spent some time last year in the jungles of Borneo with members of the Penan tribe, a nomadic group that still subsists by hunting and gathering. I was out learning to forage and trap with a young Penan man called Lang ub when he stopped and pointed out a track "baboy" he said which I understood to be wild bushpig. immediately we changed direction and were hot on the trail of the bushpig with Lang ub moving so quickly that I was almost at a jog behind him, my eyes darting around trying to catch a hint of the tiny disturbances that lang ub was following...... I saw nothing.
after 20 minutes of following him and failing to see a single sign I stopped him and though a mixture of gestures and repeating the word baboy (one of the few words I know) I asked Lang ub what he was following, he gave me a confused look and pointed over the ridge "ubi cayoue" (sp?) he said which I understood to mean cassava (a root vegetable).
this left me utterly perplexed but when we arrived at a valley filled with cassava and Lang ub showed me where the bushpig had been digging up the roots I finally understood........... Lang ub hadnt been following anything and I couldnt see anything not only because I cant track, but because there was nothing there.
Lang ub was using his local knowledge of the habitat, he saw the first track which was fresh and heading in the direction of the valley and he knew that the pig would be going to feed on the cassava.
There in lies the mystic secret of tracking, detailed knowledge of the subject and the terrain, this year I was fortunate enough to go to Namibia with Bushcraft expeditions and spend time with professional trackers learning from them the techniques they employ, I learnt a great deal and the more I learnt the more I understood what I had witnessed. I learnt that tracking has less to do with the actual track than I had thought and more to do with the big picture.
This article written by Woody (our instructor whilst in Namibia) will illustrate this better than my amateurish observations
what is tracking?
This is not to say that pressure releases are nonsense if it works for you, then it works for you, but I personally do not believe that it is a necessary part of becoming a proficient tracker.
Could I recommend the book, 'The art of tracking, the origin of science' by Louis Liebenberg
I cant use what I dont know about.
