Just a question, do they teach you to put your self in danger for anouther person? I welcome imput from all about this . survival and doing somthing that is right but putting yourself at risk are hard choices in life.

This is moving out of our usual discussion. While many martial arts are rooted in deep religous or cultural traditions, you must make your own moral decisions.

Seems that the issue of personal survival is tightly connected with the issue of group survival. There are many forms which this can take. <br><br>The ambulance medic is taught to avoid all unsafe scene and yet expected to deal with highly infectious individuals that they are trained to deal with. The SAR team is expected to go after individuals who have gotten into trouble because they took too great a risk in the wilderness this sometimes puts the SAR team at risk. The police officer or mounty is often at risk in the effort to ensure the group survival. <br><br>In any situation where a group must survive; from a downed plane with 5 passengers to the ongoing survival of a nation and everything in-between there is always the need to make the choice between taking a risk for the good of the group and withdrawing from the group and going on your own. ( I am stating that polarized to make a point I know that there are shades of gray and that we usually live in the gray zone) The point I am making is that there are times when accepting risk in order to protect members of the group is very much part of survival. <br><br>I would argue that if you are in a wilderness situation due to a downed GA plane with 5 people then losing even one of these people to whatever will greatly reduce your chances of survival and further, if you lost that person because you were unwilling to accept a risk in order to save them then the damage done to the morale of the team might be greater than the logistical damage done by the loss of the team member themselves. This wilderness scenario will not likely call for martial arts training but it doesn't require much creativity to translate the same principles into an urban survival scenario that would.<br><br>OTH: Vigilantism is a more a matter of enforcement than survival and so is indeed outside the scope of survival topics discussed on this site.<br><br>Just my opinion and I will accept the desist request on this thread.

thanks I was looking for opinions and examples. there are ways to prepare for survival you have to use your head and think of how you will react to different situations and then prepare appropriately. I would be the one running into the burning building or just stopping and helping someone on the side of the road (not always, because of instinct) I wont be a crime victim or let it happen to someone else. My family knows this but they also come first when in a dangerous situation. <br> Thanks again<br> God bless

For anyone interested in self-defense training for physical situations, check out http://www.scars.com. I have several of their videos and have found it very effective in a couple of unavoidable confrontations. Best of all it does'nt require athletic ability or years of training, my grandmother could learn this.

I don't have the experience or training of a lot of the regulars on this board, so this is just my $.02 worth. <br><br>When I took a two-day wilderness first aid course (about a year and a half ago) the instructor was quick to point out that "Wilderness First Aid" and "Wilderness Survival" are not synonymous (although they are complementary). Neither is really a substitute for the other. <br><br>The EMT and Advanced First Aid courses mentioned by others are a very good idea, IMO, but in my experience as a basic First Aid instructor, and in talking to fellow instructors, one problem with professional medical responders (Doctors, nurses, paramedics) is that their training often relies heavily on the assumption that they are going to have a complete medical unit available. It's not unheard of for EMR-trained students to fail their first attempt at qualifying for the St. John Ambulance Brigade Level 1, which is a much "lower" level of training, simply because they can't adjust to not having a stethoscope (let alone SAM splints, instant cold packs, Bag-Valve masks, oto-pharyngeal airways, etc.) Sometimes, the instructor has to point out that they may be called on to assist in an emergency when they're shopping in the mall on a Saturday afternoon, in which case they are not going to have all that neat stuff they've been trained on; they may be lucky to get a hacked-over first aid kit that hasn't been checked in several years. <br><br>Don't get me wrong, if you have the time and the money to take a full-blown EMR/EMT course (AND maintain your certification), more power to you. But don't overlook the "mickey mouse" 2-day courses that Red Cross (and in Canada, St John Ambulance) offer. <br><br>And don't equate "First Aid" with "Survival" - they're separate, but complementary skillsets. (For example, in a survival situation, you would usually want to conserve your matches, and you'd certainly think twice about using a signal flare to start a campfire. In a Wildeness Medical situation, with a casualty in hypothermia or going into shock, starting a fire to keep the casualty warm should be a top priority, and this may justify "wasteful" expenditure of resources (depending on your skill level in starting fires).<br><br>Another thing I've been told is that people with First Aid training are *less* likely to need it, because they tend to recognize and correct hazardous situations before an accident happens. I strongly suspect that Wilderness Survival training has a similar benefit. As the old grizzled woodsman said to a new hand, "I've never been lost. I've been mighty confused from time to time, but I've never been lost."

Survival does NOT begin with any preparation - it just happens and the more you ACCEPT, ADAPT and IMPROVISE on the situation..the better your chances to survive are! No one is prepared for any survival situation, it comes unexpected and uninvited and THIS is what everyone should remember.<br>Not everyone in an airplance carries a knife...compass...reflector...GPS...etc etc etc... its all about scavenging around the wreckage AND the terrain that can be used as a tool for you and possibly others to survive!<br>I see that too many or perhaps everyone is talking about PREPARED survival and not survival based on the terrain and conditions around.

I respectfully disagree.The native peoples of Malasia do not get up everyday to scavenge and improvise.They are intimate with their environment, just as we are intimite with ours. They also rely on tool kits, however simple, that are a cultural manifestation of preparation. Ishi, the "last wild north american indian" was the sole surviver of his band. Suprised by prospectors who took the entire tool kit for souveniers, they perished. Improvisation obviously has it's place as does the prescience to "be prepared."

I agree with Chris.<br>Anyone who has the mindset that they should not prepare and wait till they have to scavange thru the wreckage of a plane or boat is doomed to have a hard time. Although improvisation is a key element of survival, it is not THE most important element.<br>That's why this site emphasizes on being equipped and prepared.<br>I'd rather be the guy with the knife and compass and matches than the survivor scavenging around the wreckage for a butter knife to make a spear with or trying to magnetize a needle to make a compass. Sure it can be done, but would you really need to do that if you had been prepared? Or would you rather take the hard road ? :-)

well like the others say stay away from trouble is the best thing, but if you want to learn a good self-defense i would recoment sports like KRAV-MAGA or COMBATO withs are modern self-defence sport desinged for the modern world. because the most martial arts wont teach you how to defend your self against guns and stuff..