For 13 years, my buddies & I were involved in trekking down PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. guerillas in the operational areas <br>" Bamboo Trail " & " Naga Belt " in both the Peninsular Malaysia & Sarwak/Kalimantan borders. To win against these jungle-based guerillas, you'd have to think and apply the saMe techniques. It means you find their food dumps, numerous booby traps, infiltration routes and camps tracks with your eyes - not with your compass or a GPS - and move as quietly as possible with the least equipmENt and food supplies you can carry which also means you forage from the jungles!!! It worked for my buddies & I and until today, special forces units from the GBritain, US, Australia dn NZealand come and learn from us the ways to survive in a jungle war.<br>And in between the operations, I was also involved in so many jungle SAR for missing trekkers, both domestic and foreign, and Ive seen and understood as the reasons why people get lost because of inclement weather, sudden appearance of wild life, ill prepared, over prepared and not prepared at all...and with this in mind, I decided to start a jungle survival school where we teach students how to get their <br>" stuff " from the jungles because there are many cases where the preparation they had was based on equipment - it never worked. Trust me... I have dealt with death and destruction and I am stating my opinion based on actual survival situations.<br>It is an added plus if you are prepared but at the same time, sometimes what you thought was adequate could either be inadequate or...what you thought could work...usually cannot work in an actual survival situation. So..its better to have an added skill based on the experience of people who have fought in a jungle-based warfare and involved in SAR. Natives here can survive simply because its their life and their survival is never an actual survival situation where they are never under pressure! In actual survival situations..time, terrain and weather are against you where you are alone with no roof! Natives live comfortbaly in their villages where they go out daily to hunt or get things from the jungles and they take time to move. They live a leasurely life and I know this because protecting them against the guerillas was part of my duty!!!<br>Their survival depended on people like us, too!<br>So..to totally ignore or look down upon an added skill from the jungles does not augur weel for someone who is keen in the art of survival. We have the best of both skills - prepared and the unprepared! A goodsurvivalist..needs to seek and practise skills from everywhere!<br>

I agree.<br><br>I was the one that started the recent thread on “making do”. My concern was that the constant fiddling with the contents of the kits (which I enjoy as much as anyone) was not good mental preparation for the innovation that may be required in a survival situation. I still have that concern, but I tried hard not to present the mental practice for innovation as a substitute or alternative for preparation.<br><br>If we are confronted with a real survival situation, it will, by definition, involve the unexpected- or it wouldn’t be a survival situation. Dealing with the unexpected, even with our kits and preparation, will require plenty of innovation and improvisation. We don’t need to deliberately introduce more in order to realistically consider it as a major factor.<br>

I think many of us don’t understand exactly what it is you’re saying. You seem to be against “preparation”, but it’s not entirely clear what you mean by that. I understand that you don’t seem to like high-tech equipment.<br><br>Do you go into the jungle without a knife? I doubt it. Isn’t that preparation?<br><br>Do you go into the jungle without a way to make fire? Perhaps- but it gets much, much colder in our wilderness areas.<br><br>Perhaps you do not carry a compass, and perhaps you do not need one in your jungle. There are many pilots on this forum, though, that might find themselves thousands of miles from familiar ground- or at sea. If you have never been in a dense fog on the water, knowing you were near land but having no way to tell in which direction, perhaps you wouldn’t appreciate a compass as much.<br><br>In much of North America it can be difficult to find surface water- even in thick woods. You need to have some way to carry water if you want to drink. There is no bamboo in our forests to make water containers from. There are many fewer plants that make cordage without long preparation. Food is not so plentiful in our forests as it is in a jungle- and much less so in the mountains, on the prairies or in the deserts.<br><br>Most of the kits we talk about here are about the size of a pack of cigarettes. If you really feel that that’s too much preparation, please tell us what you’d take in our wilderness. <br>

Uhhh..I seem to understand from your first post that you seem to be for not having any equipment and improvising everything. Now you are talking about improvization skills and adapting to the jungle environment and getting your resources from it.<br><br>The way, I see it, both are complementary. It would be much easier to adapt if you had some equipment dont you think?<br>

This is a discussion that comes up time and again on this forum and amongst any who are preparing for potential wilderness survival situations of any kind. <br><br>Tools without skills are dangerous. I would say that the danger goes beyond a false sense of complacency. I don't letmy 5 year old handle my hunting knife and I wouldn't expect her to find her way back to the campsite along the road using my compass. <br><br>OTH skills without the NECESSARY tools are useless. If you know how to use a fire drill but don't have any thing to use as a bearing for the hand end of the drill you will not get too far starting that fire. If you enter a jungle without some equipment your are as much a fool as if you enter the jungle with a 70 pound pack of newly purchased goodies from REI that you have never used.<br><br>A skill, primitive or otherwise, is learning and practice in useing tools (be they purchased or harvested). With enough practice you could become able to hunt your guerila opponents with tools provided by the jungle such as a primitive sling or atl-atl but I would be willing to bet large sums that you had a carbine or better. (BTW that is another tool I wouldn't let my 5 year old handle)<br><br>I have enjoyed discussing all aspects of survival preparation on this forum. The title of the web site is EQUIPPED to survive and thus the majority of information posted here is about EQUIPPMENT. There hase also been an abundant amount of information shared here on Skills. <br><br>I am sure that you have specific recommendations and preferences on what to carry, both in our pockets and in our brains, that will help us to survive in a jungle situation and I am eager for that knowledge. There is also a portion of the site for sharing any stories you have about your SAR experience or even potentially the military experiences as relates to the specifics of surviving in a jungle with minimal equipment. <br><br>Please share some specifics on what has worked for you. Do you carry a knife? Which one? Why that one? If not what do you use for cutting wood? cleaning fish and game? Preparing booby traps and shelter? Do you carry any shelter? Poncho? Tent? Hammock? Which works best in a Jungle? Why? How? If you improvise shelter what form? Debris huts work well in a decidous forest but might be quite wet in a jungle - what is the analog to the debris hut in the jungle? What do you commonly use for water purification? What is your backup? How do you start fire? How do you cook? What do you suggest as a source of information on jungle botany? What animals must you run from and how?<br><br>These are questions that we can use answers to. I am sure that you are highly qualified to answer these questions. I am convinced that you are more likely to answer these questions than I am to find the cash to come to malaysia and learn directly from your course. The access to the internet is vastly less expensive than the airfare. I am sure that if I came and learned in a jungle directly from you I would be better prepared than I ever would be from reading anything but If I read somethings and have knowledge I am better off than if I have nothing. Help, Please.<br><br>Brad

Nope, Im not against any preparation..Im all for it. And Im not a Master of Survival like some of you here and hence I had to learn additional skills in survival in case whatever preparation Ive done does not work due to equipment failure, inclement weather etc etc!<br>For us here, preparation also means preparing for the unexpected if the expected does not work. And survival also means equipping myself with additional unconventional skills<why not?><br>I am sure that learning additional skills will not effect the sales of survival equipment, too!!!!<br>

"Master of Survival"? Not me, not now, not ever. VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO & SEMPER PARATUS

Nobody has mastered survival. <br><br>So far, at least, the death rate is the same all over the world- 100 percent. Everybody flunks the finals.

Bandit, I looked with great pleasure at your homepage. I think our "debate" about preparation is just two people running exausted around the same tree. Only the tree is smart enough to stand still. You should export the parang with the school logo etched on it. Lofty Wiseman's reference to it has inspired many to seek one. You seem to also be involved in conservation issues. I am active in efforts to preserve our California Coastal Redwoods.

Hi New Guy here<br>You might be interested to note that Lofty Wiseman now has a web site where he sells his Survival tool which seems to be some sort of parang. I'd be interested in comments on it.<br><br> Funnily enough his website is called <br>http://www.loftywiseman.co.uk/<br><br>He has separate ordering for the US and the UK so I guess you guys won;t have huge shiping charges..<br>Justin