Lost,<br><br><br>You may have hit the nail right on the head there. Or, you may not have. I can't decide. In my experience, those who are methodical in their planning and preparation, those who agonize over every detail, those who search endlessly for a better way are often adequate improvisors. If only because they've covered more ground and have seen more options. I have also noticed that those who did not have or could not afford the "perfect" item for this or that are also good improvisors; they have to be. . . <br><br>I have been through several of those "thinking out of the box" exercises. One was at work, one was at church (which stunned me), and several while in the military. At work, it came as no suprise to me that management rarely managed to solve a "puzzle" of this sort, whereas the workforce, which due to long years of practice from management induced budget cuts, were masters of workable improvised solutions. At church, it was one of the children who found the best solution to one of these "puzzles." The military. . .well brute force isn't always an option, but it often works.<br><br>What's my point? I'm not sure I have one. Your post certainly got me to thinking. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that it really isn't a skill that is possible to teach. It can be learned, I'm sure, but not taught. Given that, excellent preparation makes even more sense because it (hopefully) makes improvising less neccessary. If making a fire becomes essential to your survival, isn't it better have 2 or 3 or even 4 means of firestarting on you, than have to improvise something? I'm not saying that improvisational skills aren't important, only that it is far easier to compensate for a lack of those skills through preparation, than it is to improvise around a lack of preparation.<br><br>Take care,<br><br>Andy