I don't think you're reading the vibe of his posts wrong at all. I think Ziggy was hoping to get a simple 1,2,3 list of do's & dont's that he could print out, throw into his back-pack along with his Red Bull & powerbars, then head out to the great outdoors. In fact, I'll bet Ziggy punched, "survival skills" into Google and ETS came up on the first screen (try it...4th entry down for me).

To answer your question, of course I would rather he had practice and experience in a somewhat controlled environment first, but again I don't think Ziggy is interested in that.

Thinking back to my first few hiking/camping/outdoor experiences, I was ill prepared, poorly provisioned and probably wearing a cheap pair of sneakers bought out of a metal bin from the supermarket (remember those?). I made mistakes, went hungry & thirsty, got blisters on top of blisters and had a ball doing it!

I would hate to learn that Ziggy, or anyone else for that matter, went away from ETS with the impression that unless you can go toe to toe with Les Stroud, you'd better just stay home and leave the outdoor stuff to the professionals.