Quote:
I never learned to do this properly, as it was impressed upon me at a young age that this method was overly time consuming and used up too much valuable energy in an emergency situation.


I was told the same over and over again so after a while I guess I became conditioned to assume I couldn't possibly make it work. Now I'm surprised how much easier it is than I thought.

I'd still take my fire steel over the bow drill any time but the bottom line is, if I can make the bow drill work, pretty much anyone can. There's nothing mystical about it. And what effort I spent yesterday is negligible compared to having a fire in a survival situation IMHO.

Now I just have to practice it some more until I can do it blindfolded in the middle of a storm. LOL