Tim MacWelch shares basic skills of self-reliance young men need for emergency preparedness.
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In an era where few young men have laborious chores, it’s common that modern males don’t pick up the kinds of manual skills that their grandfathers and great grandfathers learned through the school of “hard knocks”. I was very fortunate to have a father who had an intuitive knowledge of how things worked – and how to repair them when they stopped working. Now I find myself in a self-made role of teacher, sharing this independent spirit and do-it-yourself attitude with the next generation (and some of my peers and a few of my elders). How am I sharing this back-to-basics know how with the world? In the grittiest, dirtiest and most hands-on manner possible – I started a survival school.
And for the past 18 years, I have been teaching wilderness survival and emergency preparedness skills to a wide range of folks, most of whom did not grow up with MacGyver as a father and a farm to roam like I did. Over the years, I have learned to strip away all the “wants” of the world to focus only on the basic “needs” of life. This has given me a reverence for self-reliance that has completely infused my life, and the lives of my wife and children. In the spirit of this liberated lifestyle, I’d like to share seven basic skills of self-reliance that I believe every young man should know (and the ladies as well). These skills should not just be handy throughout a person’s lifetime, but I believe they will set them on the path to real-world problem solving and greater independence.
KNOW BASIC FIRST AID
Even knowing how to take care of minor injuries can make a big difference in a difficult situation. Add in some CPR training and the Heimlich maneuver, and you’re well on your way to the foundations of medical care.
COOKING
This doesn’t mean pouring boiling water over a cup of noodles. Basic cooking knowledge encompasses how to stay healthy, and how to safely prepare the food you’ve stored and that you hunt or gather—as well as avoiding kitchen injuries and foodborne illness.
PLANTING A GARDEN
Learning to properly cultivate plants isn’t just about having pretty flowers or a pot of herbs at your window; it’s another of our oldest skills—and one that you could potentially use to grow your own food.
SEW
It’s not just a skill for little old-fashioned grandmas. Learning to sew means you can patch up a damaged piece of clothing or make a new one. It’s a skill that’s transferable to fixing other items and, to a degree, even to medical care (stitching wounds).
BUILD A FIRE
This is one of humanity’s oldest and most important skills. Even if you have matches or a lighter, you should learn how to start a fire without them; it’s a skill that might save your life.
READ A MAP
Don’t just rely on a GPS or smartphone’s navigation software. Know your way around a real map, on paper. Learn how to find where you are and how to get where you’re going—and you should know how a compass works, too.
LEARN BASIC AUTO CARE
This is one of those skill sets you might think you have a good handle on – but it pays to be sure. At the least, you should know how to change a tire, as well as your oil and filters.
And for many more DIY skills, you can check out my new book, Prepare For Anything, which will be available later this month.
Flickr: Webb Zann/Flickr