Survival Training School of California
Established over a decade ago, Survival Training School of California is the ideal training ground for those looking for a survival vacation. It is located mainly in California but also provides private courses across the globe. The courses are intended for both kids and grown-ups, and vary from learning how to survive in the wild, to combat training, to preparedness for urban disasters. Their experts are fully dedicated to making you an expert in the field of your choosing.
Most of their courses are short and focused, ranging from 2 to 7 days. Ben choose a special course, where he would have one-month intensive training and additionally 2 weeks without anything in the forest.
The amount of knowledge they offer is incredible. You can learn critical survival skills, identification and healing with wild plants, stone tool making, traps and tracking, maps and compass usage, climate survival, and so much more.
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Ben arrived at 10 pm at the school. He was giving a small chamber, where he slept the first night.
The next morning, a man came into Ben's room and woke him up.
´How early is it? Who woke me up?´
Ben looked firstly at the man. He was a 2m tall baldhead, who wore a camouflage T-shirt with grey hiking pants.
Secondly, he looked at his watch, it was 7 am. Ben was taken aback.
´How comes that I slept so much? I normally sleep between 7 and 8 hours. Could it be that the genome editing is making my body feeling tired? Or is it the flight? No. Shouldn't be. Maybe, I sleep so much because I have holidays and my body was quite stressed by all the working and training?!´
„Have you finished thinking? School begins here at 7 am. I hate latecomers, you have 15 min to take your breakfast and change your clothes! If you are one minute too late, you will be severely punished." Said the baldie, leaving the room.
´Yeah. This is what I meant with feeling like in holidays.´
Ben did exactly what the baldie ordered.
The baldie didn't say where he had to be, so after asking a student, he went to the entry of the forest.
The baldie waited with a group at the entry.
„Hello everyone, my name is James Frost. I will be your teacher for the intensive basic course. In these 2 weeks, you will learn Finding & Purifying Water. Nothing is more important in a survival situation than having suitable drinking water...
Starting & Tending to a fire. ...
Building a temporary shelter. ...
Navigating & reading a compass. ...
Hunting & foraging for food. ...
Camp Cooking. ...
Dressing a wound. ...
Tying a knot."
The intensive course was full-day and everything would be taught a lot faster. The group consisted of either experienced people or fully motivated people. The course was expensive, but if you could grasp everything taught it could be considered cheap.
The first week passed like a breeze, in his short breaks Ben maintained his calisthenic progress.
In the 2 other weeks, you had to chose which things you wanted to train. Ben choose to learn primitive weapons(bow & arrow, traps, spears, atlatl's, and nets), then improved his swimming and climbing.
Lastly, Ben had to survive for 2 weeks in the wildness.
Ben wasn't in the least nervous about this adventure. His skill made him absorb the lessons like a sponge, he was the fastest learner in his groups. The preparation with books and videos helped Ben even more to learn practical knowledge.
Even James Frost was caught off guard from his learning speed, but what surprised him, even more, is that Ben wanted to go in the forest with only his clothes and a string.
This was so hardcore that even experts would hesitate to do it.
The only worry Ben had, was that he wouldn't have enough nutrients to sustain his muscles.
Before going out of the school, James attached a wristwatch at Ben, which send his location, his heart rate, and gave Ben the possibility to call for help.
The first day is always the most active and interesting. Ben was jogging through the forest until he reached a high rock. He climbed on it and oriented himself. He was looking where he could most likely find water.
Water will be extremely important to survive. The most likely cause of death in wilderness survival isn't starvation or even dehydration. It's hypothermia, except in the summer. But now, it was winter in Santa Ana. Here, the winter wasn't cold enough that water would freeze.
Ben decided to go in the direction, where he saw a Pardalote fly away. While moving, Ben was constantly orienting himself on landmarks such as mountain ranges.
After walking for 20 minutes, he heard the water splashing.
He ran in the direction of the splashing and found a ditch with clear water.
Ben looked for the ingredient to make fire and collected food like edible inner bark, berries, and nuts, while also searching for a natural shelter. Starting a fire will be key to boiling water and cooking food.
After collecting most of the items, Ben picked up two rocks, break one against the other, and got useful tools. He repeated this many times till he had knives, chopper, and hand axes.
With his basic stone tools, Ben constructed a Spindle (drill, bit), a Hearth board (fireboard), a Bearing block (socket, hand-hold), a Bow with a string, a Coal catcher (bark), and a Tinder nest.
The string was the only thing that didn't come from the forest.
For an easy, quick-fire, the fireboard and the spindle both need to be some kind of light, dry, non-resinous wood. The friction required to generate fire with two pieces of green wood or hardwood is enormous!
For the following 20 min, Ben kept going until his arm ached and felt like it will fall off and then did 10 more strokes. Following this, Ben took the spindle off itself to let it launch out.
He looked at the black dust in the notch that has formed while he was bowing. If it continues to smoke, that means that you have coal. Ben poked it out with his knife tip and fanned it with his hand. It held together in a clump and continues to smoke, while Ben kept fanning it.
As the coal was starting glowing red. Ben removed the fireboard from the bark and sprinkled extra powder, which had built up around the notch, on the coal to keep it going.
Subsequently, he put the tinder bundle on the coal, and in a quick motion turned it over to get the coal in it. Ben softly bunched the bundle around the coal, held it above his head, and blew it into the flame with long sustained breaths. He put it in the fire lay and let it catch on the kindling.
His actions were smooths and without nervousness and resulted in making fire like an expert.
The first day passed with Ben having secured drinkable water, food, and a basic shelter.
The following days, Ben fished in the stream, increased his hunting/collecting area, improved his shelter, made more and more weapons, and also had more time to do sports.
After the first week, Ben had perfected his equipment and planned to act more aggressively.
He explored the rest of the forest, hunted different animals, and found helpful material to improve his belongings even more. In these days, a new side was developing in Ben. But what exactly it was, nobody knew!
On the fourteenth day, Ben jogged back to the school, which took approximately 2 hours.
The survival courses ended and Ben received a certificate for his hardcore survival, which precisely described his achievement.