How To See More Animals in the Woods

Description

An easy tip for seeing more animals in the woods and expanding your woods awareness. Ideal for bushcrafters, hunters, adventurers, and wanderers. This is a technique I learned and expanded upon from Tristan Gooley, an amazing teacher of how to read the signs of nature.

Visit http://rewildu.com/classes/ for unique educational opportunities in rewilding, wilderness skills, mindfulness, martial arts, primal fitness, homesteading, and more.

Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods,awareness,Camping,Awareness (Quotation Subject)

Video Transcription

if you're looking to expand your awareness in the woods see a few more birds or animals this is a simple technique that can really change your experience when you're out in nature imagine that whenever you go out into the woods

you are carrying with you two circles the one is your circle of perception the other is your circle of disturbance your circle of perception is simply how far around you your awareness expands your circle of disturbance is how far around you animals and birds are alerted to your presence and therefore reacting to you you can probably start to see how this works for most of us when we walk out into the woods maybe not both of you but most people when they walk out into the woods their circle of perception is very small

here's what's happening thinking in their heads as they walk along hmm wonder what huh yeah what am I going to do tomorrow about that you're singing a song in their heads something's going on mentally or even if we're seasoned outdoors people our circle of awareness can become small especially when we're doing something like tracking looking down studying that track and our perceptions narrow down onto that one little thing below us but we're not sensing anything else finally our circle of perception becomes small because our culture bombarding us always with a lot of stimulation dolls down our senses so we don't have the basic sensory awareness that we would have if for instance we're living in the woods

like my student up on the ridge the other hand our circle of disturbance is very big

you're trudging through the woods making lots of noise stepping on things cracking things we're talking to our companions and very loud voices that animals can hear from far far away over the next ridge through the next Valley you can see here I have a very small circle of perception very large circle of disturbance so for most of us when we go into the woods we're seeing only our disturbance the ripples and reactions of our loud presence in the woods so here we are you can imagine yourself walking through the woods we're in our little circle of perception and that big circle of disturbance if we can start switch those sizes then something really cool happens and if we can even take it further to make our circle of perception bigger then our circle of disturbance then we really start to have close encounters with the creatures of the woodlands pulling this off it's not as tough as it sounds the simplest way to do it if you're by yourself is to go someplace in the woods and just sit silently and still your circle of disturbances very rapidly gonna close in until it's very small around you your circle of awareness as long as you can keep your mind from going on will it stand out and if you see some cool things if you're with people you can close up and shrink your circle of disturbance by simply walking more slowly and more deliberately and widening down that conversation it's remarkable when you're standing next to somebody how quietly you can skate and still hear each other expanding your circle of perception is a little bit more difficult than shrinking that circle of disturbance I've covered a little bit in some other videos about awareness in the woods I'm not gonna go in depth right now but I'll just give one tip and that is to tune into our senses as we start to become students of what's going on in our mind we'll find that really in a way our mind can only do one thing at a time so if it's tuned in to the senses to the birds to the wind to the actual sensations that I'm having it has a tough time thinking it's a simple practice when your mind wanders off into thoughts bring it back to the immediacy of your sensory experience if you're beginning this practice it can help to choose one thing to tune into like this chickadee sound they're calling out to each other every time my mind starts wandering off come back to the chickadee sound shrinking your circle of disturbance expanding your circle of awareness just keeping that in mind that you're carrying these two circles with you every time you go into the woods just doing that just start getting you walking a little bit more quietly talking a little more quietly in tuning in to your surroundings with a little bit more of your sensory capability you

I hope this helps you connect here with nature a little bit more and let me know in the comments if you try it out if you've had experiences with this and if you do try it out and you see anything really cool be sure to let me know thanks for watching