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Accelerate Your Bushcraft Learning | Bushcraft Show 2017 Main Stage Presentation

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paulkirtley.co.uk It’s often said that you can’t learn bushcraft skills overnight, that there is always more to learn, that many skills take years of practice to even approach mastery. So, how does the average person with a job and a combination of any or all of kids, mortgage, family commitments, weekly shopping, gardening, DIY, and who doesn’t live outdoors, make significant progress with these skills?

Links mentioned in the above video:

paulkirtley.co.uk/skills-list/

Tags: bushcraft,survival,skills,skill acquisition,learning,knowledge,learning process,learning bushcraft,how to learn bushcraft,paul kirtley,bushcraft instructor,bushcraft teaching experience,accelerate learning,how to accelerate learning,how to accelerate bushcraft learning,accelerating bushcraft learning,bushcraft show,bushcraft show presentation,main stage presentation,prepping,preparedness,pareto,80:20,80:20 principle,pareto principle

Video Transcription

morning everyone morning who's got a hangover I've got that shift I've got a G you up for the day get you motivated get you motivated so title of my talk is accelerating your bushcraft learning the premise of the talk really is on the one hand we have quite a few bushcraft and survival experts saying this stuff takes a lifetime to learn I've been studying it since I was 2 I was raised by wolves I still don't know everything and on the other hand you have a lot of people who are interested in bushcraft skills they want to learn bushcraft skills they want to apply bushcraft skills but you've got a full-time job you've got kids you've got responsibilities you've got other interests so how do you marry those two things together how do you how do you get good at something that takes a lifetime to learn when you haven't got a lifetime to do it that's kind of where I'm coming from how do you get up the curve to use a cliche how do you get up that learning curve quicker so there's only some random questions in the middle of this hopefully it all comes together I don't want you to shout out the answer to this just have a think about it while half still half listening is what I'm going to say in it in a second have a think about the answer to this question how many words are there in the English language just have a number in your head in the next few minutes how many words are in the Oxford English Dictionary how many words second question for you who had absolutely no idea who I am be honest this guy superb good that's less than normal I'm doing well okay so for the benefit of this chap here and my name is Paul curtly and you can find out more about me on my blog or correctly drop coat UK there's lots of stuff there lots of information there that be useful to you all of it is it's free and I've been teaching bushcraft full-time for quite a long time and I've had my own company frontier bushcraft that started that we're in our seventh year started in 2010 before that I was full time course director at Woodlawn limited Rainiers company and before that I was part-time so I've been involved in teaching bushcraft for the best part of 15 years and most of that full time so I've got some thoughts on how to teach this subject and how to get people to a competent level as quickly as possible and that's some of that I want to share with you and also my own journey of how did I get up the curb how did I learn things how did I get in a position where I was to be able to stand in front of people demonstrate things teach things and talk to you today so does anybody got any idea who this fellow is how'd you be this would be some random questions random questions okay this fellow was an Italian vilfredo pareto there's a photograph of him and he came up with what's known as the Pareto principle in 1906 he was looking at the division of wealth the inequality of wealth in Italy not a new subject part of the election our election debate at the moment the inequality in society and Pareto was looking at how wealth is distributed and one thing he noticed was that twenty percent of the population in Italy owned 80% of the land he also noticed use a keen gardener which we can all appreciate your likes plants like nature he noticed that 80% of the peas that his garden produce came from 20% of the pods and eaten this is interesting and he did some more study and it's that that has become better known as the 80/20 principle

and it's worth understanding that they're two separate sets 80% of one thing and 20% of another thing so you could have 95 and 5 you could have 80 and 17 they don't have to add up to a hundred that's the important thing but the important thing to understand is the relationship isn't linear yet 20% of the people own 80% of the land 20 percent of the people's 80 percent so the the other 20% is made up by the other 80 percent it's not a straight line it's not proportional another non sequitur random question who's read this book come on be honest who's read it recently excellent good and how about this one less popular maybe and we read this one excellent good I'll come back to that who knows who this fella is come on he's early

give me something excellent Bruce and can Emma you remember the game show that he was presenting there the clues in the photo Vince please was it play your cards right anybody agree with that excellent good and what was his catchphrase what did it what did he ask what was the question he asked higher or lower higher or lower so we're going to play that game a little bit how many words in English I'm going to I'm going to say 75,000 lower come on shout lower higher higher higher

okay there are in the Oxford English Dictionary the 20 volume Oxford English Dictionary there are 170 1476 words in Spanish there are a hundred thousand-plus words and in French there's also a hundred thousand-plus words

so question is how many words do we need to actually had about many words that we need do we all know 170 1000 words and that's not including the obsolete words the historically used words that we don't really used as another about hundred there's about another 50,000 of those so how many words do we actually need how many words do you actually need to learn Spanish anybody here speak Spanish conversationally one person or two person two people well that French maybe more people speak French few more people most people here I'd imagine a British say giving us about three people in the room we can speak foreign language so how many words do I need well the answers actually to be perceived as conversationally fluent you need between 2,000 and 3,000 words of vocabulary I'm not talking about grammar just soften out the vocab so in languages where there's over 100,000 words if you know 2 to 3 thousand of them you perceive this conversationally fluent and if you make a list of the words in English ranked by how often they're used in saying common writing the most common word can everybody see that the most common word is that which isn't that surprising I guess second most common is of and the third most common is and and so on and so forth and there's a list there of the first hundred and if you actually look at how often they're used so that is the most frequently used word seven percent of written language in general uses of newspapers blogs general general books that you might need to not specialist text yet seven percent is the 3.5% is of 2.7% and if you knew those three words just three words you picked up a piece of English writing you know 13% of the words on average so use now you have 13% comprehension of the actual words on the page if you just knew three and you can chart that yet you get more bang for your buck early on so you learn the most frequent words first you get an increase in comprehension as you learn the less frequently used ones the incremental increase in comprehension is less so dr. Zeus how many words do you think are in that book gone was it a guess fifty higher or lower will go lower than most people higher 236 I think I know where the 50 is coming from green eggs and ham now dr. Zeus wrote Cat in the Hat and he used to dance vetrix words and then he had a bet with his publisher that he couldn't write a similar book and a similarly popular book with fewer words and they bet 50 and so how'd fifty words it only has 50 different words in that book and if you don't believe me those are the words that's the only word so if you know those fifty words you can understand everything in that book so everyday writing if you know the first 25 most used words you'll understand 33% of everything that's written on average first 100 words 50% thousand words 89 percent and first 3000 was 95% and this is where that 2000 to 3000 comes from if you learn the most used words first you get up that curve more quickly

you become conversationally fluent more rapidly and if you could learn a hundred to two hundred words a day you could become conversationally fluent in a language within two three four weeks surprising is not going to take a lifetime if you learn the right stuff but

so what our f has this got to do with bushcraft those of you that didn't think you had a hangover maybe you're thinking maybe I do have a hangout these guys making no sense whatsoever okay the not Bible it is Sunday after all in the Church of bush cries and we have the not Bible this is the Ashley book of nots does anybody own this book go and find it if you are not nerd it has over 3,800 knots in it that's enough to send people who have not phobia into some sort of fit you know you have people who go I don't know any knots I can't do not 3,800 not do you need to know 3,800 not to get by in life no and that's kind of the point so how many knots do you need to know well I would posit 10 to 50 depending on what you do yeah 10 knots I've written a list and I've talked about a lot last year watch my presentation last year it's online but I offered this suggestion of skills that are a good baseline of bushcraft skills outdoor skills to have and in that I made some lists and I suggested that if you needed to know 10 knot these were a useful useful selection for most things that you need to do okay we're not including specialist tarp knots and russek's and things but just to get by there are 10 knots there that will get you by in a lot of situations including some climbing situations mounting leader syllabus these days contains the overhand knot that's it there's no Bolin's or anything in there anymore just one knots applied in different ways so coming on to the heart of gosh stress not so important I would suggest not so possible stress we all tight our hammocks tie things into our canoes typings onto sleds tie things on hanging things up from trees whatever it is we need some knots but at the heart of bushcraft is a knowledge of nature and I'm happy to argue that until the cows come home not about shiny knives not about canvas those things are nice to have with their equipment choices at the heart of the skill set is a knowledge of nature practical knowledge of nature how do I use the resources that are out there so let's consider trees and we'll apply purrito a little bit so let's ask the question what proportion of species do we need to know in order to achieve what we want to achieve in our outdoor life in our bushcraft life in applying our bushcraft skills what tree species do we need to know so we can kind of think about the world in this way what do we need to know what would be nice to know what do we just not need to know at all and that might seem a bit dismissive but you can learn that if you want but what do they need to know to do the things that I want to do most of the time how many words do I need to know to have a conversation with some person in a Spanish bar when I'm on a holiday it's not all of them so consider learning a hundred trees versus learning twenty-five trees you are not necessarily going to quadruple the number of Tinder's that you know by learning an extra 75 trees you are not necessarily going to learn the number of bit quadruple the number of barks that you know you can make containers out of by quadrupling the number of trees that you know if you learn the right twenty-five trees first you've got more utility you've got more ability than learning the least useful twenty-five trees first the same as with learning the right words first to become fluent in bushcraft if you learn the right words first if you learn the right trees first that's the analogy in this case but we can apply to plants fungi so get the biggest bang for your buck from those first few so how do we get there how do we get to that list how do we get to the 25 you should learn first well by asking the right questions is how we do it asking the right questions so we can ask the question which species are most widespread here's a map and everybody see that I can't see what you can yeah this is a distribution map so it's the world laid out flat as you generally see it in an atlas of the world and the green is a distribution of a plant it's actually a a woody plant so by woody plant we mean shrubs and trees and this is the most widespread woody plant who would like to hazard a guess as to what it is juniper yes it's juniper well then the most widespread woody plant not just in the northern hemisphere but generally is the most widely distributed woody plant on planet earth is juniper how many people here other than drinking gin maybe last night how many people here other than drinking gin have ever used juniper for any thing in bushcraft Andrew so this is my point the most widely distributed plant that does have prescribed uses virtually nobody here has ever used it so you're learning the wrong word first so these are the juniper berries use for flavoring in June very good in stews but it's also very good for friction fire lighting the bark is good for tinder makes a good bird's nest tinder bundle the woods can be used for friction handle has bow-drill parts works very well and it's the most widely distributed plant on the planet and then if we start looking at other widely distributed species shouldn't be a great surprise silver birch in Western Europe and Scandinavia that's the distribution they're widely distributed and looking more widely at Eurasia

Silver Birch through Eastern Europe all the way to Sakhalin and Kamchatka on the east of Russia very widely distributed similar species paper birch through North America the birch that birch bark canoes were made from and you can see why look at the overlap of distribution of that species with canoe Country classic canoe country Canadian shield from Hudson's Bay down to the Great Lakes and beyond that is where the birch bark canoe was born that's the distribution of paper birch so then we look at most widely distributed we're going to get some very very useful trees in a roundabout way what we're going to ask which is the most common because they might be widely distributed but there might not be many of them in a particular place you might you might have to go quite a way in an area to find one so what we're also interested in what's most common but again asking that question we come up with some similar answers we're going to come up with some different answers as well we're going to come up with some similar answers and one of them is birch where you get one but you typically get many boats you don't tend to find them just on their own whereas you trees for example if you know any Woodlands we usually you might get a few clustered together but they tend to be isolated stand forests of northern Scandinavia lots of Norway spruce lots of Scots pine the occasional Rowan there aren't many you don't get stands of them mountain ash so birch you get a lot together same in North America the North American species you get a lot together so they're widespread but they're also common where they do occur that's another tick that should be quite high up our list another question to ask and not just about trees but whatever you want to be able to do what's the most useful species to know like if I want to do friction fire lighting things like oak and home being are not useful to know because they're just too hard there are other species which are more useful to know

so silver birch comes up again as being very useful uses for silver birch gone shouts them out but of audience participation starting a fire how might we start a fire with silver birch scraping the bark dropping up dropping a star come to excellent how else making pots making containers yet we can make containers with but how else might we like to fire with it what else can be using fire lighting that's up for violating you can drink that you can make wine out of it tard to set fire to it whereas other resonance apps yeah absolutely yeah

first half you can make birch - yeah how else might how else can we use virtues highlighting but about it yes which bit it is early isn't it kindling which bit the small twigs for kindling excellent what helps so the rest of the tree yeah you can use it could we do friction fire lighting with birch yeah you can it's not the best but it does work what else could we use silver birch Hall yet you can you can use bindings you can listen kind of wizzy them up they're not the best with these but you can which is a part could we use recorded your bindings roots roots can be used for bindings so you are learning some bushcraft stuff today what else can we use birch for washing who said washing which bit the leaves that got SAP and in in the leaves so you can use them for washing so fire carving nobody said carving a lot of Swedish handicraft coasters cooks is whatever you want to call them spoons lots of stuff made out of birch so from the leaves

SAP can be used to be drunk can be used to

make other things tar dry distillation of the bark Russian oil containers baskets baskets can be made whether it's woven baskets so it strips a bath woven together or whether it's solid sheets of Bath stitched together with roots and footwear even has been made out of birch bark again using that sort of waving basket principle you can make quilter arrows from woven strips of birch bark you can make she'd for knives

lots and lots so this is a tree that a lot of people consider a weave highly highly useful Scott spines another similar on fire it has many uses from fine kindling through to friction fire through to using the resins vitamin C pine needle tea is rich in vitamin C in the further north we go where it's colder it's richer in vitamin soon the inner bark can be used dried ground used as a flour substitute the Finns who fought the Russians in the winter wall that happened just before the Second World War and the Finnish Russian border augmented their flour rations by using the inner bark of Scots pine to bulk out the flour for making their bread one of the reasons why they were so effective resin again cordage roots for bindings and then it also throws up other species as we look wider Eastern white cedar for example on the eastern part of the United States and into southeastern Canada cordage fibrous outer bark fire and there's lots of uses fibrous outer bark for tinder friction very good friction fire lighting wood feather sticks very nice fine grain straight braid nice to carve makes beautiful feather sticks baskets can be used to be made from there the woven bark but also the wood can be split so finally that baskets can be made matsing can be made from the tree as well from the bath there are also those fine see the canoe ribs that get put in birch bark canoes and even cedar strip canoes see the canvas canoes rather and medicinal uses again rich in vitamin C one of the other names for the Cedars Eastern white cedar rest and wet cedar is our boar V tie The Tree of Life lots of medicinal uses and in particular rich in vitamin C and there was certainly some European sailors who didn't die of scurvy because natives gave them cedar tea to drink and they warded off prevented the further deterioration due to scurvy so we can ask these questions what widespread juniper birch what's calming where it occurs and what's useful and if we intersect those questions we come up with those those words if you like that you should learn first to get the fluency and to which species do we learn first to get the fluency that we can do as many things as we possibly can so that species but what that skills what should we learn first which skills again what do you want to be able to do start with the answer think about the results we don't all want the same things from our outdoor life we've got different aspirations we want to be able to do different things some people want to make tough journeys some people want to be super comfortable and overnight camps some people want to make a birch bark canoe other people have got no interest in that but they might want to carve loads and loads of cups and spoons that some people might want to make baskets what do you want to be able to do if you want to be able to do all of those things but asking what you want to do then it makes you ask the right questions otherwise and again does that skills list there that you can download one thing I would say that you should do I used to teach jiu-jitsu I used to teach martial arts for a while and I studied for a long time what you notice with people particularly guys they come in they want to get a belt I want to do a grading get a yellow belt so they come in and they you teach them the basics and they go for the yellow belt grading after three or six months and they get the yellow belt and they come back and then they want to get their orange belt and they come back and be trained and they do the orange felt maybe three or six months later but if you if you rush that if you don't consolidate those basics when they get to purple blue belt brown belt if the basics aren't solid you have to kind of spend remedial time because if you keep trying to rush through everything and the reason the basics of the basics is because they form the foundation they form that basis on which you build everything else so it's the same with bushcraft a lot of people want to rush to more complicated things they want to rush to more advanced things but it's the basics that are solid that will will help and if you're if you're slow inefficient with the basics you don't have as much time to spend on the more advanced stuff ultimately so I would say obsess that with the basics yet there's an increasing amount of people sharing on social media and I'm not judging that at all I suggest this on social media but what that does allow is a window into people's worlds and a window into people's capabilities in a window into where they're at with their skills and what I see a lot of is really bad feather sticks for example really really bad

yeah and it's normally to try and post a picture of some new knife they've got well I've got this new knife or carve a few curls but middle said the stick nice yeah I am being sarcastic am taking a Mickey because what's important is not the nice the important thing is the skill if you're really interested in Busch dress yet the important thing is the skill that's so obsessed on it obsess about it yet the people that I've known that have got best who are the most competent in bushcraft whether it's Ray Mears who you'll hear from later today people that have worked for me people I've worked with they've got one thing in common is that they obsess about skills they don't just go yeah I've done that I've got that I've mastered that on to next yet ok bow drill I've done it with one wood once right I've mastered that and I move our hand drill yeah I did it once without getting blisters I've mastered that right yeah I've done a bit of cordage with lime bark yet that's not how you get good at this stuff you get good at this stuff by doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and focusing on the most important things so identify the most important things those important 2,000 to 3,000 words if you like rather than 170 1000 words rather than trying to learn the whole lots of English dictionary badly learn the most important things for you for what you want to do and obsessively get good at them ray Goodwin who will be talking on the stage tomorrow morning is the same with canoeing he's an obsessive little man yeah and I say that with the greatest warmth in my heart that that's why he's such a great canoeing technician that's why he's technically so good in a boat he's like Yoda yeah you look at it there you go how can you be good at paddling and then you seem on the water yeah the same with Yoda and he's just hobbling along and any fights what's his name and Christopher Lee now so obsess about the skill set don't just do it superficially obsess about it deconstruct it own it understand why it works look outside of yourself don't just be satisfied with creating a few crappy curls look at what the best people are able to do and set that as your standard don't make excuses as to why you can't why they can do it and you can't do it yet be obsessive and focus on it that is the wrong piece of advice identify the most important things to learn and then obsessively work on them so you get good at them it's the same as the the osoto gari and the break falling and their basic jujitsu in judo techniques get really good at them if you look at really high level judo players in the Olympics

they've normally got one technique which they're really really really good at and that's their secret weapon because they're obsessed on that thing look at somebody like Neil Adams for example look at a lot of people who are very very good they've got one killer skill like really high performing people they've got one thing they've really obsessed over yep get really good at stop don't try and do everything quickly focus on the things that are important do it well and then you've got the concept of training versus maintenance okay anybody here ever done any weight training yeah okay generally what to put muscle on you need to do certain amount of training but to keep it on you don't need to do as much training you just need to keep it ticking over the same with cardiovascular fitness you've got to focus on it to train it but then you can keep it by by by maintaining it doing it regularly enough but not necessarily at the same training intensity and it's the same with these skills don't try and do a bit less a bit of that be a sort of grasshopper butterfly a bushcraft butterfly where you're flipping around from one flower to the next doing a bit of hand drill doing a bit cordage doing a bit of this little bit of that a bit of natural now yep just focus on one area

get good at that that's your training phase and then when you've got to good level in that go on to the next thing maintain that skill go into maintenance mode on the thing you've obsessed about for a while and focus on that and again here's an application of the 8020 principle of Torito let's spend 80% of the time if you like on the thing that you want to get much better at and 20% of the time maintaining the other stuff that's how you will improve quickly and then keep doing that rather than spending 5% of the time on everything and being crap at everything yeah that's the way to move up the curve keep it simple though I enjoy walking around events like this because you see all sorts of weird and wonderful tarp setups yeah all sorts of McCraney setups and lines and what-have-you one example hot hangers people overcomplicate things

search for the novel novelty is again so social medium might be partly responsible what thing can I post a day that somebody else hasn't posted I'll find something different to post there's this search for novelty I think we tend to do it in life in general don't we new iPhones come out new Samsung's come out new Canon cameras come out new Nick on cameras come out Nike you've just put some new trainers out limited-edition that we're always seeking the novel but the problem is if you constantly trying to do things in new and different ways within bushcraft it doesn't necessarily help you there are tried and tested ways of doing things and also keep it simple stupid and that's not a new concept yeah Thomas Aquinas wrote many many years ago if a thing can be done adequately by means of one it is superfluous to do it by means of several but we observe that nature does not employ two instruments where once of Isis yeah so keep it simple stupid is what you were saying don't over complicate stuff Nature doesn't over complicate stuff we shouldn't over complicate stuff either and I think that applies particularly to bushcraft at some point you might want to find a mentor I haven't talked about anybody teaching you this stuff for anyone I just talked about you working on your skills but at some point finding a mentor can be helpful whether it's carving making canoe paddles making canoes outdoor cookery tracking natural Knab you might want to find somebody who can help you who can answer your questions because yes you can figure a lot this stuff out yourself but Issac Newton was famous for saying he may have seen further than other people but it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants yeah and it's kind of the same thing for you guys this knowledge is already out there the skill sets already out there how to do these things is already out there and yes you can stumble along and and learn on your own and I think there's great value in terms of owning the skills in experimenting yourself that there's nothing wrong with you saying right I'm going to try lots of different materials for feather stick so I'm going to try lots of different materials for bow drill and doing that on your own time but do that once you've got the basics right and what you want to do wearing a mentor might be useful is you may have self-taught bow drill but then you might want to check with somebody who's seen a lot of other people so one of the reasons I'm effective as a teacher and that's what I consider myself I don't consider myself as a blogger or a writer or an expert or any of these labels that get applied to me I'm a teacher that's what I do I teach people I teach people in person and I teach people remotely by sharing articles and bushcraft and survival skills magazine on my blog YouTube videos try and help people with their with their bushcraft journey and the reason I'm effective in helping people even at the distance is because I've seen enough different people trying to learn different skills and I see commonalities I see common failure points and I see common things that I can't we

that will make a step change in your success rate and again I think about bode rule yet somebody can send me a video from Canada or them doing bow drill and I can say move your foot closer to the spindle lock your wrist to your shin use the full length of the string stop moving the bow up and down which means more flex at your elbow just by watching that video they can go and do it and they'll have more success but the only reason I can make those observations is I've because I've had enough students over the years to see all those things and to make those tweaks the same with ray Goodwin if he takes you on the water he can look at your J stroke and say okay make these changes do this you're doing a short day a long day you're not rotating your wrists enough get the blade vertical whatever it is the blades not in the water yet you're leaving it in too long you're not doing enough on the power stroke whatever it is that's because of the experience of teaching and that's the value of a mentor somebody who can help you make those step changes rather than you coming across them by chance and then when you've got that technique good then experiment with lots of different materials and make that skill your own so also I would say make journeys and I don't mean that you have to go walking in the hindu community brush for a year what I mean is go and apply the skills at some point even if it's an overnighter yet it's all well and good sitting in the woods practicing your bow drill or practicing your feather sticks or practicing your tarp setups or thinking about your natural navigation skills but take the opportunity it might be a little bit contrived but take the opportunity to go and apply it go and plan a little journey it could just be a weekend set off on the Saturday morning go for a hike hike until an hour before sunset set up apply everything that you want to apply get up and move on because you have to then do things efficiently maybe you decide you want to light your fire with bow drill and you haven't collected any materials and you have to collect them along the way while you do in your hike apply make journeys making journeys makes you efficient making journey makes you efficient with your skills it makes you efficient with your admin makes you be able to do things in real time rather than kind of training time bit of pressure maybe it's raining maybe you're cold maybe you're hungry maybe you're irritated with your mate because he's going slow whatever it is it puts into a real context and for me making journeys whether it's hiking trips in the UK to new trips in the UK canoe trips in Canada snowshoeing trips in the Arctic forests that's what really hones my skills I'll do another axe demo tomorrow I did one yesterday I'll do an axe demo down at our stall at frontier the reason I got good at those skills is not because I taught many many bushcraft courses teaching those skills the thing that got me good at those skills was making journeys in the northern forest in winter where I had to be efficient with my axe skills because we needed them every single day so look at what interests you what piqued your interest identify the skills and knowledge that's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck in those areas find a mentor if you need to to help you get the technique right apply that as much as possible practice as much as possible make that steel your own and make journeys again not a new concept making journeys ok now I'm going to apply the 80/20 principle a little bit by finishing early yeah giving you more time now I've told you everything I need to tell you I don't need to tell anything more there's no point me waffling on for another 15 minutes or 10 minutes but I do have some time for questions I am doing a live asphalt early tomorrow for general questions so I'll do a live all comers answer anything if I can I'll point you in the right direction the right resources tomorrow but in terms of this presentations does anybody have any questions yes

10,000 hours yes yes so the question is how do I feel about 10,000 hours to become an expert yeah I think that has a place particularly with physical skills I think there's some there's some place for that and that's where I'm at with that focusing that obsession part yet you aren't going yes you can have a go at something but to get really good at something you've got to do that repetition yeah we shy away from repetition and memorization these days but repetition in learning repetition in physical skills is important but practice doesn't make perfect perfect practice makes perfect you have to be doing the right thing repeatedly too for it to be good if you're just in graining the wrong thing it doesn't get you much further so again going back to that point about getting some external input particularly on physical skills particularly on things that requires some technique get some get if you can get some external input along the way because that will maybe shortcut some of those hours of the frustration my learning that you were the most common flow

that easy

but isn't all about all that content from those words letting stand the context unless you have a paper about my culture

your son will be incredible get out there and then those limited skills have make Leslie yeah that that's right I mean it's a little bit of a cute thing for me to say that you understand 13% I would be more technical director so you recognize 13% of the words on the page yes absolutely understanding is about context understanding was about nuance understanding is about the combination of words yes absolutely and I think it's the same with bushcraft you can understand the individual pieces but I think with any skill and we can go back to the martial arts as well and any any physical skill until you kind of get to an intermediate level where you can start applying things and different combinations that's where the real learning and assimilation of the skill starts yeah so and yeah it's a little bit trite for me to say you've got 13% understanding 13% of recognition recognizing 13% of the words I mean think about learning Chinese for example that might be a better example you don't want to do that now but again it's a similar thing if you want to read a Chinese newspaper they reckon you need to know 3,000 characters that's what and I know no Chinese but and so I could look at a Chinese text and understand none of it but the same principle would apply if you the five most commonly used kanji if you learn those you would recognize them it you wouldn't necessarily know what it meant but you'd recognize them and so you're still fumbling around in the dark to a certain extent but the more of them you learn the more then you can start seeing the stitch together so in it and I would say it's the same with Bush crack yeah you can learn the original techniques but going out and applying and gain to that intermediate stage where your site to be able to improvise and combine things and different ways to other other than what you've been shown as do this do this do this what it's like well I could use this and I'm not using these two things together before that's when you really start to learn the skills but that's what you need those again it's like the yellow belts wanting to be brown belts you've got

those Basics in place in the first place one more question if we've got another question well that is me thank you for your attention

appreciate that very very much and if you've got any further questions come and see me down at frontier we've got some good stuff going down there I'm doing an axe demo tomorrow morning again was it tomorrow afternoon sometime tomorrow have a look at the schedule I'm also doing a live a sport currently here tomorrow morning so factory attention appreciate you being here early on a Sunday particularly those of you that have come to the day it's much appreciated and thank you very much enjoy the rest of your day have a good one okay

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About the Author

Paul Kirtley

Paul Kirtley

Bushcraft, survival skills and outdoor safety with professional instructor Paul Kirtley.

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