Hot Survival Training Posts


How To: Eat lichen (Cladonia)
Learn from Green Deane about lichen, a potential food found everywhere on earth.

How To: Eat Spiderwort (Tradescantia)
Learn from Green Deane about Spiderwort a spring green that is available for two or more seasons of the year.

How To: Make a primitive bowl
Create a primitive bowl in the woods. You will want to build a fire and transfer hot coals. Part 1 of 2 - How to Make a primitive bowl.

How To: Use a can opener on your Swiss Army knife
This video shows you how to use a can opener, like the ones found on Swiss Army knives. There's also a strange fruit in this video, something called lychees. So, if you're ever in need of opening a can of lychees in the woods, this is the video to watch.

How To: Join parallel sticks with shear lashing
Join parallel sticks with shear lashing. Potentially--if you did this to enough sticks--you could build a house this way. It might take one hundred years but, let's face it, you probably have time if you are on this site.

How To: Secure a clove hitch knot
Tie a clove hitch knot again, again, and again.

How To: Make a scout pioneering tripod structure
Make a scout pioneering tripod structure with tips from this video.

How To: Tie a highwayman's or 47's hitch knot
The highwayman\47s hitch knot is usually used when using a canoe.

How To: Tie the tautline hitch knot
If you never were a scout, or you've forgotten all your skills, this how-to video is for you. If the loop is under weight, the knot will not slip, but you will still be able to adjust the size of the loop by pulling down on the knot by hand. Perfect for all of our tarp tying needs. Watch this video survival training tutorial and learn how to tie the tautline hitch knot.

How To: Make mosquito repellent
Ray is in the outback making smudge fires out of termite mounds to ward away the creepy crawlies, bugs and mosquitos.

How To: Survive interrogation
Andy McNab survived six weeks of torture and interrogation in Iraq. He gives us an exclusive guide on how to get through it and win the physical and psychological battle. Watch now! Survive interrogation.

How To: Recycle your own urine
Sounds gross, but urine is actually the most sterile of our body's wastes, and is recyclable if needed. This video shows you how to do it at home. Unfortunately, it probably won't help you much in an emergency unless you carry around sugar and charcol at all times.

How To: Navigate through the jungle
When in the jungle, everything can look the same. Myke demonstrates how to navigate through the jungle. Using tress, Myke shows you how to find streams, rivers and tree lines to help you keep a steady path. He also illustrates how to create big fires to make black smoke signals. Navigate through the jungle.

How To: Remove Maggots from Your Eyeball
While maggots living in human eyeballs isn't necessarily a problem in the states, it could happen to you one day if a fly decides your warm eyeball is a suitable place for its larvae. If this rare event should happen, before you start gouging your eyeball out, remember this trick from National Geographic explorer and engineer Albert Lin and everything will be okay.

How To: Survive an Icy Walkway Without Falling
The months of constant snowfall and freezing temperatures seems endless once the excitement of the first snowfall fades, and you become weary of traversing black ice and other slippery streets.

How To: Use a Light Bulb and the Sun to Make a Fire
Don't throw away your dead light bulbs, they may come in handy one day. This video will show you how to start a fire using a dead lightbulb. And no electricity. The tricky part is emptying out the insides, but this can be done with sticks and stones, assuming you're in a survival situation and just happen to have a light bulb with you for whatever reason.

How To: MAKE FIRE with a MAGNIFYING GLASS
90 seconds that could save your life. How to actually MAKE A FIRE with a lens, rather than just burning a hole in a leaf. (Or frying ants, which seems to be the other thing that kids like to do with magnifying glasses.) By forming your target material into an efficient ball, you will be able to start a fire even with very small lenses. Like less than an inch across small. The finer the individual fibres, and the more densely they are packed, the more effective is your ball of smigtin (smoulde...

How To: Make a Fire Using the Hand Drill Method
Here's a great video that shows how make make a hand drill fire from scratch using Stone Age tools...

How To: Heat Your Home in an Emergency Without Gas Using Flower Pots & Candles
Not having power can make everyday tasks really difficult if you're unprepared. You have to find new ways to do things like cook dinner and charge your devices, and if it happens during the winter, you also have to figure out how to heat your home.

How To: Make a Soda Can Stove
Survive the apocalypse by learning how to make a stove out of nothing but a soda can!

How To: Call for Help in Case You Wake Up in a Foreign Country
In most countries, there is one single emergency telephone number that allows you to contact local emergency services when in need of assistance. In the United States, that number is 911, which most of us know by the time we're able to speak, unless you're Buckwheat and Porky.

How To: Terrorist Cheatsheet Explains How to Avoid a Drone Strike
The expanding U.S drone war in the Middle East has sparked controversy back at home, with many Americans protesting against the unmanned airstrikes. The attacks, which are carried out from a network of secret bases around the world, have been scrutinized for their lack of transparency with their "kill list" and ability to supersede the judicial system and assassinate any U.S. citizens that are involved with terrorist groups. To top it off, many are incensed with the accidental killings of civ...

How To: The End of the World Survival Guide: Staying Alive During an Alien Invasion
Will the predicted apocalyptic date—December 21st, 2012—really be the end of the world? In this ongoing five-part series, we examine what would happen if zombies, nuclear weapons, cyber wars, earthquakes, or aliens actually destroyed our planet—and how you might survive.

How To: The End of the World Survival Guide: Staying Alive During a Global Cyber War
Will the predicted apocalyptic date—December 21st, 2012—really be the end of the world? In this ongoing five-part series, we examine what would happen if zombies, nuclear weapons, cyber wars, earthquakes, or aliens actually destroyed our planet—and how you might survive.

How To: Build a RanDome Geodesic Emergency Shelter
This method is easy, intuitive and requires very little math. You will need:

How To: Wrap a 550 cord around the handle of a breacher bar
Breacher bars are like the much cooler older brother to the swiss pocket knife. In fact, there's little comparison between the two. A breacher bar, which is a rectangular shaped knife, is used by SWAT teams and bomb techs to easily and quickly cut through and pry open just about anything. But safety comes first.

How To: Make Brazilian bushcraft survival tools: coconut containers, bamboo spoons etc
Brazil is a country rich in natural resources and splendor, making it a great place for outdoor enthusiasts. If you venture into the Brazilian wilderness and find yourself in need of precious survival supplies, or just want to make some cool stuff out of exotic plants, watch this video for instructions on making Brazilian bushcrafts like coconut containers and bamboo spoons.

How To: Make one meter of cordage from 2 leaves of Spiked Aloe plant
In a survival situation making cordage out of plants can enable you to construct apparatus you never would have been able to otherwise and save you life. This video will teach you how to make a meter of cordage out of 2 leaves from a Spiked Aloe plant.

How To: Make solid fuel for starting fires in the wilderness with cotton balls and wax
Tinder is difficult to come by in the best of conditions, but in a damp wilderness survival situation finding it can be downright impossible. Enter this video. It will teach you how to make solid fuel fire starters out of cotton balls and candle wax, which you can use to start a fire even in wet conditions.

How To: Pack basic equipment for a short trip to the wilderness
Brazil has more untamed wilderness than almost anywhere else, so you can trust their survival experts to know what they're doing. In this video a Brazilian survival expert will detail all of the basic supplies that he packs for any trip into the bush and why you should do the same.

How To: Put together a wilderness survival kit in a canvas bag
A compact survival kit is a great piece of gear to bring with you into the wilderness even if you have a larger pack as well, to serve as a backup. This video features a Brazilian wilderness survival expert detailing the contents of his compact survival pouch, a homemade canvas model.

How To: Assemble an every day carry kit, or EDC, for urban survival
Most people can barely be bothered to carry their wallets all the time, let alone a survival kit. When they're all dead from a massive natural disaster or terrorist attack, you'll know you were right to watch this video and prepare an every day carry (EDC) kit that ensure you will have the tools you need to survive with you at all times.

How To: Pack a survival backpack or bug out bag (BOB)
Whether you call it a survival backpack, bug out bag, get home bag, or 72-hour kit, having a backpack full of survival gear is a must for anyone concerned about disaster survival. This video series will show you how to pack an ideal survival backpack that contains everything you need to survive for 72 hours or more in an emergency in a package you can carry on your back.

How To: Assemble a 72-hour load-bearing equipment (LBE) survival kit
If you find yourself in a wilderness survival situation that demands a high degree of mobility, you're better off with a load-bearing equipment (LBE) system than a traditional survival backpack. This video will teach you how to assemble an LBE that will allow you to survive on the move for 1-3 days until you can find a more permanent solution.

How To: Cook with an ESBIT stove for camping or survival situations
There are all sorts of small survival stoves available, and the ESBIT stoves are some of the best. This video will teach you how to use an ESBIT stove to start a fire, even in the rain, and cooke a delicious and healthy backpacking meal on it.

How To: Get the right storebought food for a survival kit
Many survivalists believe that MRE's are the way to go for survival food supplies, but they are expensive for civilians and there are storebought options that work just as well. This video will teach you about a wide variety of storebought foods that will keep for ages and make great fuel for any survival kit.

How To: Make a mini fishing kit to include in your survival gear
Fishing is a great way to acquire meat in a survival situation, but bringing fishing gear in a survival gear kit is very space-consuming. This video will teach you how to make a complete mini fishing kit for packing in your survival bag that contains everything you need for small-scale fishing and could give you the food you need to survive.

How To: Pack the 10 most important survival essential for any trip to the wilderness
If you venture out into the wilderness without at least the 10 pieces of gear described in this video, you are unprepared for an emergency situation. This is a great video for beginning outdoorspeople that will teach you about the ten most important survival gear pieces to bring with you on any trip into the wilderness.

How To: Put together an every day carry (EDC) kit for emergency survival situations
An every day carry (EDC) kit could be the difference between life and death if you are caught away from home in a disaster. This video will show you what you should include in a EDC that you will carry with you at all times, ensuring that you are never unprepared in case the worst happens.

How To: Pack an EDC, or every day carry, for urban survival situations
An EDC, or every day carry, is a survival it meant to be carried at all times in case of a disaster. This video will teach you how to assemble a compact and effective EDC that will make you prepared for most urban survival situations.