Latest / Buying Local Podcast / Wilderness Survival and Indigenous Education with James Bruchac | Buying Local S3E57

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Wilderness Survival and Indigenous Education with James Bruchac | Buying Local S3E57 · Buying Local Podcast

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OK, welcome back everyone to Buying Local.
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I'm your host, Mike Nelson from 5 Towers Media, joined today by
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Jim Bruschak from I, I mean, I, I can't even say from 'cause you
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do many things. I, I guess today we'll talk
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about where we're, I'll let you talk about moreover, 'cause I'm
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going to mess it up and give a bad description.
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So, Jim, if you don't mind, give us an idea of who we are and
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where we are right now. Sure.
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My name is James Bruschak, author, storyteller, animal
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tracker, cultural educator, all that kind of stuff.
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And right now we're at the Indochina Education Center,
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Greenfield Center, where we do pretty much everything that I
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do. We run courses here focusing on
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things like wilderness survival and animal tracking.
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We do school field trips here that focus on Northeastern
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native culture as well as group team building survival skills.
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We do youth camps here, focusing on all of the above.
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We do wilderness first aid classes here, wilderness first
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responder, and of course we still do martial arts programs
1:00
here as well, everything from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Jyokshan
1:03
karate to Muay Thai. So a lot of things under under
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one roof. And of course a lot of
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storytelling coming from a family of storytellers as well,
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members of the Mohegan Abenaki tribe.
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So grew up hearing a lot of stories, learning a lot about
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that part of my family. And so this place in document,
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which means our land in the Abenaki language, we bring it
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all together. We bring all of the arts of life
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together, from storytelling, culture, survival skills,
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martial arts, all of those things grouped together in the
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idea of arts of life, things that all human beings have in
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our ancestry if we go back far enough.
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If you go back far enough, let me just this equipment it's
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been. It's been around the block.
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It's been around the block, yeah, as we're.
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Well, we are talking about survivals.
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That's true survival situations. Things aren't always.
1:53
No, and that's, I mean, it's a great segue.
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And to be fair, I mean, it's funny because as you're talking
1:58
about all the things, I mean, I've had the personal experience
2:00
for a lot of that stuff. I've done the wilderness
2:02
certification, I've done some of the survival training classes
2:05
with you. I've done Jiu jitsu off and on
2:06
here for years. I think I've got a, a solo Muay
2:10
Thai course under my belt. I hope to get back to that at
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some point. And and I think Judo's got to be
2:16
on the list too at some point here.
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It's just a great place. Thank you.
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I mean, you guys do a lot in the community, around the community.
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And now, of course, you also have the Alliance Center over at
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Wilma. We should probably give a quick
2:29
shout out to that. Yeah, you know, kind of like one
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of the main reasons it's taken me a little while to get back to
2:35
our grown up survival classes is our our Jiu jitsu program, All
2:39
of our martial arts programs exploded post COVID.
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Before COVID, we had a nice size, you know, school, you
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know, about 100 students total after so pre COVID, then post
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COVID we went over 150 and we're still climbing.
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And this facility could only house so much martial arts.
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It's in a different part of the building, but it's limited.
3:00
And so we took a leap. It was scary 'cause we owned
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this facility and we found a great spot in Wilton Mall,
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rented out close to 5000 square foot just for our jiu jitsu
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program, which is our biggest. And we added another 150 members
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since we opened there last year. So that's been a great success
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and things here continue to grow as well.
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But of course, in doing so, making that move allowed for us
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to come back and focus more on things we've done here
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traditionally, like the survival skills, expanding the camps and
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the other programs that we do. Yeah.
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And which I'm really excited. I know we're going to be talking
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a little bit about the survival stuff that you've got coming up.
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I think fire building is going to be the first one, right?
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So, so, but before we get into talking about the survival
3:46
classes that are coming up, I, I feel like we should touch on
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your background and what qualifies you right, to be able
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to teach these kinds of things. I mean, I know you can walk into
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Nadakhana and and see, you know, newspaper clippings of you and
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the rest of your family doing some really great cool stuff.
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Like I like there's you went to Africa.
4:05
Yeah, West Africa. I was actually conceived in West
4:07
Africa. Yeah, My dad during the Vietnam
4:11
era was part of a government program where teachers would go
4:15
to West Africa and basically teach in the English, you know,
4:20
leaning countries. And so he was there as a, as a
4:24
teacher and he also was a track coach.
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And so he and my mom lived there.
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And I, my mom ended up coming home for me to be born, but I
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could have been born in Ghana, West Africa.
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And then years later my father and I went back to West Africa,
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to Mali, West Africa in in the 90s to do a research project on
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the Dagone people in Mali. And that was a fantastic trip
4:49
that we did. So yeah, I have had experience
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in travel in the places like that, as well as Australia,
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parts of Mexico, you know, studying a different indigenous
4:59
cultures besides someone here in the northeast.
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Now, I mean, obviously, and I, you know, I've said this on
5:05
another podcast and not to sound like a fanboy, I think I said
5:08
that the last time, but like, I mean, your family's really
5:10
interesting. You know, everybody, it's not
5:12
like I don't want, you guys don't necessarily have normal
5:16
skills. We'll say I shouldn't say
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normal. That's like the wrong word.
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But it's like you, you, you, you don't necessarily you, you guys
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have a ton of skills and they're not common or average skills
5:27
like your brother's language skills, your dad and his
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experience and all the things that he's done and written
5:33
about. And it's just, it's wild to me.
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I so like as far as your your training or experience or
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getting into all the things that we're going to talk about today,
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whether it's tracking or fire building or survival skills.
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Like how does one was that just that was just a normal Tuesday
5:48
with your dad growing up or like so for.
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My brother and I, it really started with the stories.
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My dad, through A twist of fate, was raised by his grandparents,
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Jesse Bowman, who who had a great influence on his life, who
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was, although visibly native, was very ashamed of his Native
6:08
ancestry. And his grandmother as well had
6:10
mixed Native ancestry. But it was in a time when that
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wasn't something he would be proud of.
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He would, he would basically outright deny it when asked.
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And so my dad, because he was raised in such a way and, and,
6:22
and learning a lot about the natural world and understanding
6:27
connections like that, he really sought out the elders and wanted
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to learn things that his, especially his grandfather was
6:35
too ashamed to teach him. So in college, he began to
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travel around and visit the various elders among the Hutton,
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Ozone, Iroquois people, Abenaki people, and gather stories and
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traditions and learn more about the things that he wouldn't be
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taught. And through that line, we are
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both Abenaki. We also have Mohawk ancestry.
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We also have Mohican Lenape ancestry, as well as a lot of
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Dutch and other European ancestries mixed in.
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And so my dad shared the stories with my brother and I first.
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So these were stories that connected us to this place,
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stories that are from this area, and really got us excited about
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learning more about the natural world through those stories.
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And my dad, who also had went to Cornell University, had a minor
7:21
in zoology. He knew a lot academically about
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the natural world as well. So he would take us out in the
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woods, teach us things, learn about the various plants and
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trees and the animals. And so that was kind of the the
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first introduction stories and then physical time in the woods
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with her dad. And then in my teenage years, my
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dad had an opportunity for both of us to travel to Anchiota, New
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York, to the Six Nations India Museum, where there's a program
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being done by a guy named John Stokes, who had lived for a
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number of years with the Aborigines in Australia.
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He was coming back to the United States and wanting to connect
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with different Native communities and help bring
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Native youth back to the natural world, regain a respect for the
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traditions, the stories. So of course, my dad was
8:15
invited. I was invited, which was
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fantastic. And there was a number of Mohawk
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and other Native people there. And he really lit a fire in me.
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Like he made things that I'd heard from my dad seemed cool
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again in my teenage years, you know, and he had this cool
8:29
Australian accent and he made stories seem cool because by my
8:35
teenage years, my brothers, well, my dad always jokes that
8:38
he would come to tell stories. And we started locking our door
8:41
because it wasn't cool anymore to hear stories from your dad.
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None of the other kids in school were hearing these stories, you
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know. So John kind of gave me that,
8:49
that that anchor and made me want to learn more about the
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things that I was kind of starting to be ashamed of.
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You don't want to be different when you get to, you know,
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junior high and high school. So he made it seem cool and
9:01
eventually, you know, he taught me some new skills.
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I actually learned the bow drill fire from John.
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My dad got it right away. It took me a number of years to
9:08
get it. And the bow drill, that's when
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you're literally you got the and you're put the string on a stick
9:12
and you're trying to make. Fire.
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You got it right away, you know, So it took me a few years later
9:16
in my teens to finally master it and other skills.
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You really made tracking seem cool.
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And then he ended up inviting myself and eventually my brother
9:24
to work as assistant instructors in New Mexico for a program he
9:28
had founded called Hawkeye Training, which was for a mix of
9:33
native and non-native youth to learn traditional survival
9:37
skills. As well as as I mentioned, the
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beginning ideas of the arts of life, storytelling,
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understanding the culture and place mixed in with survival
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skills and martial arts. So that was really where I kind
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of decided this was going to be a part of my life, even when I
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was playing away at college, playing football folks.
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And I've had a lot of Ethica. Almost every summer I would be
10:00
in New Mexico for a few weeks with John Stokes, the tracking
10:03
project and and after college that kind of stuck.
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And I had an opportunity to travel with my dad to West
10:11
Africa to do a part of research project writing about the Dagone
10:14
people. And that inspired me even more.
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So I decided, you know what, I want to start teaching this
10:19
stuff seems cool. And I started out teaching the
10:22
survival skills. And people would always ask me,
10:25
do you know the stories? I'm like, I know the stories,
10:27
but I don't tell them, you know? And eventually sitting around a
10:30
campfire at a wilderness survival gathering, I believe in
10:33
Georgia, actually, I told the story I knew for my dad and they
10:37
liked it. And they asked me if I'd do it
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the next night. And I luckily had a copy of one
10:42
of my dad's books, The Window Go.
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So I had to refresh my memory of some of the other stories.
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And by the end of that week, I felt like, well, I can tell
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stories. And within a year or two, I was
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doing more storytelling than teaching the skills.
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But of course, they really go hand in hand and along the along
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the way met so many different cool people working for National
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Wildlife Federation at their summits in the summer.
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I ended up meeting Doctor James Halfpenny, who was probably the
11:10
world's foremost scientific tracker.
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We've written a few books together on in the Scats and
11:15
Tracks series years later after their first introduction.
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And he allowed, he kind of opened the door for me to go
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learn and play in his backyard, Yellowstone National Park.
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And so that connection allowed me to learn about track animals
11:30
like wolves, Grizzlies, and and that has continued for three
11:34
decades. I've been making trips out there
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and was just able to take my 15 year old daughter Ava out there
11:40
this year and to experience some of the same things.
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There's nothing like getting on the track of a grizzly bear.
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I bet and. Knowing how to be safe in that
11:49
environment and the only scare? Scare the crap out of me.
11:52
Yeah, well, it kind of scared me because I thought my daughter
11:55
would be more scared than she was.
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But she grew up, you know, hearing me about me going out
11:59
there, right? And so I had the problem where
12:03
she kept going too far ahead of us.
12:04
She refused to wear bear spray. We had bear spray and as well as
12:08
a a 357 backup I. Was gonna ask you if you were
12:11
armed as well in the. One of the areas not in the
12:14
National Park, but we were in the Seeley Lake area.
12:16
We were travelling around with actually a good friend, former
12:19
student Zach Clothier, who is now an award-winning landscape
12:24
photographer and camera trap photographer I love.
12:27
Camera trap he. Has phenomenal zachclothier.com
12:30
check it out. I think I've actually seen his
12:32
stuff. Yeah, there's, there's one.
12:34
He won a big award with the bear.
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Grizzly bear. Oh my God.
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With the elk skull. Yeah.
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So. You know that guy?
12:39
He's one of he was one of my students years ago.
12:41
He went on a Yellowstone trip because for years after I made
12:45
this initial connection with Doctor Halfpenny, I started
12:47
bringing people from the east out and we would Co teach in
12:50
Yellowstone tracking skills. Oh, no kidding.
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And Zach went on one of those trips and he loved it so much.
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Originally he was an Adirondack photographer.
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He ended up moving out there and now he is literally a world
13:01
famous photographer. Legitimately, I saw that photo.
13:04
I didn't even know camera trapping was a thing.
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Yeah, I saw that photo and I went and started buying camera
13:09
trap gear so I could set it up because I was like, that is the
13:12
most amazing and. He has a thing he wrote, like
13:14
the book Yeah, on how to do it. And so we've been out several
13:18
times. My partner Leah has been out
13:20
with me as well. She had a great time tracking
13:23
and so we went out this last year and it was like heaven for
13:26
Ava. She grew up in 4 Wheelers and
13:28
things like that. So we were 4 Wheeling in Seeley
13:30
Lake up in the mountains. She had her own four Wheeler and
13:32
visiting these camera traps and so we were in basically where
13:36
that famous picture was taken OK of that grizzly on the elk.
13:40
We went into that area to retrieve a camera and Ava kept
13:44
getting way far ahead of us. So Ava come back.
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Well I could see a bear coming so that was a little scary.
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Luckily everything worked out OK and we ended up checking some of
13:53
the cameras and he has cellular cameras to let him know if it's
13:57
worth checking a trap because there you have, you know, dozens
14:00
of these expensive traps out there.
14:02
It takes a lot of time to visit everyone weekly.
14:04
So set up cellular cameras. So we went and checked some of
14:07
the traps. We saw a couple mountain lions
14:09
and other things. And then we left and we're
14:12
driving back because we're now going back to Bozeman with my
14:15
friend Greg Ricardo, who also worked at the Tracking Project.
14:19
And I get a call from Zach. He goes, you won't believe what
14:21
I just picked up on the side of the camera.
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I go, what? Within an hour of us leaving,
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that same exact grizzly bear that is in that picture went by
14:31
the camera that we had just been at.
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Wow. So it was probably in the
14:36
vicinity while my daughter was walking a little too far ahead.
14:40
And so that was a pretty cool experience and and still didn't
14:43
freak her out. And later on, he also had
14:45
pictures of three mountain lions on that Cam, actually on a
14:49
nearby camera all together. Probably related.
14:53
Yeah. So just really, really cool
14:55
stuff. Well, and let me just stop it
14:58
real quick just to explain to anybody wondering what a camera
15:01
trap is. Essentially you take a digital
15:04
camera like a Sony A600 or whatever it is and a motion
15:07
sensor that triggers the camera when it goes off.
15:11
And so he what he does is he puts these things out in the
15:14
woods in areas that he thinks will have traffic and
15:18
essentially just is able to get these photos.
15:20
And the photo that James is talking about is like this wild
15:24
grizzly that I don't know if it killed the elk or if it came
15:28
across the elk carcass, but Zach just happened to have a camera
15:32
trap on this thing. And you got to look it up.
15:34
It is an amazing photo. And.
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He uses tracking to scalp the areas.
15:39
He's familiar with the areas he also uses drones to look above
15:43
at different. He understands topography and
15:45
where animals might go. So we've we've had some fun with
15:48
him over the years. I visited multiple visited him
15:51
multiple times while out there and every time we go to his
15:54
camera traps, there's there's something cool that we catch.
15:57
So the neat thing is when I travel to be able to connect
16:00
with people that you know that actually in some cases started
16:04
here like Zach. So that's really cool.
16:06
So I I will be out there again hopefully later this year.
16:09
Amazing. Well, and and Leah got to go out
16:11
three years prior and just outside of Yellowstone got to
16:15
watch a huge boar grizzly bear in in a field basically
16:19
fattening up. Just getting, yeah.
16:22
So cool, that was great. And if you know how to act
16:24
around these animals, you're fine.
16:25
Well, that's what I don't get afraid in the woods at all.
16:30
But bears do worry me. And, and like even up here where
16:33
I mean Spire Falls is where we're all kind of living on
16:36
Spire Falls mountain, so to speak.
16:37
And there's a huge bear population, Black Bear I.
16:42
Believe and black bears in general will are are pretty
16:45
skittish. I've never seen that if.
16:47
You make a lot of noise, they're usually gonna go the other way.
16:49
The most dangerous animal is the one that's used to human beings
16:53
if they've been fed by human beings per SE.
16:55
And of course, in the national parks years ago, Yellowstone was
16:58
one of the big examples where they used to allow you to to
17:00
feed the bears. That's when they had the most
17:02
attacks. So a bear in the wild generally
17:06
will try to avoid a human being. So one of the things we teach
17:08
people to do is make a lot of noise, especially in grizzly
17:11
country, unless let them know you're coming.
17:13
And most of the time they go the other way.
17:15
I have. I have luckily never had a bad
17:17
experience yet. We've had it where we did scare
17:20
bears off by making noise and we had other times where the bears
17:22
stayed safe distance, knew we were there, and then we were
17:26
fine. So learning that healthy respect
17:29
and most of the time at at at most we would carry a just bear
17:32
spray, which actually is a better choice because if you
17:36
wound a bear, it can become more dangerous.
17:38
Oh no. Kidding, but having my daughter
17:40
with me, it was more like, well if the bear spray doesn't work,
17:44
it's always. Good to do what you got to do
17:45
another. Option, but not in the National.
17:47
Park but not they don't allow it.
17:49
They do now. They do now.
17:50
But I've never carried it in there, so just it's.
17:53
I knew a guy that I knew him for a brief time.
17:56
He dated a friend of mine, but he was a guy down in Alaska like
17:59
a fishing guy. And he like bears left, right
18:02
and center. And they're just on either
18:04
walking through streams where there's bears all over the
18:07
place, brown bears and they're or they're on these little
18:09
boats. And I'm like, I mean, you're
18:11
like worried. He's like, I'm like, are you
18:13
armed? He's like, Nah, they don't
18:14
bother. You brown bear.
18:15
I mean, grizzly bears are a type of brown bear.
18:18
Brown bears in general are more social because they're around a
18:21
lot of other brown bears, which is plenty of food.
18:23
Grizzly bears live in areas where food can be a little more
18:26
scarce. They're more solitary.
18:28
They're smaller, luckily, but they are the most aggressive
18:31
because of that. You know, they, they protect
18:33
their food and they protect the young.
18:35
Brown bears on average are safer bear to be around the the brown
18:39
bears proper versus grizzly which is a sub subset of brown
18:44
bear. Pretty wild.
18:45
Yeah, that's cool stuff. So.
18:46
It is. It's.
18:47
Really need to be able to pass on the knowledge to the next
18:50
generation and of course I've been doing that with our kids
18:53
here for years. But from the tracking to the
18:55
survival skills and we've just had some really cool alumni come
19:00
out of here. Some some go into wildlife
19:03
fields. We have a few that have gone
19:05
into Special Forces armed Rangers and Green Berets and
19:09
things like that, that, you know, got a foundation here and
19:13
they wanted to take it to another level in, in, in their
19:16
professional life. So that's been really cool to to
19:18
watch that. And then we have people that
19:20
have become, you know, robotics engineers and all these other
19:23
cool things, but gained their foundation here through our
19:27
programs, whether it be our youth camps or whether it be our
19:31
skills classes. Yeah, such as you.
19:33
I listen, I, it's really funny because I, well, first of all,
19:38
I, I live not far away and for, just for reference, we, we live
19:42
on a farm and we've got, I don't know, like 45 acres, right?
19:45
And a lot of it's wooded. And then that woods butts up
19:49
against, I don't even know, hundreds of acres of other
19:51
woods, right. So you can go out in our back
19:53
and get kind of remote, we'll say.
19:56
And it's one of my favorite things.
19:58
Like right now, I really was just thinking this yesterday
20:00
because now we're a few days after a snowstorm.
20:02
I'm like, and the animals have now I'm like, I got to get out
20:05
of the woods and start seeing what I can see out there to see
20:07
what we got crawling around, see where the deer trails are, see
20:10
how many coyotes and foxes. And but even just around my
20:13
barn, because I send you every winter, I send you pictures
20:16
because I'll find. I'll find tracks around the
20:18
barn, then I'm worried about livestock and like and because
20:22
of the the tracking class that we took like I can identify the
20:25
difference between a a cat track and a dog track.
20:27
Watch out for the weasel and. The weasel.
20:29
Yeah, the. Dog tracks, especially the
20:31
weasel, though more even more so than the fox.
20:33
Those. Fisher yeah.
20:34
Fisher Oh, man. But like, I, I think it was two
20:36
or three years ago, I went out and found what looked like
20:41
coyote tracks, like they were running through my, around where
20:46
the animals were like, thank God, they're all in pens and
20:49
like secure. But like you could see the
20:51
tracks all around this thing. I was like, holy, I'm going to
20:53
have to start standing and watch.
20:54
But, but I do. And not just the tracking class,
20:58
but the, all the, you know, the wilderness first aid, like all
21:02
those classes I've taken here have been amazing.
21:04
And I use those skills everyday. And that was one of the things I
21:07
know we're gonna talk about the, the line up and the classes.
21:09
And that's the other thing, though, is trying to help people
21:11
understand, like, how valuable these classes are in everyday
21:14
life, not just in a survival scenario.
21:17
And you won't. When you take even a basic class
21:21
and you pay attention and you obtain those skills, you look at
21:25
the world in a different way. Someone does my fire making
21:29
class, they're never going to look at cat tails or or
21:33
different types of Birch or different.
21:35
Types of Grapevine or Grapevine? Yeah, and and they're gonna look
21:38
at it in a different way. Yeah, and they're gonna find
21:41
themselves gathering as they're going along while they're hiking
21:43
cause hey, maybe you're gonna need this.
21:45
I don't throw out all my drying lint anymore.
21:47
Yeah, exactly. Famous voicemail show that we
21:50
learned to understand how that works too, all the way up to how
21:53
to substitute those things with, with things in nature and tracks
21:57
too, man, once you get in the tracks like you're doing sending
21:59
me pictures and I have lots of friends that send me I bet.
22:01
And once in a while it's something, something pretty
22:04
cool, pretty cool. And so I always have a fun time
22:07
looking at them and, and, and if you ever send me a track, make
22:10
sure to give me a scale so I know how big it is, whether it
22:13
be your hand or ruler. I love getting a cat track and
22:16
someone asks if it's a cougar and there's no scale, right.
22:18
It's a cat for sure. There's no scale.
22:21
I need to know what what size it is.
22:23
So a ruler's ideal or something that I can, yeah, cell phone,
22:26
whatever. Yeah, cell phone, some of them,
22:29
of course. Size reference how you?
22:31
Can take the picture with so so as we talked about, you know,
22:37
martial arts was gone so like gangbusters.
22:41
So it kind of pulled away from some of the classes and skills
22:44
development things that you're doing here.
22:45
So many tournaments and just, you know, from my own training
22:49
to, you know, I'll focus on my students training.
22:52
Saturdays, we're doing a Sunday survival class series because
22:55
our Saturdays are just jammed right now.
22:58
And those classes are at the mall with the jiu jitsu program
23:01
and they are because we have over 100 people come through on
23:04
that day. Listen, I remember.
23:06
Kids and grown. Ups before you guys got the will
23:09
and location like I this place where.
23:11
The park you couldn't park not. Only that though, it was like
23:14
you would come in for a class. It was like an assembly line.
23:17
It was like one class in, one class out, one class in.
23:19
Because we would, I would come in for a class, there'd be a
23:21
class leaving. As I was leaving my class,
23:23
there's another class coming in and there's multiple.
23:27
Classrooms. So it's like, you know, we first
23:29
started with a little renovation, you know, we
23:30
expanded our, our, our what was our track room into another
23:34
room, which is a storage room, which gave us another 800 square
23:38
foot of training. And we thought that was enough.
23:41
And at that point we also had for, for during, at the end of
23:45
COVID, we had cutting edge, now rising Phoenix Taekwondo.
23:49
They were renting this rumor right in here because they lost
23:52
their beautiful facility during COVID.
23:54
So we rented out to them. So it got to a point then we're
23:57
like guys, hopefully find a new spot soon.
24:00
And they did. And then we thought we're fine.
24:02
Within a couple weeks of them moving out of here, the lot
24:05
filled right back up again. And that's when we realized we
24:09
needed to start looking at another place.
24:11
And we looked all over the place.
24:12
We were looking at West End, but a lot of these places were in
24:15
bad shape. They're really expensive for
24:17
what you get, and I think it was Steve, Steve Zabala.
24:20
No, it was me. Was it you?
24:21
It was you. And Steve backed you.
24:24
Both of you. Steve and I have actually been
24:26
going back and forth to this. He, he, he says it's, it was his
24:29
idea. And I'm like, no man, it was my
24:30
idea. 'Cause you had checked it out.
24:33
'Cause I was also looking for space for my office.
24:35
Yeah. And I was like, you should check
24:37
out the whip mom. Like their spaces for what
24:39
you're looking for is so affordable?
24:42
Yes, yeah, it was just under about $10 a square.
24:45
Foot yeah. Shake that, Steve.
24:47
Yeah, which you cannot touched that close to downtown.
24:51
And I checked out several space there, spaces there.
24:53
And I walked into one. I was like, man, this looks a
24:55
lot like the Marcelo Garcia School in New York City, which
24:58
my brother and I trained a lot at around the black boat years.
25:02
And I was like, man, we could not afford this.
25:04
And then they gave us the price. I'm like, man, it was cheaper
25:06
than some of those places on West Ave. that weren't very good
25:10
and was bigger. So we saved a lot of money on
25:13
rent. We did spend more on mats and
25:15
fixing the place up. But we are, you know, we have
25:18
definitely cleared our expenses in the last year and the school
25:21
continues to grow. And if you're interested in Jiu
25:24
jitsu, we have up till December 15th.
25:27
We may extend it. If you sign up, you get a
25:30
freaky. So we have a cool little plug
25:31
and of course we have our awesome programs here at
25:33
Andakina. We have our Muay Thai programs,
25:35
Kyoksha, karate, judo, and we do do some jiu jitsu still here,
25:39
and the majority of it, except for the kids because they like
25:42
to go back and forth between Muay Thai and Jiu jitsu, the
25:45
majority of our adult jiu jitsu and a lot of our kids is at
25:48
Wilton Mall. Love it.
25:49
Yeah. So it's going great.
25:51
So now that it's going great, you're stepping back into skills
25:54
development. It's, it's been, you know, I've
25:56
been wanting to, but I also get hired privately to do skills
26:00
programs. So it's not that I haven't
26:02
stopped doing them. It's just you get hired to go
26:03
somewhere else and do it to a group and that always pays a
26:06
little more too. But I'm like, you know what, we
26:07
need to continue those skills here.
26:09
People kept asking for them. So we decided to bring it back
26:14
with these 3/3 and 1/2 hour courses where we take.
26:18
You've done the full day courses or multiple day courses where we
26:21
do a lot of things in a day. I love that.
26:23
I love walking through the woods and you kind of learn based on
26:27
what we find. I have a set idea of what you're
26:29
going to learn. Definitely going to learn fire.
26:30
Definitely learn some tracks, but when you key in on
26:34
particular subjects, you can focus on them a little more.
26:37
So we're kicking off at the Survival series where I take
26:40
really a little more time than I would spend in a day on each
26:42
subject in a shorter segment hyper focused on fire making.
26:48
And the fire making we focus on in this first class at the end
26:51
of January is key things you should know.
26:55
You know you're not right away going to learn how to make a
26:57
fire with friction, although at the end of the class people get
26:59
a chance to try. It try do some bow stuff.
27:02
At the end, they will do a group bow drill, so and they will get
27:04
a coal and then we'll see how it works.
27:06
But as a teenager, once again, I was younger and I wasn't very
27:08
patient back then. It took me a long time to master
27:10
that. Yeah.
27:11
So we're going to start with, you know, something more
27:13
obtainable like how to use one of these fire rods, right, to
27:17
make fire. And what have you just said
27:20
this, What have you just had matches, preferably waterproof
27:23
matches, maybe not. What could you find in nature in
27:27
all different weather conditions to have that ignite?
27:32
OK, 'cause you might not have a high tech Tinder with you.
27:35
Maybe you just have the striker. So what types of materials
27:39
should you gather in the wild to make a fire and also what things
27:43
should you take with you? And that's where it's really
27:47
that's the focus and fire this time of year is is if not the IT
27:50
depends on the situation, but it can be the most important skill.
27:54
Yeah. So I.
27:55
Mean like your car breaks down. Yeah, exactly.
27:58
You're out in the middle of nowhere.
27:59
Like what are you going to do exactly?
28:01
And your car can only keep you so.
28:02
Warm for so long that temperature drops.
28:05
Many, many situations where if you have the ability to make
28:09
fire, it could be the difference between life and death.
28:11
And there's lots of situations like that in the Adirondacks.
28:14
And so how to gather things safely, how to gather things
28:17
legally. You know, Birch trees are one of
28:19
the best things to gather from, but it's illegal in the park to
28:21
gather from a live tree. But guess what?
28:23
If it's a survival situation, right?
28:25
And you're going to die, tickets burn too.
28:29
So we also talked about that. There's, there's funny stories,
28:33
survival stories locally, a few years ago, a kid, probably 20
28:37
years ago, a kid was lost in the vast Skidmore woods where you
28:40
can hear people in trains. But we won't get into that.
28:43
But they learned one thing about survival.
28:44
Stay where you are. So they stayed where they were
28:48
for several days. They heard people, they heard
28:50
trains. They stayed where they were.
28:51
They had a lighter, but they didn't want to catch the woods
28:54
on fire. Luckily, someone eventually
28:56
walked close enough to them and they were rescued.
28:59
So we get into kind of like, OK, you probably should have used
29:02
that lighter. OK, if you hear people trains,
29:07
that's a situation where you don't stay where you are.
29:09
Staying where you are is great if people are going to come look
29:12
for you. But I think it's there's some
29:15
common sense in survival too. So we get into that kind of
29:18
stuff in all our classes. There's exceptions to every
29:21
rule, you know, and even in survival, you know, people
29:24
emphasize shelter, fire, water, food, right?
29:26
Really depends on the situation. And of course, shoot, if you're
29:29
injured or have a medical condition, first aid, medicine,
29:32
that's going to be the first thing in certain situations.
29:34
But in the winter time, fire and shelter are going to be right up
29:39
there top always gonna need to consider water, always gonna
29:42
need to consider food, situational skills like first
29:45
aid or of course, navigation, which is going to be another one
29:47
of our Suntree series. Both how to use a compass to how
29:50
to use the sun, how to use the stars, how to use the trees, how
29:54
to use pretty much well dozens of things in the natural world
29:58
that help you find your way beyond a compass.
30:00
Which again not common knowledge these.
30:02
Days no and everything bought Agps.
30:04
How many people do you think could actually like out of 10
30:07
people, how many people do you think could actually Orient
30:09
themselves with an actual map? I've known people that are 40
30:12
Sixers that don't know how to use a map and compass that's
30:16
wild. Or they they came to a class to
30:18
learn it to do a couple of the bushwhack ones.
30:20
So there are a lot of people that spend time in the woods
30:23
that don't even know how to use a compass, which is probably the
30:26
most basic skill, much less learning how to read the natural
30:30
world to know which directions which or even really know which
30:32
direction they're going. So I think anybody that spends
30:35
time in the outdoors should have us some skills.
30:39
Yeah, I agree at least. Basically, and I get we all got
30:42
phones and there's GPSS but technology fails.
30:45
It does fail. And then what are you going to
30:47
do? You're out in the middle of
30:48
somewhere and your GPS. And I think they'll rescue you
30:51
once for free, but I remember. They charged you after that?
30:54
I think it was in the Adirondacks, but where a guy got
30:56
rescued, bushwhack and whatever, cool.
30:59
Like 3-4 weeks later he gets rescued again.
31:01
He got a big bill. So this guy was just going out
31:05
and putting himself in bad situations, which, of course,
31:08
some of these survival shows, they've gotten better and now
31:12
they're showing real skills. But you know, that idea of being
31:16
in danger, sometimes people latch on to that idea but need
31:20
to understand you should still have some skills when you put
31:24
yourself in some kind of danger. Yeah.
31:26
And so the Sunday Survival series focuses a lot on that.
31:29
So we're starting with fire being in the winter time, you
31:32
know, get this fire started, right?
31:33
Ha, ha, ha. Leah told me she'd kill me if I
31:35
said that. So yeah, so start out with
31:38
something on fire where people have always have been cold in
31:41
the winter time, you know, even in their own house when the
31:43
propane runs out. Happens here at Indocheno once
31:45
in a while, so start with that. And even though we're going to
31:50
do it in the winter time, the same skills will work any time
31:52
of year. Well, and it's got to be harder
31:54
in the. Winter, yeah, that's why we
31:55
wanted to do it in the winter time and it's a time when people
31:57
think about staying warm. So we're going to really focus
32:00
on key skills I think anybody should have around fire making
32:04
and a teaser to a primitive method like the bow drill, which
32:07
we will offer another course later in the year.
32:09
Yeah, I haven't taken that yet. Yeah, making your own primitive
32:13
fire kit and making a coal in it.
32:16
So they'll be teased with it during the class and, and the
32:18
tracking class the next month, we'll focus on, you know, key
32:22
tracks that you might see in your backyard, you might see on
32:26
a hike. And and that's going to be a
32:28
little more of a recreational kind of focus, like it's just
32:31
expanding your horizons to the natural world.
32:34
But understanding tracks is a lot like understanding other
32:39
things in nature, how to classify things, how to figure
32:41
out the difference, how to identify different trees.
32:44
It's, it's a survival skill. And of course, if you go back,
32:47
well, still nowadays as well, But all of us in our ancestry
32:52
had it where you know, some animals you want to track, they
32:54
could help you find a meal in a survival situation.
32:57
Other animals in certain parts of the world or even in the
32:59
United States, you track the wrong animal at the wrong time,
33:02
right? Instead of finding a meal, you
33:04
could be a male. You could be a male, yeah.
33:07
Especially for younger people. Maybe go the opposite direction
33:10
on those and and. Believe me, when I've been out
33:12
West and I find a nice fresh Mama grizzly bear track and a
33:15
nice fresh cub track and it's going that way, I may not go
33:19
that way. So why?
33:20
You know, so that even nowadays tracking can keep you out of
33:23
trouble. Yeah.
33:25
I remember Explore a new world. What's the track that you have
33:28
there? This is a wolf track.
33:29
A wolf track? Yeah.
33:30
This is a Western wolf, so a little bigger than our Algonquin
33:34
Eastern wolf and you have the symmetrical toes, 4 toes in the
33:37
track claws, triangular shaped heel pad and pretty much the
33:41
same on both sides. Very close, although there is a
33:44
lead toe. And that one up there?
33:45
That is a grizzly. Bear, which is about the size of
33:48
a small pizza. Yeah, and that isn't even a
33:50
really big one, but that's a nice one with nice claws on it.
33:52
So that one is from Yellowstone. So I have thousands of plaster
33:56
casts of various tracks. So during the track class we go
34:00
through a number of these of all different sizes.
34:03
How do I identify the various family groups orders and the
34:07
differences between them? The bear ones are wild because I
34:10
remember, because that's what I was thinking about the plaster
34:12
cast that you have and like some of the bear ones are like, you
34:17
could see like the claws, the whole thing, the size of that
34:21
thing. And it's like, wow, if that
34:22
thing hit you, like you're going to be banged up.
34:25
Exactly. And that's where you certainly
34:27
like and one of the things we teach when you're trying to,
34:31
when you're out West trying to tell the difference between a
34:33
black bear track and a grizzly track.
34:36
The claws is one thing because Grizzlies will have longer
34:39
claws, but they dig all year, so their claws will start to be
34:42
shorter by the fall time. So we also look at the actual
34:45
shape of the track as well. So, but it's pretty easy to
34:47
understand in our Western tracking classes.
34:49
It's important to tell the difference between the two, I
34:52
bet. Yeah, there's a number of
34:54
different things you look at. Black bears.
34:56
Nice grizzly bears. Willy G Yeah.
34:59
Exactly. So we've got fire building in
35:03
January, then we've got tracking in February.
35:06
Exactly. So yeah, dates to remind myself.
35:08
January 25th the Sunday 11:00 AM to 2:30.
35:12
We have to take a little 30 minute break for lunch will be
35:15
the fire making class. You doing those here?
35:17
Yes, so we're going to do them right here in the backwoods.
35:19
Nice. So we will start, everyone will
35:21
start in here. We'll do some classroom work.
35:23
Even with the fire making, have a bunch of stuff laid out on a
35:26
table, examples of different types of Tinder and kindling and
35:29
fire. Even high tech things you could
35:31
buy and talk about them. Even practice a little bit with
35:34
the steel rods because not everybody knows how to use it.
35:36
If it's a really cold day, as you know from survival tracks,
35:39
your hands are, you know, so I want you at least have a chance
35:41
to understand the skill. And then we're going to go out
35:44
of the woods after our short little lunch and try it out.
35:48
Nice fire in multiple ways. Have the people gather the
35:50
materials they need to do it. And the same with the tracking
35:54
class, which is going to be on February 22nd, same time, 11:00
35:57
to 2:30. We're going to be in here, have
35:59
some plaster casts set out. Talk about the footprints, talk
36:02
about the gait patterns, talk about the scat, the other thing
36:05
animals do behind so key clues that could help them identify
36:09
tracks. And then we'll go out in the
36:11
woods and look for some. So a little classroom study and
36:14
then field study. Nice.
36:16
So I think it's always worked the best, especially in the
36:18
winter time because there's nothing worse than sitting
36:20
around and having me talk, you know, for 30-40 minutes you're
36:24
standing still and it's, you know, 10° below 0.
36:27
So I try to get past that part inside and then we go out and
36:31
we're move and we're really doing the skills.
36:33
I'd like to say we maybe we could hope for warmer weather,
36:35
but I. Know it's good to have a.
36:37
Cold we, we are well, it's, it's wild, right?
36:39
Because last year I don't think we saw a single below freeze
36:44
below 0 temperature. And now we hear our first week
36:47
of December, we got negative. It was -1 the other day and I
36:50
was going out to feed the pigs. I'm like what is this?
36:52
Yeah, and we might be getting more snow this week.
36:54
And I fly out to Vegas on Wednesday for the Nogi worlds
36:58
and I'm like, I'm the snow plow guy here too.
36:59
Oh yeah. Don kind of knows how to use it,
37:02
but there's a little power steering issue right now, so
37:05
hopefully he can handle it. But.
37:08
So January, February and then still picking dates for
37:12
navigation and. Other classes we've decided we
37:14
clump 2. By the time we get up to the
37:16
first class we will have the next two figures.
37:18
Nice. And a lot of it depends on my
37:21
schedule, my working around jiu jitsu tournaments and and other
37:25
travel. Yeah, yeah.
37:26
That I have and, and it's pretty busy this weekend.
37:29
One of our top guys, Kyle, who just won the NOGI Pan American
37:32
Championships at Blue in September, he's heading out,
37:37
he's the number one seed in the NOGI Worlds in Vegas and.
37:40
Is he really? He's #1 so nasty.
37:43
So and I told him I won the pans as a brown belt 11 years ago and
37:48
haven't done a big nogi event since.
37:52
I've been a black belt, which I got my black belt 2015, so I
37:55
said I'm gonna compete too, so I'm throwing my hat.
37:58
In. Going against other other old
38:00
guys, mostly instructors, so it's fun.
38:03
So we will both be competing this Saturday and the Nogi
38:06
world's flying out a little early to get acclimated so.
38:09
Yeah, I'm excited for Kyle. He's a good dude.
38:11
And he, I remember when he started a few years ago and I
38:14
remember him saying like talk, I can't remember who he was
38:17
talking about. He's talking about some pro jiu
38:18
jitsu guy. And he's like, I'm going to be
38:20
like that dude. And I was like, yeah, yeah,
38:22
whatever, dude. Like.
38:23
No, he was a former Long Island wrestler and and not all
38:27
wrestling is a great pace, but not all wrestlers make the
38:29
transition as quickly as he did. This guy was Kyle was mostly a
38:34
guy for the first year, didn't do that much, no key, but within
38:38
a year she got his blue belt within a year, which is fast for
38:41
a competitor, and he went right out and won triple gold at the
38:47
New Jersey IBGHF, New Jersey International Open.
38:49
He won his ghee division lightweight and then the next he
38:53
hit day, he had no key. He won the no key and then he
38:56
went into the open class, which is where all weight class
38:59
winners can go against it. He he, he submitted a super
39:02
heavyweight. This guy's like 160 lbs.
39:04
He submitted a guy well over 200.
39:06
Listen, the day that I tested for my blue belt I did the noon
39:11
class later on that day he was like A1 stripe white and tapped
39:15
me out with an Ezekiel joke. He's been doing jiu jitsu for
39:18
like 2 months. He he got it.
39:19
Like I said, he picked it up very quickly.
39:21
Yeah, and wrestling is a great base, but sometimes it takes a
39:25
while to make that transition and he just instant.
39:29
Oh yeah, and he's. For being a geek and he prefers
39:32
Gee, but now he's #3 in the world right now and #1 going
39:36
into the world's number one guy competing in it.
39:39
And so he's pretty pumped. So it'd be fun.
39:41
I I go off before him so I can get my matches out of the way
39:45
and then I get to coach him and. Focus on coaching.
39:46
Him, yeah, which is really what I'm going for.
39:48
But hey, if I'm there, I might as well.
39:50
Might as well get a match to get.
39:51
On that podium too. Well, Congrats to Kyle.
39:54
That's awesome. So if you want to learn more
39:57
about survival courses, maybe they want to sign up or they're
39:59
just looking For more information.
40:00
Now where can they find that? Go to indakinacenter.org.
40:04
Really easy spelling. Yeah, NDAKINNA center CENTE,
40:12
r.org and dokinacenter.org. Perfect.
40:15
And we also have an Instagram too.
40:17
If you just look up and Dokina, you will find it.
40:20
And of course our Jiu jitsu program, Saratoga jiujitsu.com.
40:24
We made it a hard one. Exactly.
40:25
And our our Muay Thai and other programs here.
40:28
We're creating a new website for Saratoga Elite MA.
40:31
But for now it's still our old website.
40:32
Before we made the split, which is NEBJ ja.com and M jja.com.
40:38
But a new website is coming. I keep saying that we're doing a
40:40
photo shoot within the hour to fill in the gaps.
40:43
Nice. Some more Muay Thai photos for a
40:44
website. So love it.
40:46
Well, thank you for having me come over and sit down the top
40:50
man, I really. Appreciate it.
40:51
Good to be on with you. And one time and I know, yeah,
40:54
Steve's a good talker. You had Don on.
40:56
I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
40:58
This is this is what your third appearance?
41:00
4th. Second or third, something like
41:02
that, yeah, it's focus on on different things you're.
41:04
Regular at this point, you know. It's great.
41:06
Let's get my brother on speaking the speaking the language.
41:08
I know, I know, I do need to get Jesse on.
41:11
Runs the School of the Abenaki at Middlebury.
41:13
Yeah. So yeah, he's again and.
41:16
He's a black belt in jiu jitsu too, just like my dad.
41:18
And Kyokshen. Too, He is not Kyokshen, but he
41:21
is very solid third degree Blackbone Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
41:24
Yeah, he did some Taekwondo back in the day.
41:26
And wait time you were more the Kyokushen. 7th degree Blackbone
41:30
Kyokshan Karate. Every time I run into Nino,
41:33
yeah, Over at North Country, he, he's like, you know, he brings
41:37
you up. He's like, tell Jim, I said I.
41:39
That's that's where I said that used to be the biggest, baddest
41:41
style in the on the block, you know, before Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
41:44
came into the scene. But it still is a very solid
41:47
style. A lot of our Muay Thai fighters
41:48
also train in Kyokshan, especially one of our kids that
41:52
just won the Muay Thai World Championships.
41:56
He also has a brown belt in Kyochen.
41:58
Oh, does he really? He's like 10 years old, right?
42:01
He's 12 years. Old.
42:02
He's 12 years old. He's a little kid, David.
42:04
Snyder He's also took second in the States in wrestling last
42:07
year. As I say, he's a badass in jiu
42:09
jitsu. Won a few IBJF opens.
42:12
Kids a beast. He's a little weapon.
42:14
So he also has a kyochen brown belt.
42:16
Nice. Cool mix here.
42:18
Yeah, it is. Thanks for coming on, Jim.
42:21
Appreciate it. Thanks everybody for listening.
42:22
Of course, you can hear from us every week.
42:25
Find us on buying local dot US of course, is our website with
42:29
all of our local news articles for Warren Washington, Saratoga
42:32
County. You can find our podcast on
42:34
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42:36
Make sure you hit subscribe like 5 star review all those good
42:39
things. We really appreciate it.
42:41
Six star review. Six stars.
42:43
Throw a six star in there, buddy.