2020-009 | BUSHCRAFT AS A LIFESTYLE

WISDOM TRAILS: Bushcraft, for me, is the ultimate experience. You are the sole master of your own fate and you will know the mountains and its valleys and rivers more than anyone else. You just stay in a few places while everyone else are preoccupied of their time and destinations, totally missing out the finer details of a journey which would have given one lasting impressions, wonderful discoveries and irreplaceable wisdom. I have achieved total and unimpeded freedom doing all these and no foreign ideology, modern technology or expensive gear had altered or prevented that.

First seen in Facebook

December 15, 2017

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OVERHEARD ONE DAY from a couple of friends talking about some guy they saw in TV engaged in a series of survival exploits which, to my understanding, are rather ordinary if done by our indigenous peoples, and does not need a lot of hype. Then I found something unusual. The guy was not doing it the right way! Imagine the harm it would inflict on people if they happen to follow his exploits? 

Just by ear only I have grasped the very idea of what he was doing, very familiar yet there was something wrong, even if I have not seen one episode. At that moment, I decided to find a way to educate people properly, the soonest, as it had been taught to me by my late grandfather, else, they would fall into that trap. I was now in the notion of creating another outdoor interest here in the Philippines which, actually, is as old as time.

I searched the Netscape browser to look for some hobby or interests closely related to survival and I found many but BUSHCRAFT seemed to be the most used, so far, globally. It is primitive living using skills from the standpoint of a Western culture. I then borrowed this term and began to start a movement here, dainty little steps, until I became ambitious by organizing the Philippine Independence Bushcraft Camp in 2011 and the rest is history. 

Before the PIBC, I was just a lonely voice in the wilderness. Bushcraft was as alien as ET here and people were more interested in adrenaline-pumping activities. Peak-bagging was their most popular passion and they have their preferred camping grounds, gear brands, dress and crowd. Quite a crowd indeed. My kind of bushcraft would veer away from crowds who learn nothing from a gathering. We shall nurture our own playgrounds, our own dress style and our own sets of gear.

During my sorties among the mountains, I developed my own style and philosophy of bushcraft in a tropical setting; hitching both the modern and the archaic; to become a very practical, quite flexible and a life-fulfilling interest. I walked the talk literally and intellectually and graced a lot of hours before a lot of people about the good outcomes of engaging in such and how useful it would be during post-disaster events.

 

However, it would take another project of great magnitude before people could comprehend and connect to my lifestyle of bushcraft. It was my route explorations for the Cebu Highlands Trail, a long path of around 400 kilometers that crosses over the rugged middle spines of Cebu Island from the southernmost tip to the northernmost tip. It exposed myself through so many challenges and helped to establish myself as a serious bushcraft advocate.    

By and by, it had become a way of life. I became what I have created and more. It had placed me in a different dimension which I had never before entertained in my wildest dreams: creating another philosophy for bushcraft, quite different from a Western concept. It had become a very cerebral outdoors learning and leisure – a zen in the woods; best taught to people and to let them get a taste of what secrets it held for them. 

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WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE BLOG, personified by this writer, is synonymous with the Outdoors, since Bushcraft and Survival is its niche. Safety and Security are its bedrock when it ventured into organizing outdoor events that involved people as in adventure/pilgrimage guideships and seminars; and explorations and expeditions. 

Through tutorship, experience, folk knowledge and good old common sense, this writer was able to collect useful information which he is currently documenting in a book titled, ETHICAL BUSHCRAFT. He shares some of this information and knowledge in his training sessions; in his social-media account; and in this blog.

Photo Nr 3 courtesy of Justin Apurado