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Teen Leadership & Wilderness Survival Skills

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With Rick Berry and Pashu Esquibel
Meeting Mondays & Saturdays, ​10a-12p PDT
Sliding scale, starting at $75

Each 4-week session includes 8 meetings, on Mondays and Saturdays at 10am PDT (1pm EDT).
Click here to register for Session 2: May 11 - June 6.
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This course will be delivered online due to the COVID-19 pandemic response and stay-at-home orders.  It is designed for teens aged 13 to 18 with any level of experience.  We will meet twice a week for two hours of a ZOOM online meeting to provide skills instruction and an opportunity for connection and sharing. There will be projects and exercises to do in between the Monday and Saturday calls. 

This is a new approach to training you in how to be a leader and how you can help us to teach and guide the youth.  This is a grand opportunity to make changes in the way we think and reset our minds to connect with our hearts.

The ancient arts of tracking, wilderness survival, and nature awareness teachings immerse the student into the environment, giving them firsthand experience how to “read” the landscape as a steward of the Earth.  By knowing what our basic needs are we begin to understand what we must preserve and protect in order to sustain the balance of life on our Planet. Through our programs a re-thinking of our relationship to Nature begins to occur; Nature is not simply a “resource” that we control as a product, but a relationship we must cultivate. Students are introduced to the world of the unseen and eternal, tapping into “the spirit that moves in-all things” as awareness and skills are woven together to serve as a foundation for creating Visionary leaders. 

 As “coyote” teachers we bring the mysteries of nature to our students in a way that they can be inspired to learn on their own.  In this case the definition of the “coyote” is not necessarily the “trickster”, however the keeper of knowledge.  When a student asks, “what is this?”, we answer with a question or point them in a direction to inspire them to look deeper into the mystery.   A coyote teacher never forces the teaching, instead they maneuver the situation so the student has a great desire to know, to go further.  

Coyote Teaching holds many layers and to each individual has a different effect as well as each teacher or guide has their own way to coyote teach.  This information and the outline below can only stand as a guide to an approach to coyote teaching and must always be kept alive by constantly evolving the teachings in the present moment. 

Coyote Methods, 36 points of Coyote Teaching
Care-taker attitude.
Stalking Wolf’s vision and story of his lineage. How have these skills come to us?
Indigenous Old Ways and the passing on of wisdom and knowledge –Can this be a class?

Special Guests will be invited to teach with us.
 
Course may include these skills

Animal Tracking:
ID--Cat, Dog, Deer, Rabbit, Rodent, Weasel, Raccoon, Opossum, and Bear
List number of toes, front and rear, claws showing or not.          
Diagonal walk
Gallop walkers
Bounders
Pace walkers
Trailing Animals 
 
Pressure Releases
Intense track studies of the Apache. How they saw each track as a miniature landscape with ridges, valleys, domes, caves, and fissures. Example: increase in speed when you walk; i.e. how a walk goes from a Wave to a Disk and then to a Dish when speed is increased.  

Lost Proofing
Lost proofing is learning how not to become “lost”.  The skills of wilderness survival and your ability to live with the Earth will create a space where you never really “lost” because the Earth becomes your home.  Having the awareness of what happens in the psychology of a “lost” person will also help you from becoming lost.  We will go over the stages of a lost person and what to do if you start to lose your way.  
Grandfather’s philosophy of being “lost” - “One is only lost when they have a destination” 
           
 *Knowing the 4 elements of survival - shelter, water, fire, and food - will decrease the possibility of ever getting lost as it lessens the panic and fear that leads to poor choices.  Once the basic skills of survival are well known one loses the perception of ever being lost, as the Earth is home…
 
Exercises:
Direction Awareness

• Blind folded walk towards a point straight out in front of you (30-50 yards)

 
Lost person scenario with log;

• Create a lost person scenario: Blindfold yourself and go for a walk as far as you are willing. Take off your blindfold and retrace your tracks. You can either drag a stick to follow back or your own tracks.

 
 
AWARENESS

Sit Area:
During Tom Brown’s mentorship with Grandfather, there was an unwritten rule that they would go to their “sacred sit area” every morning at sunrise and every evening at sunset.  The sit area was a special place to reflect on the day, introspect, study the plants, animals and birds and give thanks.  We will begin by doing “Sense Meditations” in which students concentrate on each of their five senses and start to recognize the concentric rings around them.  During the sit spot exercises, we may also offer birdseed to the animals, or sit blindfolded to learn more about the interconnectedness of the land and life around us.  We will discuss the ancient language of the birds and how the Apache Scouts used it to be completely invisible.  We will practice learning bird language and concentric rings at our sit spots
Finding the “Dead Space” in your backyard:
Experiment with hiding in your backyard from family members. Where do they never look? Where is it that when you casually walk around you tend not to look?

Bird Language and Concentric Rings:
To explain concentric rings, the example of a rock thrown into a pool of water is easy to understand. This is a huge foundation of awareness and is best if kept up-beat and active for younger children. Keep it magical and inspiring. 
Explaining bird language- Instructors have to give exciting examples to get the students attention. Asking the kids if they want to learn how to become invisible and telling a story about how bird language is used is best. Bird language is not only about knowing what all the birds’ names are—but what the birds are saying. Birds are either alarming, companion calling, mating, or defending territory. Getting to know the feeling behind the call and the individual birds in the sit area, students will gradually get to know the base line “symphony”.  

Blindfolded Exercises:
Snake walk, string walk, sitting, tracking…. The list goes on and on. The Blindfold is a wonderful tool to hone your senses and create balance.
 

WILDERNESS SURVIVAL SKILLS
 
Shelter Building
Learning to build a debris hut is fun and could save your life!  One way to help explain the building of the hut is to make a replica “nome” size shelter to see the process in miniature. Make sure it is the right size; the student should be able to curl up inside and turn from side to side. Get the students to think of a giant sleeping bag instead of a tipi structure. Also be sure to make a door-way entrance and how they can put leaves or stuff a shirt with leaves as a door plug. Hypothermia; 55 degrees and rain. Mention or demo the scarecrow technique – adding debris in your clothing. Go over how deep debris has to be and test the hut out by spilling bucket of water on top. 

Shelter building is a team building activity, creating confidence in being outdoors, and links to science/math as what resistance factor - “R” value - you need to keep yourself alive in cold weather.  The concept of “dead air space” is introduced as your body’s own heat is trapped in the shelter.  There are also ecological/ biological lessons; knowing how animals survive the cold and what they need in their habitat to do so.  This can lead to other projects like building mouse houses to help the fox population, studying how squirrels and other rodents make their homes, and also how the students house they live in is constructed and insulated. This is also a fun and active adventure bringing out cooperation and creativity. 

Shelter Building works well when combined with a lost-proofing scenario. 
 
Bow Drill Fire Making:

• Fire structure
  • Tipi fire set up

     

• Demonstration of bow drill fire making;
  • Knife safety
  • Bow drill parts and dimensions
  • Burn in whole technique

 
Cordage: 
Plant materials will be used to make rope.  Cordage is valuable in many survival situations.  It can be used for a bow string, lashing a shelter together, and weaving a basket.  We will discuss different types of plants that make the best cordage.  Students will make their own cordage using plant materials with the reverse wrap method. 

Water: 
Finding pure water sources. Having to purify by boiling. Dew Collection 

Camouflage:
One of the ways to become closer to nature is to blend in and become a part of it.  This is done by having the students coat themselves in varying colors of mud and leaf litter.  We will then play a number of games involving melting into the landscape and attempting to find each other.  
The concept of adaptation of the color and patterns of animals and how they blend with the landscape will become more understood.  

Throwing Stick:
The art and simplicity of throwing a stick to get small game. Target set up, movement and moving target.
Digging Stick, wamping stick

Rock, bone and antler work:
The art of making tools from rock, bones and antler. This includes basic percussion for cutting edges to pressure flaking for knife and arrowhead making. 

Traps:
Learning to carve and create the figure four and Piute deadfalls and snares. (note* no animals will be hunted, traps are made only for demonstration) 

Quickie Spear, Atal Atal, and Bow and Arrow:
Learning about hunting ethics and making “quick” simple spears, throwing darts –Atal Atal, and green wood mini bow and arrows. Most youth are really into this; throwing, shooting from something they have made from the landscape around them. As this is an apex skill set, many of the other skills must be taught first, as this skill then puts many skills into motion at once; movement, camouflage, tracking, bird language, and mindset. 

Scouts in training:
We will be diving in and out of “Scout” Skills through Story and application of many Skills.

With Rick Berry and Pashu Esquibel
Meeting Mondays & Saturdays, ​10a-12p PDT
Sliding scale, starting at $75

Each 4-week session includes 8 meetings, on Mondays and Saturdays at 10am PDT (1pm EDT).
Click here to register for Session 1: April 13 - May 9.
Click here to register for Session 2: May 11 - June 6.

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Payment Options:

• Pay online with credit card at time of registration.  
• To pay by check, please mail to 4EEE, PO Box 1823, Nevada City, CA 95959.  Include your contact information and the session you wish to register for.  To reserve your spot before mailing a check, call our office at (530) 265-2036.
• Charter School students with pre-approval from the school; select Charter School ticket during registration ($20 admin fee applies).

We cannot provide make-up classes or provide refunds due to missed sessions.  

Approved Vendor List:

• Twin Ridges Home Study Charter School  
• Yuba River Charter School
• Nevada City Home Study Charter School
• Grass Valley Charter School
• Horizon Charter School
• Core Placer Charter
• Inspire Charter
• Forest Charter School
• ​Visions in Education Charter School
• Arete Charter Academy​

Note that you must obtain pre-approval from the school and register through UltraCamp to use school funding.  If you would like 4EEE to be an approved vendor for your Home Study child, please contact us with your child's name and school and request us as a vendor with the school.

If you would like to request a scholarship for your child, please CLICK HERE.