Primitive Skills at Raccoon Creek
by Jason GodeskyGiuli & I spent the weeekend at Raccoon Creek State Park, attending the Primitive Skills workshop as part of the PATHWAYS program there. We’d previously attended the Wild Edibles class, and the Herbal Medicines class. Last year, getting married interrupted much of our schedule, but as of this weekend we’re back.
PATHWAYS is an incredible program all around, offered through the Friends of Raccoon Creek. The instructors cut exactly the right attitude: from the outset, the notion of the “struggle for survival” was stricken, an emphasis was placed on building a relationship with the living world, and at the same time, the class remains eminently practical, avoiding the pitfalls of cults of personality, or just plain-old cultishness, that so many primitive skills programs seem to skirt near. They’ve been through Tom Brown’s program; for some reason, I find myself always falling in with Tom Brown’s students, even as much as I distrust the “cult of personality” that Tom Brown himself seems to exude.
I won’t lie, it was hard, and it really showed me how out of shape I am, and how far I still have to go with these skills. And it showed me what I need to work on most, so that’s what I’ll be working on more. Giuli gets much more frustrated and gives up much more easily than I do; for her, the whole experience was thoroughly discouraging. But for me, it also underlined that I was right: these skills aren’t particularly difficult in theory. They’re easy to learn. They’re just very difficult to master. Much of our group was disspirited by how much effort went into creating a bow drill set from a block of wood, and then to use that to create a fire. I reminded them, if you were living in a primitive society, you wouldn’t set a new fire everyday like this. You set one fire, and use that to start fires in everyone’s huts, and the next morning, you’ll start a new fire from last night’s coals, or from the fires still burning in the huts. By the same token, you don’t carve a new bow drill every time you need to set a fire; you make one bow drill and keep it with you, and use the same one to set many fires before it outlives its usefulness. I’ve got the basic technique down; now, I just need to practice it.
As our instructor pointed out, proper technique is pivotal. These skills are fairly easy (after all, it was not so long ago that every human being on the planet was accomplished in all these pursuits), if they’re done right. Improper technique can be the difference between grinding away on a bow drill for hours and hours, versus sitting next to your nice, warm fire.
Besides the bow drill, we used coals from the fires we’d set to burn spoons and bowls; we made cordage, practiced using throwing sticks, and learned the basics of fox walking. That’s something I’m going to need a lot more practice with; like so many of us, I’ve lost even something as simple as how to walk properly, and it all relies on muscles I haven’t used in years. More than a few steps, and I just fall over! We were sore and exhausted (though no doubt much of that was contributed by our poor choice of campground). My consolation lies in that what we did this weekend was the work that a functioning primitive society would spread over a period of months. We may have done it all badly, but we did it, and that means if we keep on doing it, we’ll do it better. Nothing’s stopping us. Now it’s just a matter of practice, and that’s something we’ll definitely be doing more of. There’s an Advanced Primitive Skills workshop in the fall that will pick up on this again, and I intend it to be much better going into there than I was leaving this weekend.
In short, it was a great, exhausting, valuable weekend. If you live anywhere near the Raccoon Creek watershed, I can’t recommend this program highly enough. There’s some backpacking and orienteering courses in July, but the next one we’ll be planning on attending will be the Wild Edibles course in August; there’s also a Hide Tanning class in September. Full details are available at their website, at http://www.friendsofraccoon.com/ If you’re from the area, we hope to see you there! In the meantime, we’ll be taking whatever opportunities we have to fox walk through the Allegheny National Forest, along the banks of the Tuppeek-hanne, and burn a little more dust off that bow drill we started this weekend…
Awesome, guys! Glad to hear that things are progressing, even if it comes with a little frustration
J
Comment by janene — 25 June 2007 @ 2:37 PM
Frustration is to be expected. To hear some people talk, what’s much more amazing is how little frustration we encountered. We were making fire within hours of making that first hatchet cut into a block of wood. However hard it was, that alone is inspiring.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 25 June 2007 @ 2:41 PM
I just read in this month’s National Geographic- the Ice Man (from the Italian Alps) was discovered with a coal wrapped in some leaves! Many tribal people never learned how to start fires- including native Tasmanians and even the Pygmys up until the 60’s. They all kept and transported a highly prized coal.
Comment by brent — 25 June 2007 @ 5:26 PM
That’s not true. They knew full well how to start a fire, but it could be a lot of work. Coals weren’t prized as the sole source of fire, just as the easiest source. Take the Tasmanians, for example; Jorgen Jorgenson interview a Tasmanian (recounted in Jorgen Jorgenson and the Aborigines of Van Dieman’s Land, reprinted in 1991) who explained that they did know about friction fires, but because Tasmania is very rainy and wood is generally very damp, they try to avoid having to start one whenver possible—so much so that anthropologists thought they didn’t even know how. Being in the middle of another rain forest, I would imagine that the Pygmies probably are in a similar situation.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 25 June 2007 @ 5:28 PM
It sounds nice to have personal instruction in learning primitive skills. There’s no program like that around where I live, so I have to use books and the internet to acquire these skills(kind of ironic, huh?). I HAVE succeeded in learning well several primitive skills from books and the internet, but I guarandamntee you I would have gotten my first fire from the bowdrill alot faster than I did! (But I got it down now so it’s all good.)
Comment by Andy — 25 June 2007 @ 5:43 PM
Look around; it actually took an Anthropik reader from around Wilkes-Barre (”Two Knives Katie,” some of you may remember her; I haven’t seen her around in a while, though) to clue us in about PATHWAYS, and we’re damn sure glad she did. So they may be around you, and you just didn’t know.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 25 June 2007 @ 5:56 PM
The best part of it for me was learning to fox walk. See, I used to walk on my toes when I was little. Relatives used to call me “twinkletoes” and offer to buy me high heels, and the other kids at school made fun of me. So I tried to make myself walk heel-first, with the result that I eventually developed an extremely exaggerated, bouncy style of walking.
When Pat Adams showed us how to fox walk, and told us that all babies start out walking like this and we have to specifically train them to walk heel-first when we force them into shoes, I felt so vindicated! I only wish I hadn’t spent so many years training myself to walk in such an unnatural way - it would be so much easier for me now.
Oddly enough, I’ve noticed that when I’m barefoot or wearing my Steve Madden ballet flats (soft-soled, much like moccassins), I find myself automatically slipping into walking on the balls of my feet again.
Pretty much everything this weekend made me think, over and over again, “Goddamn it, I wish I hadn’t been raised civilized! Everything would have been so much easier!”
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 25 June 2007 @ 8:20 PM
Earlier this month, on a semi-survival trek, we had an excercise in stalking/hunting, and after fox walking for about an hour straight, I found that my body wanted to keep walking that way. It was an effort to switch back to “normal” walking style, but then again if I hadn’t I’d have used up much more energy.
Comment by scruff — 25 June 2007 @ 9:06 PM
Foxwalking is stepping on the balls of the feet first, right? I was trying to foxwalk a bit when I started barefooting, since it much more readily allows you to get feedback from your steps, but it was too uncomfortable on concrete. I did notice that after a day of doing it, i felt it in my claves the next day. Just a very different set of muscles.
It makes a lot of sense to me, though. seems to be better on the joints too, since you then have both the ankle and knee to absord impact as you step down, rather than just the knee.
It also seems like it’s better not to step down hard of the heel, since that traumatic force just movs up the leg, rather than being absorbed my the bending of teh joints and contraction of the muscles. But someone told me that wasn’t the case- anyone know anything about that?
Comment by Archangel — 26 June 2007 @ 6:07 AM
Pygmies, at any rate, did not know how to start fires. I do not have a copy of the book on hand; however in Turnbull’s ‘The Forest People’ he stated that no one in the tribe knew how to start a fire. Regardless, what I find intriguing is that it is feasible to preserve an ember and keep it as part of a nomad’s repertoire.
Comment by brent — 26 June 2007 @ 9:46 AM
Scruff adn Archangel, I’m planning on writing a full-blown article on fox walking later this week, so, stay tuned.
Brent, I haven’t found any positive evidence yet, but given the case of the Tasmanians, and the general pattern of anthropologists underestimating their subjects, I wouldn’t carry that too far. Turnbull also has a reputation for having romanticized the Mbuti in The Forest People, and correspondingly demonizing the Ik in The Mountain People. I take any claim that people who lived in a given place for a million years never developed basic technique X with a huge grain of salt.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 June 2007 @ 9:52 AM
Jason-
Fox walking really started my obsession with indigenous movement skills, and it has so many layers to it. I love seeing it get more press! The rewilded movement ‘club’ in Portland that we call SHIFT gives us an opportunity to work on these skills together, and learn from each other. I really recommend forming a group like that, that meets weekly, to counteract the civilized shuffle (for us urban types anyhow).
Check out the SHIFT page: http://www.mythic-cartography.org/shift-animal-movement-art/
Also, the Body Skills page at rewild.info:
http://www.rewild.info/fieldguide/index.php?title=Body_Skills
The body skills page especially will provide some specific tips on improving fox walking and stalking skills.
If you want a durable mocassin-like shoe for us in the city, so you can always practice adapting your fox walking skillz, try a pair of vivo barefoots:
http://vivobarefoot.webfactional.com/
yes, primitive chic has returned…in fact, it never left.
I look forward to your upcoming blog on this wonderful skill.
Comment by Willem — 26 June 2007 @ 1:36 PM
That’s gotta be one of the most useful comments ever posted here, Willem. Thanks! I’m not very good at it, but I could immediately see how valuable it was, and I’ve been practicing in the few days since whenever I have the opportunity. Forming a group is a great idea, and wouldn’t you know it, Giuli & I were just talking about how we’d be able to get our hands on some decent moccasins without having to wait till we’re all the way up to being able to make them ourselves.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 June 2007 @ 1:51 PM
Wow, I’d never even heard of fox walking until now. I’m going to give it a go right away. Maybe it will help with my walking; I had ingrowing toenails on both feet when I was younger (stupid shoes), and I’ve never walked properly on my feet since. I always end up walking on the edges, and one foot heavier than the other. Does anyone know if fox walking can help in this respect? I would imagine it brings life back to un-used muscles at least.
Comment by Dan Bartlett — 26 June 2007 @ 3:30 PM
Is fox walking just for certain situations, or can you walk like it all the time? After watching some videos, I didn’t know whether it’s good/possible to walk like that all the time.
Comment by Dan Bartlett — 26 June 2007 @ 3:53 PM
It’s good to know that my article later thsi week will have an interested audience.
But seriously, give me a little time here.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 June 2007 @ 4:08 PM
I’d never heard of it before, but I always walk like that when I’m barefoot.
Walked like that when I was a kid in the city too.
Comment by jhereg — 26 June 2007 @ 4:15 PM
Just for the record, I want you all to know I had that point written in my notes before jhereg mentioned it (well, not jhereg doing it, but the fact that this is how most of us walk naturally, until we’re trained otherwise).
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 June 2007 @ 4:34 PM
jhereg: Maybe I did when I was younger too. I don’t know. After my toes got messed up, it made me walk heavier on one side in general, which knocked off the alignment of my back as well. Leading to all kinds of problems..
I had some specialist try to fix it years ago, but it’s still quirky even after my own work on it. Every time I walk now I try and focus on walking the “right” way but I really don’t know how. I tried a few different ways, but now I have no real stable reference, so this sounds exciting
Comment by Dan Bartlett — 26 June 2007 @ 4:40 PM
Dan,
I wrote a short article on reorganizing the use of your feet and whole-body alignment, which might be helpful to you:
http://www.edge-of-grace.com/musings/healing-flat-feet/
It’s aimed at people with flat feet but it sounds to me like it’s applicable to your situation. It’s not the last word, but it’s a compilation of my explorations into the topic.
And in my opinion, going barefoot or wearing Vivos would be a useful way to go. (But Vivos are expensive.)
Comment by David — 26 June 2007 @ 6:33 PM
I went barefoot for about a year once. I had to re-learn to walk and ended up fox-walking. Willem and I found out about the vivo’s because a fashion designer I knew was telling me about them, and how he had to re-learn how to walk wearing them. This guy had no idea what fox-walking was and I asked him to describe how he had to walk and he described the fox-walk to a fucking T. So a bunch of the tracker folk here wear them now. I don’t go barefoot much anymore and I stopped fox-walking pretty much right when I put shoes on. Lost those hard to form callouses on my heels too.
If you want to go barefoot in restaurants, you can just cut out the soles of a pair of shoes and put a rubber band around them and no one will notice… unless you stub your toe or step on a nail or something. I once even went as far as sewing the top of some socks into my shoes so when I had shorts on it looked like I was wearing shoes and socks. I called them my Urban Scout shoes, that’s sort of where the nick name started.
Comment by Urban Scout — 26 June 2007 @ 10:42 PM
roflmao!!
that’s awesome!!
what a great idea!
Comment by jhereg — 27 June 2007 @ 6:48 AM
so *that’s* what it is called–Fox Walking! thanks!
that’s what Ran does (you know how keen he is on the whole barefoot thing, everywhere!) he’s barefoot so much that even with sandals or SNOW BOOTS on, his feet still try to walk like that! it looks REALLY funny walking on city sidewalks with shoes on! : )
you know there was a *fashion* article the other Sunday in the Post-Gazette here about these outrageously expensive shoes you can buy that simulate being barefoot! http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07148/789523-314.stm
i remain jealous, and would mostly have chosen your weekend over my own in D.C. with the 26,000 librarians. however, i did chance to meet two modern day Culture Warriors during the conference–Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyanne & Hodulgee Muscogee) and the very young but *very* strong Dorothy Lippert (Choctaw) who were part of a wonderful if sometimes painful four hour program along with Emil Her Many Horses, on issues surrounding “repatriation” of indigenous american dead, and other issues central to saving what can be saved of the sustainable cultures that thrived here pre-conquest.
having all this Story talk from y’all floating around in my head, after seeing and speaking to Dorothy, in particular, i want to try and make a children’s book about what she is doing, but using my own semi-distant cultural heritage (Picti-Scots) and not trying to borrow anything Choctaw that i don’t understand or have any right to use…basically what she is trying to do, is to free the dead from the cold hands of “science”–that’s the most simple way of phrasing it i can come up with. but the implications go SO far beyond any one people or culture, and really stand on The Line between our modern way of isolating living humans away from the larger natural and spiritual universe, and traditional cultures that accepted and respected a Bigger World. i see her as a Hero who goes alone and often mis-trusted even by her own people, into the deep dark halls of the Empire, to rescue the Elders, risking their wrath in the process.
does anyone know any good illustrators for something like that?!
i think NEXT June i actually *can* make the Intro Primitive Skills class, but i don’t want to wait! i wonder if there is any way they’d let me slip into the Advanced class in the fall…i might probably get y’all killed, of course.
you’re totally right that it can be an eye-opening thing for us…exchanging the books and theory and lovely talk on websites and in the comfort of modern kitchens, for the realities of being “out of doors” for any length of time without the usual tents and coolers and so on.
of course, the way people *really* lived, it wouldn’t be like that–you’d be surrounded by a community who knew what the heck they were doing, and likely in an environment that had co-evolved along with them for some time.
what we try to do now, is almost always like “weekend warrior” stuff, and worse, the “wild” that we go into, is often disturbed land in the midst of trying to re-establish itself, and not at all like it would be if people were already still there living in tandom with it.
i had a largely very rough time last summer out on Ran’s land north of Spokane, but i think it taught me some good things in general and about myself, beyond simply showing me how UN-ready i was. i’m still going back this July, and we plan this time to make longer stays out there (if it doesn’t all burn down!) i wrote a whiny little essay on my experience, that Ran posted on his Landblog last August: http://ranprieur.com/land/aug06.html (i have no shame! i’m not proud! i know what i am!)
really the most important insight i had, dove-tails perfectly with your essays, Jason, on “wilderness”–the long ago dream home we sometimes remember, was the result of a long long partnership between humans and other animals and the land, not some “pristine” untouched paradise. and that, sadly, is mostly gone now. if we hope to ever re-join the larger natural world, we should expect to go into it with something of our own to offer…we’ll have to help it, maybe even more than we hope it will help us.
glad to hear you had a…good?…time this weekend, though!
but bow drills? all the more reason to obtain, learn how to use, and how to NOT LOSE something slightly less difficult, like an iron and flint kit, maybe!
Comment by patricia — 28 June 2007 @ 12:43 AM
Seriously. Think about the implications. You see a guy wearing shoes, in the rain, and as he walks indoors he leaves prints of BARE FEET! IMPOSSIBLE. Hah hah.
Even funnier: nobody notices. True.
Comment by Willem — 28 June 2007 @ 12:58 AM
Those Vivo Barefoot’s look so awesome. I haven’t had a product craving like this in ages! I’ve had so many problems with shoes in the past (and still now) so I’m tempted to splash out. If anyone wants to donate a pair…
After watching this great little video, I’ve been foxing around the office for the last 2 days. I think I may have got one strange look, but it certainly makes walking around the office more fun. It feels great and I haven’t had any problem picking it up.
After reading David’s Healing Flat Feet page (I actually have quite high archs) and some other links, my main problem was just that I was slamming down on my heels, and putting very little weight on my balls, which is the opposite of what I should have been doing. So now I’m foxing whenever I’m barefoot (or just wearing my black socks in the office ;)) and transferring my weight to the ball of my feet when I’m walking in shoes.
Comment by Dan Bartlett — 28 June 2007 @ 8:53 AM
Those won’t last you too long, so you’d better know a method that’s more, shall we say, sustainable?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 June 2007 @ 9:50 AM
From the article Patricia linked to:
It took them that long to figure out that maybe you should consider how our bodies are designed to work in your effort to help our bodies work better?!?!
Thanks for the link, Patricia—Little’s is practically right around the corner from our apartment. But those shoes are SO freaking expensive! We were already planning to buy those Vivos upthread, and they’re a hundred dollars less.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 28 June 2007 @ 10:26 AM
Hey –
hmmm… I just don’t see the appeal of the vivos… but then, I am really picky about shoes and avoiding them at any cost
BTW, Minnetonka does offer soul-less mocs of various types. They do line them, but I personally think that they are as close to barefoot as I can get while having my feet covered….
J
Comment by janene — 28 June 2007 @ 10:59 AM
I remember that. I don’t recall thinking of it as whiny tho’, insightful, yes; whiny, no.
Ah, the power of culture in action. Sad that it’s been used for such destructive ends….
Comment by jhereg — 28 June 2007 @ 11:43 AM
Ask and ye shall recieve
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 June 2007 @ 2:59 PM
you’re welcome, Guili! i suppose you could just check out the ones at Little’s to see how they feel and get an idea on sizes and such, before ordering the less expensive ones?
i’m still reeling from the irony of buying ANY shoes that are engineered to pretend you are going barefoot! okay, no, i know, broken glass, sharp little rocks, *rules* and so on…i guess i do see the point. would moccasins serve the same purpose, though? maybe…
i was a barefoot maniac until post-college…used to dare people to walk with me outside in the woods in the snow.
and yes, Jason, i was totally baiting you with the bow drill vs. the iron & flint comment. heck, i can’t even get my iron & flint to work consistently! at this point my primary survival skills consist of having a sincere desire to get along with people and share and work in groups, and being somewhat more adaptable than average when it comes to foods and living arrangements, and i never feel “bored” in the woods. not much to go on! separated from my books and the internet, my concrete skills are dubious, at best.
and thanks, jhereg, for saying i didn’t whine too much–that was very nice of you. i was trying to be brutally honest. i was quite upset at first, to realize how much i did *not* want to spend too many days in a row up there, how much i missed ice cubes and showers, and how childishly frightened the wasps and hornets could make me feel. but they belong there more than i do, they are part of nature’s first-responder clean-up crew.
Comment by patricia — 28 June 2007 @ 11:28 PM
It’s nice to have primitive skills meetings ! Here in belgium I don’t really know any, but we went to one in holland some months ago, http://www.bushcraftweekend.nl . Really nice experience and learned to make fire with the bow drill, failed at making fire with the handdrill (just got lots of smoke and bloody blisters!), had fun making a “bushman birdsnare” (a guy who learned it from the bushmen), cooked salmon in clay and listened to a guy talk about the paleodiet (a friend did a fish smoking workshop), did a tracking workshop and in the early morning went listening to birds. We were three and all did different workshops so we could teach each other later. So the last weeks we’ve smoked fish a couple of times in a smoke tipi, delicious! These experiences are just now and then and I could learn much faster in another environment and group of people. So I’ve made the decision to leave belgium and go to sweden for 1 to 2 years on a school, where we’d learn in a group of 12 people to live in nature. http://www.sjovik.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=72
It’s a bit like 1 week trekking, then 2 weeks on school and so on. On school I’ll be living in a tipi, I’m wondering how cold it’ll get in winter!?
It’s tough because I’ll leave my girlfriend! And it’s in swedish which I can’t speak yet. But I feel it’s the way I will grow fastest and get real experience. Being full time in a group and having experienced teachers (instead of books or films) seems awesome.
I had never heard of this school before ( or this other one http://www.backedal.fhsk.se/ ) until I read a dutch guy’s website who had followed a course in sweden and so I asked him about it. Before that I thought there existed nothing like it here in europe (only courses of a week or weekend which cost rediculously much), I had thought about going to the US and do the Tamarack Song school….
Comment by gunnix — 30 June 2007 @ 9:28 AM
You may be going a bit awry then, Gunnix. Remember, the two most important things in native life are family and land. Anytime you have to abandon one or both to be more native, you have to ask yourself really hard questions about whether this is really a good deal.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 1 July 2007 @ 1:36 PM