Winter training
It doesn’t matter what the weather is like, training should take place in all weather types. The other day we here in the North East has a small Blizzard roll in, and my first thought was “what a great opportunity to train!” So, out I went into the raging snow storm, with my extended survival pack with me, I hiked into the forest behind my home and started training.
So what did I do you might ask? Well here you go,
1) Fire starting (kajutsu) during the storm it was hard to locate dry tinder, but from under a series of hemlock trees I found some dry needles, small branches and a few leaves. Although starting the fire proved to be difficult with my flint and steel, but I managed to get a nice small fire going pretty quickly.
2) Before I got my fire going I bilt a small debris shelter that allowed me to do step 1 in a fairly sheltered manner. Shelter is crucial in a survival situation or even a primitive camping event. Learn how to build several types of shelters, so that you will not be panicing when you need to put this skill into use.
3) Meditation. With the wind whipping and the snow blowing, I slowed my breathing down, focusing on the alpha wave generating fire, and began to expand my awareness around me, allowing the everyday thoughts to drift away and instead counting my breaths, and allowing my peripheral vison to expand.(more on meditation in an up coming post.)
4) As I made my way back home, I focused on Chimon and utilized my orienteering skills to keep me on the right path to my door. To many people focus on GPS and technology today, but during the storm I could not get a solid signal from the satellites, so I broke out the tried and true compass and map and off I went.
Some of you may listen to the Podcast where I state “Where we take the powerful ancient ninja strategies and techniques and utilize them in real world modern applications.” So here is a perfect example of doing just that. Now I hope you learn from this and take it back to your training, and utilize these ancient skills in a modern application.
Bufu Ikkan
ps: with over 24 inches of snow that night it made for another great training day SNOWBOARDING!