Discover the Power of Nature Reconnection: The Best Survival School in the United States

Are you seeking a transformative experience that not only equips you with essential survival skills but also reconnects you with the natural world? Look no further than Nature Reconnection – the ultimate survival school in the United States. In a world dominated by technology and urban living, our program stands out as a beacon of ancient wisdom and modern expertise, providing you with an unparalleled journey toward self-sufficiency, resilience, and profound personal growth.

Unveiling the Nature Reconnection Difference

At Nature Reconnection, we don't just teach survival skills – we guide you on a journey of rediscovery. Our approach is centered around the idea that true survival isn't just about overcoming physical challenges; it's about reconnecting with nature, honing your instincts, and developing a deep bond with the environment. Here's what sets us apart as the best survival school in the United States:

1. Holistic Survival Curriculum:

Our meticulously crafted curriculum combines primitive survival techniques with modern knowledge. From fire-making and shelter-building to navigation and wilderness first aid, we cover every essential aspect of survival. Our courses are designed to empower you to thrive in any environment, be it the wilderness or an urban setting.

2. Expert Instructors:

Led by seasoned survival experts, our instructors bring a wealth of experience and passion to each class. Their expertise ensures that you receive the most up-to-date and relevant survival knowledge, while their dedication ensures an engaging and transformative learning experience.

3. Nature Connection and Mindfulness:

Unlike traditional survival schools, Nature Reconnection places a strong emphasis on fostering a deep connection with the natural world. Through mindfulness practices, nature walks, and immersive experiences, we help you tap into the healing power of nature while enhancing your situational awareness.

4. Personal Growth and Resilience:

Survival isn't just about physical skills – it's also about mental and emotional strength. Our program challenges you to push your boundaries, helping you build resilience, adaptability, and confidence that extend far beyond survival scenarios.

5. Customized Learning Paths:

Whether you're a beginner or have some survival experience, our courses are designed to accommodate all skill levels. We offer a range of classes, from introductory courses to advanced wilderness survival, allowing you to tailor your learning path according to your needs and aspirations.

6. Environmental Stewardship:

We believe that to survive, we must also preserve and protect our environment. Our program instills a deep sense of environmental responsibility, encouraging participants to become advocates for nature conservation.

7. Lifelong Community:

When you join Nature Reconnection, you become part of a thriving community of like-minded individuals who share your passion for nature and survival. Our alumni network offers ongoing support, resources, and opportunities for continued growth.

Unlock Your Potential with Nature Reconnection

Survival is about more than just enduring; it's about thriving in harmony with the natural world. At Nature Reconnection, we empower you with the skills and mindset needed to not only survive but to flourish in any situation. Our commitment to excellence, combined with our dedication to nature reconnection, makes us the best survival school in the United States.

Are you ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery, skill-building, and nature connection? Join us at www.naturereconnection.org and experience the transformative power of the best survival school in the United States. Your adventure begins here.

Survival School Near Me

Since the epic battle between yelp and google on the internet has taken place you can now find schools, restaurants, and other businesses near you with a simple search. Simply go to your search engine and type the service you are looking for and add near me at the end, example “blank near me.” This works for everything and has made it super convenient to find what you need quick and efficiently.

Unfortunately there is a dark side to this new convenience sweeping the world. Most survival experts are not the greatest at technology, specifically adding a business listing to google, creating a company website, adwords, SEO, social media and other forms of internet marketing. So, with this being said a majority of the worlds best instructors don’t show up when you search for survival courses near me. Take David Holladay for example who is arguably the most experienced and loved survival instructor of all time. He is completely off the internet, has no website, no social media, and no courses advertised online. So if you were looking to train with the worlds most experienced instructor the internet would not help you connect with him or his classes.

Most of the worlds most experienced and knowledgable instructors can be found at primitive skills gatherings like Rabbitstick, Wintercount, and other similar events. This is not to say that you cannot find good instructors near you by using a google search. You can! Our point we are trying to make in this blog is self-research of the school and the instructors you will learn from. Also remember that anyone can write anything about themselves on their own personal website. Look for outside sources that are unbiased when researching a school or instructor. Ask yourself questions to research: How did they learn these skills? How have they practiced these skills in real life scenarios? How are they connected to the industry and can you source any positive references outside their personal website?

In the world of stolen valor and fake black belts emerges the youtube learned and self-proclaimed survival instructor. BEWARE! Anyone can proclaim to be a survival instructor and start a school which would show up on a simple google search, “survival schools near me.” The unaware student sees a professional website and classes offered and happily forks over large sums of money with no research or clarity on who they would learn from, or how their knowledge was obtained. Remember that 60% of the world’s top professionals are offline, living primitive lifestyles. You can connect and train with these professionals but you need to be connected with the industry first and the best way to start is to attend Rabbitstick or Wintercount events.

If anything, do research on the school and its instructors before signing up for classes. What have they accomplished? Where have they trained and with who? Have they been tested? Do they have an established business? All these things matter when learning how to stay alive in the wilderness. Taking the time to identify real professionals will get you professional training and results. We hope this article helps you find and locate quality instruction and allows you to grow in your skills and knowledge. Stay outside and have fun!

Mastering the Art of Friction Fire

Friction fire may be one of the most important inventions of all human history. The ability to make fire has transformed the path of human existence here on planet earth. Besides being one of the most important discoveries it is also one of the oldest besides lithic technology and the ability to utilize tools. Friction fire and the knowledge of managing fire is so engrained in humanities DNA it is hard to distinguish the two apart. Unfortunately less and less people retain the knowledge and skills to produce fire with their hands. This is why we teach this skill at Nature Reconnection because we feel it is a vital link to understanding what it means to be a human being.

Our head instructor wrote an amazing book on this subject called “Mastering the Art of Friction Fire” by Chad Keel and it is an excellent resource for learning on your own. Today there are hundreds of youtube videos on this subject but nothing is better than learning from a true wilderness survival expert. If you are out of reach from a true primitive survival teacher we would recommend picking up a book before you attempt to learn on youtube. This is because anyone can upload a video onto the internet and parrot information they heard others say and provide you with false or incorrect techniques, methods, or knowledge. When it comes to practicing survival and real wilderness emergency training having the incorrect information can unfortunately cost you your life.

We would always suggest reading a field manual or book which covers the details of the subject you wish to learn vs simply watching random youtube videos. However, pairing a book with videos made by that instructor can prove to be extremely beneficial. This is because you can read the book for in-depth explanations and examples of techniques and methods and then have a visual video of that instructor showing you the process in action. This will be as close of a lesson you can get versus actually training with the instructor in person. Also, most books cover the history, culture, and the instructors full knowledge on the subject which is sometimes glazed over in in-person training because of time.

The Nature Reconnection field manual “Mastering the Art of Friction Fire” by Chad Keel is available on amazon.com and is highly recommended by both beginner and advanced students. The book is an in-depth look at both the hand and bow drill methods of friction fire. Please pick up a copy and leave a review after you read the book and apply the principles in action. If you are in Southern California and want to take a class on friction fire or any other primitive living skill connect with us to get started. We also teach true survival courses, primitive walkabout courses, and international trips to Africa, Costa Rica, Peru, and Pakistan. Lets get you started today!

The (Not So) Hidden Lesson In Nature Reconnection

When I decided I wanted to actively cultivate a skill-set that would enable me to live a more sovereign lifestyle within my local landscape, I felt like a baby just learning to crawl who wanted to grow up to be an olympic runner. I knew I would certainly need to know the most basic life skills, which oddly enough, had somehow escaped the “education” I received throughout my academic career. These skills, (such as finding food, water, and shelter), seemed to me to be fundamental knowledge to ALL creatures on Earth…except for humans. For us, these things must be sought out, otherwise, we remain disempowered. 

Even the thing that supposedly set man-kind apart from the other “lowly beasts”- the ability to make fire, would be lost to me were it not for matches or a lighter. Thus, I identified this as the foundation I wanted to build from: Basic primitive survival skills. How to live. How to interact withand survive in the environment right outside my door, my homeland, the place I was born. For me, being unable to do so made me feel less than human. And how could it not? To live, act, and think as though we are separate from Nature, something apart rather than an integral part of Nature, is an illusion we all suffer for. 

Imagine my delight at discovering there was a group right here in my neighborhood, that focused on all of the above. I immediately wrote in and asked to join the next event. I arrived at my first nature hike back in April ready and determined to suck all the information from the instructors as I could. I wanted to know as much as possible in the shortest amount of time possible, (this beingthe mental plague of my generation it seems). I probably would have shown up with a notepad and pen if I had thought it wouldn't make me look even more out of place. I was surprised at my experience. 

Yes, that day I did learn several primitive skills, like how to make rope from plant fibers and how to build a small animal trap, but more than that, I experienced what it is like to be human again.

Really human. Myself and the other participants were taken to a place well off the beaten path. We sat in a circle within a primitive dome shelter built entirely of salvaged tree branches and listened to each other talk. And not just about survival skills. About life.

I thought I had shown up to learn how to be a wilderness badass, but I think my biggest lessons have been in learning how to listen. How to be still, quite, and observant. How to be at peace with just being. Within the Zspiritual community, I felt that was all that was expected or wanted of me: Just BE. I felt accepted simply for being there. In addition, the instructors and other participants, many of whom were Nature Reconnection regulars, made me feel welcome, seen, and heard. They held space for me in a way I had not experienced in any other social setting to date.

When you get a group of people together, and put them out in Nature (where they belong I might add!), with no distractions, a funny thing happens.

Its like our DNA remembers. It is written in our genetics, and when placed back in our natural environments, we remember we are tribal, and we are wild. 

To be tribal does not mean we have 5 different social media accounts with 10K followers each. It means we engage with our local community and learn torespond with empathy rather than react with ego.It means we take responsibility for our actions and consider how these actions affect those around us, on all levels. 

To be wild does not mean to be reckless, undisciplined, quick and chaotic. Quite the opposite. Spend any truly observant amount of time out in the wilds of Nature and you will sooner or later come to the realization there is a rhythm to things, a cycle. It is more often than not, slow and measured, like a steady heartbeat, and the rest of the Earths inhabitants, when left unmoved by our hands, seem to dance in perfect synchronicity with it. Nature does not rush endlessly nor strive constantly to produce more. Mother Nature, and all her cycles, seasons, and inhabitants, allows ample room for rest, recovery, stillness, receptiveness. If Nature hurries, it follows with stillness. If there is death, rebirth is never far away. It is when we forget these most basic truths that disharmony and disease result. It is when we neglect to acknowledge that Nature takes her time, moving slowly, sensuously, purposefully, and by behaving in contradictory manners (ignoring lunar and solar/seasonal cycles in lieu of our various work, school, familial, and social schedules), that we allow for all manner of physical and energetic debris to accumulate on our inner and outer environments, that the quality of life is hampered for All. 

Chad Keel and Kody Sherwood seemed to have understood this on a very deep level and are offering up a solution in their Zspiritual Community and Nature Reconnection Class, the later being a delicious blend of survival technique, herbalism, space holding, sharing, native culture and a touch of mysticism. Yet it is their genuine welcoming acceptance of each and every type of unique individual who comes to learn from them, and the opportunity they provide for the members of our community to rewild together, as a tribe, the way humankind was meant to, that is the true gift. 

You may arrive because they have promised to help you reconnect to Nature, but inevitably, you end up reconnecting with a deeper, wilder, more authentic part of yourself. It is an experience I hope to share with many in the years to come. 

Written by Sara Lee