3 Basic Survival Skills You Must Know

At first thought, the idea of acquiring a good basic knowledge of survival skills might seem farfetched, especially when we wake up every morning in the comforting confines of a climate controlled environment. Water, electricity, and technology work at our beck and call to make life ever so cozy and convenient. But what if it all went away at once? Hurricane, tornado, earthquake, political unrest, or even a massive EMP blast. Any of these could send us back to the figurative Stone Age at least for a short time.

Would you have even the slightest inkling at how to begin approaching survival? Do you even know which are considered to be the three most critical survival skills? Here they are, in the humble opinion of the team at Holistic Survival, in no particular order.

Fire – Many knowledgeable survivalists would claim that the ability to create fire is the single best skill a person can have. With fire you automatically acquire warmth, light, comfort, a way to purify drinking water (boiling), and to cook meat. As long as you have a fire, you can survive in cold conditions even without adequate clothing. Good advice is to learn the art of fire craft and always have at your disposal two or three different ways of making it.

Shelter – With no way to combat the brutal elements, both heat and cold, the human body begins to deteriorate quickly. Heat, cold, rain, snow, sun, wind. Any single one or a combination of these can be thwarted to some extent through the knowledge of how to procure shelter. The first level of shelter is, of course, clothing, which works best when layered, for adaptive purposes. The next step in creating shelter is to be able to construct a basic lean-to or hut. These types of structures are limited only by your inventiveness, but a space blanket or tarp can make the project go quickly.

Signaling – In the event you need to be rescued, a basic knowledge of signaling allows you to communicate with rescuers who might not be able to physically reach you. There are a variety of methods: fire and smoke, flashlights, markers, bright clothing, reflective mirrors. The big idea to keep in mind is that a combination of three of anything – rifle shots, sticks in the shape of a triangle, whistle blows – is the universal signal for help.

Though we didn’t include them in this list, we assume you would figure out that food and water is pretty important also.

The Holistic Survival Team

 

 

 

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