Bushcraft Survival Essentials: What I Teach First at South West Survival

I spent 23 years in the British Army, including service with 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, and I have been tested with nothing on Discovery's Naked and Afraid. Strip everything else away and survival comes down to a handful of skills done properly, under pressure, in bad weather. These are the essentials I teach first on every South West Survival course in Plymouth and Devon.

Shelter comes before everything

In British conditions, exposure will hurt you long before hunger does. Wind and rain on Dartmoor can drop your core temperature in hours, not days. So the first skill we drill is reading the ground: getting out of the wind, off wet earth, and under cover using what the woodland gives you. A shelter does not need to look impressive. It needs to keep you dry and hold your heat.

Fire is a skill, not a trick

Anyone can light a fire on a dry day with a lighter. Devon woodland after a week of rain is a different job. The difference between a spark and a fire is preparation: gathering and grading your tinder, kindling and fuel before you ever strike a ferro rod. On our courses you light fire with damp material, because that is the fire you will actually need one day.

Water: find it, then make it safe

Moorland streams look clean. They are not. Livestock, dead animals and run-off make untreated water a gamble, and stomach illness in a survival situation is dangerous. Boiling is the reliable default, which brings you straight back to fire. The skills stack — that is the point.

Navigation before the battery dies

On Naked and Afraid you carry nothing. In real life you can carry a map and compass, and they never run out of charge. We teach navigation from the ground up: setting the map, taking a bearing, pacing and handrailing. Once you can move confidently without a phone, the outdoors stops being intimidating.

The skill underneath all of them: staying calm

The Army teaches you that panic kills faster than weather. Every skill above is really a decision-making exercise under stress. That is why our training is hands-on and progressively harder — because confidence built through repetition is what actually keeps people alive, and it is what you carry back into normal life.

Learn it hands-on in Devon

South West Survival runs commando-led survival and bushcraft training near Plymouth, including the two-day Commando Survival Foundation course in Saltash, She Survives women's weekends, school programmes and corporate team-building. Everything is taught the way I learned it: practical, safe and tested. Book through our Events page or get in touch through the Contact page.