Natural Pathways

Bushcraft & survial skills

Contact details:

01304 842045

07828 316827

www.naturalpathways.co.uk

hannah@naturalpathways.co.uk

Testimonials:

Survival Away Day - Senior Countryside Officer,Canterbury City Council

Just a quick word of thanks to say how much everyone enjoyed the survival training last Friday - several people even saying it was the best away-day they'd had.  It was great to get everyone outside for a while and the team building was really effective.

April 08 Fire and Shelter Day
Mandy  

We had a truly superb day bonding with our children. I think we forget so easily how important it is to make time to listen to each other and really hear the other person. We also thoroughly enjoyed working as a team even if it wasn't always smooth running with 6 personalities contributing to the shelter. I just hope we are never all together in a survival situation!
 
David and I talked about the day and we agree it was fabulous to offer our children a learning experience outside of everything else that they do. Flossie especially has been talking about the experience and has told her teacher every last detail.
 
I was able to use my news of spending the day in the woods at my management check-in at my school staff meeting this week! We try and add something we have learnt recently. It was so good to explain how to light the fire and I think my head teacher was very impressed with my new skills!
 
3 years ago we travelled for a month as a family to New Zealand. That is a trip that I think we will always chat about as there are so many memories and it was a true adventure for us as a family. We will definitely put our day last Saturday down as a very similar memory and I know that we will find ourselves discussing it over the dinner table! Perhaps we will even use the skills in France later this year! We will let you know!
 
The girls came home and have drawn 2 lovely pictures of the day and we will send them to you if you pass on your address.

February 08 Fire and Shelter Day
Vic –Music Teacher
This week I went on an outdoor course teaching you basic survival skills such as building a shelter and lighting a fire. It was great fun to learn something in a different environment to the norm.

What is interesting in this is building a shelter involves lots of physical work collecting the materials and constructing. This seems to get you into an altered state where the intellect is not working as such and you seem to learn by 'remembering'.

It interested me that you can learn so quickly in this environment and although this is something that I have always maintained, that you need to get to the feeling of the music as quickly as possible, it was nice to experience it whilst doing something else.
 
Someone on the course put it very well when they said you get out of your mind and into your body and this is such a good feeling when all you do all your working life is to be in your head.
 
The last thing we did was to walk around the forest blindfolded and this experience was very interesting. Within moments you were adapting to the situation and following a sound to help you back to base. It seemed to highlight your senses straight away making you more aware of your surroundings.

When you eventually got the blindfold off it seemed to have changed your normal perception as well somehow as if we were remembering the senses that we had and they were still operating.

So maybe it is good to change the parameters of what you do to bring growth to yourself and those around you by using the other senses more. Try some ideas that focus on using other senses in the process of learning the outcome may surprise you.

February 08 Fire and Shelter Day
Susan Smith 

 It was so good to be outdoors in Nature, amongst the trees, the plants and the earth. I felt it really put me ' in touch' with myself and made me feel I was 'at home'. It was such fun, full on yet relaxing activity. It makes me feel so much more confident having built a shelter and made fire from what the forest abundantly provides.
I loved finishing up with the Drum Stalk, being blindfolded and slowly feeling my way through the forest, it was magical!
 
I am really looking forward to doing another course, such as a 3 day event next time. I feel it’s a Natural Pathway to nourishing and healing your soul!
 
June 07 - Back to Nature Youth Event
Irma-Jane Caggiano - Connexions

Just an email to say thank you for a really inspirational and well organized day. 

The young people really enjoyed working together out in the natural environment, and seemed to enjoy getting back to nature, and finding out more about themselves.  Even those who normally have more challenging behavior seemed totally engrossed with the activities provided.  It is a fun alternative educational day, one which the young people seem to gain a great deal from.  Some of the young lads have organized a camping trip as a response to the activities – a positive change from hanging out in the streets or under age drinking – really fantastic!

Nov 07 – Flint Knapping day with Will Lord Kim Sandu

It was great meeting you too and chatting around the fire!
 
I had a great time thanks, Will is an excellent teacher and very generous with his hard earnt knowledge. His skills are remarkable to say the least, and my attempts just showed how ham fisted I am haha.
 
Can't wait for the Discovery course in May, even started reading Tom Brown's Way of the Scout to give me an idea of what to expect!

Oct 07 – Flint Knapping day with Will Lord Gavin

 George and I had a great day and really enjoyed ourselves.  Will and Sarah were good fun and very informative, and I think I/we may well have another go next year.

All the best,

Gavin

Oct 07 – Flint Knapping day with Will Lord Bryn

 Hello Hannah

It was a brilliant day and I have told everyone about it.  Now this is completely true, the day after I went to a local boot-fair and on a second look through a box of 'junk' on the floor I spotted a tan coloured stone.  Even with my limited experience from the day I could tell it was worked stone, the edges and the pressure flaking.  I had a feeling it was a hand axe (but the shape was odd) so I Googled some images of hand axes and got a very good match - but the dates seemed amazingly old. I took it along to an expert an the Thanet Archaeological Trust - and he confirmed that it indeed is a hand axe, last made 200,000 years ago - possibly up to 500,000-700,000 years old - the maker wasn't even a direct human ancestor.  I am in the process of getting the find scientifically registered and dated. But without the course and knowledge I picked up I would have missed this.

Completely true - I sometimes have these odd coincidences; I was really looking for some antlers etc. to make my own tools...

Best Regards

Bryn

Oct 07 – Flint Knapping day with Will Lord Martin

Thanks for the flint knapping course at the weekend. I really enjoyed spending a day in the woods with Will and Sarah. My hands are shredded with small cuts but it is a price worth paying.

Sept07 – Discovery Matt & Steph

Hannah, just a quick note to say thanks to you, Sally, Leif and Ben for making last weekend so enjoyable and interesting. Both Steph and I have been raving to everyone we meet how good the course was. Being back in an office now seems so clinical and we hope to get back to the outdoors soon!

Regards

Matt and Steph.

Sept07 – Discovery Course - Mike& Arnavaz

Hi Hannah,

Whilst it is coming close to two weeks now since we were with you on the course we still find ourselves daydreaming about it at regular intervals.

We both had a fantastic time with you all – the group being great and the tuition perfect. I personally found it very surprising how displaced I felt on the first night (nothing I would have expected to feel) but equally how quickly I adapted to our surroundings after that. Literally by the afternoon of the second day I was right at home and that was even with a really bad nights sleep the night before.

We both have a greater eagerness to explore more of our World as a result of the course but also find the learning, and subsequent teaching with respect to our own children, quite daunting as it also proved to us how little we actually know and how much we have forgotten – yet it is a challenge we’re fully prepared to commit to. We only have a short time here on this Earth and it is such a shame to miss it all while we’re busy in our conditioned lives with our heads down staring at the pavement. We can fill our heads with so much junk these days as part of our day-to-day lives but how much of that stuff really matter in the grand scheme of things? We felt that actually with this course we learnt things that really are worth knowing and that for us was exciting.

We had a weekend away just this last weekend to a farm in Devon staying with some friends. Emily (our 3 year old) and I spent a night in some of their woodland. We collected wood, made our fire pit and set up camp for the night. Sang a few songs in front of the fire and had a really nice time. We even cooked porridge in the morning which Emily loves. It was great to be able to have the confidence to share that experience with her.

Arnavaz and I are really looking forward to coming back to spend some more time with you on another course. We would also be very willing to come back and help with any of your other courses if you could use us and we’d be happy to help wherever. Arnavaz is a very talented amateur chef and wilderness cooking is something that is really sparking her at the moment having done a lot of mainstream cuisine to date. I think it would be quite good fun if we prepared a meal for you and other course members on one occasion if you’d be up for that.

Thanks very much again for a simply wonderful time. I hope the first of many more to come – and please do let us know if we can be of help on any other courses.

Very best wishes,
Mike & Arnavaz

Aug 07 – Women’s Discovery Bec

Well, not quite the same I know, but I've been collecting the different sizes of wood and making some cracking semi-tepee fires in Zara's wood-burning stove! I'm going to make some char cloth and have a practice with my fire steel some time soon.

Walks in the woods have felt quite different too, I think although it was short the course has had quite far reaching effects – certainly opened my mind to some good stuff and started healing the disconnection I hadn't noticed I was feeling from nature. I’d like to do another some time, and will maybe come along to one of the family days with my nephew too.

Best wishes,
Bec

July 07 – Animal Wisdom Family Day Graeme

Dear Hannah,

Thankyou for the Animal Wisdom course last Sunday. Michael and I really enjoyed it and found it very interesting.  My favourite bits were the Fox walk and peripheral vision exercises and the Sit Spot and watching and listening. I found them quite spiritual and was left with an idea that normally our senses are shut down because they are so overloaded but that if we are still and quiet we can be aware of a very active outer and inner world around us all the time.

I hope that we will be able to come on more of your courses in the future. I am sure that my wife and daughters would enjoy them as well.

Best wishes,
Graeme Booth.
   

Sept 06 – Istead Rise School – Class 5 Lyn

On behalf of both myself, Mark and the children I would like to say thank you for a great day,

You made our rather obscure topic come to life for the children and they commented how much they liked being in the woods!!!!

Please update us and we will keep you in mind for next year.

Lyn

July 06 – Corporate Event Sarah-Jane

I cannot believe how fast time has passed since we met back in July.  May I take this opportunity to thank you once again for what turned out to be the perfect meeting and to reiterate how much I appreciate all your help in the event organisation.  I had some great feedback from the team who noted particularly how smoothly our 2 day 'camp' went and who commended the way in which you and Judy ran the nature awareness activities.  The Drum Stalk was a particular favourite!  I especially appreciated your help at dinnertime, as you made the somewhat daunting task of catering for 20 seem like a breeze, so thank you!  I'd also like to say how perfectly the location of the camp suited our needs.

Best wishes,

Sarah-Jane

July 06 – Wilderness Family Camp Kim

The Wilderness families’ camp was good fun and I learnt a great deal. It made a very nice change to be on a course where most of those attending were women! It was really beneficial to experience a course that was more relaxed and allowed input from both parents and children to create a great environment where everyone was learning and relaxing at the same time. Genius.

Good luck with everything in the future.

Smiles, Kim.

July 06 – Wilderness Family Camp Amanda & Jack

Hi Hannah,

Jack (8) and I had the most brilliant experience when we spent our four days out in the woods.  Just getting the chance to be close to nature and away from all the things we think of as “essential” was so refreshing.  It helped both of us to appreciate what is truly real, and also enjoy the energy of a group of people with similar aims.

Learning survival skills enabled us to feel more connected to nature because instead of protecting ourselves against it, we learned to work with it, and therefore gained a better appreciation of the natural state of things.  Jack particularly liked being able to set a tinder bundle alight, which gave him an enormous feeling of self-satisfaction.  He practiced this skill as soon as we got home, in the garden.  We also both enjoyed the games, which were a great way of bringing to light and enhancing skills which we may not even have been aware of.

In all we had a great time – energizing, relaxing and eye-opening - and Jack is already looking forward to the next one! See you soon.

Love,
Amanda and Jack

June 06 – Wilderness Family Camp Sara

We all really really enjoyed your bushcraft course and got an enormous amount out of it. I have found the drum stalk has been particularly revealing as I can see analogies between my response and approach to that and other areas of my life. And it was great to see the children calming down, engaging and learning. Jai and Ella loved it and hold it special as a key memory already. Making and sleeping in a shelter was a long held dream of Jai's. Ella went to bed on the Sunday night with a heartfelt "was that a great weekend or what!" and Jai was very open and communicative and grateful. So a huge thank you to you all. I have an adult friend really keen to do a weekend so will look out for weekend dates in the autumn and may come again with her.

all the best,

Sara