People are always saying that the advice given on MvW will get you killed if you follow it. Here's a short list (pretty much off the top of my head) of tips and tricks I picked up from MvW that I would actually use...

1. Digging a snow cave or making a snow shelter (actually played around and made one this winter).
2. How to use a knife to cut down small saplings.
3. How to find south using the short hand on a watch and the sun (in the northern hemisphere).
4. Using your shirt to strain water before boiling.
5. How to eat live ants.
6. Some general shelter building tips.
7. To carry a magnesium flint striker on your key chain.
8. How to tell how many hours of daylight are left by using your hand and the horizon.

I'm sure there's more that I can't think of right now, and I also deliberately skipped over region specific tips such as that small frogs in Florida are not poisonous and are edible.

And, for contrast, here's a couple things that I immediately dismissed as stuff I would never do because they are clearly beyond my abilities...

1. Trying to float down rivers I am unfamiliar with.
2. Diving off cliffs.
3. Climbing anything other than medium sized trees.

Good post Matt, thanks! I agree with everything you listed, for the same reasons, and would like to add a #4 to the list of things I personally wouldn't do that Bear does..and that's eat the many things he does raw, though I do appreciate him showing what could possibly be eaten if absolutely necessary, and with absolutely no means of cooking.

I agree - a good post, Matt.

As a fan of the show, I don't mean to sound like a critic, but I do have some concerns about some of the advice presented.

Let me add to the list of things I have concerns about:
1. Staying warm means staying dry, and BG seems to spend a lot of time in the water - unnecessary, for the most part, I think. I think for most people staying out of the water and staying dry would be a much better strategy.

2. BG seems to run, jump, and climb a great deal, something I think would be difficult for many people, particularly if they're lost, hungry, and not well rested. That seems like an unnecessary expenditure of energy. It also, I would think, place one in danger of becoming injured from a slip or fall.

3. As entertaining as it is to watch him eat some of the things he does, I don't think I would do that. I don't like spiders ON me, much less IN me.

One area that I think is neglected on this show and SM are steps to prevent one from becoming lost in the first place, namely telling trusted friends what your itinerary is and how to contact SAR if you go missing past a certain time limit.

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...of tips and tricks I picked up from MvW that I would actually use...

When you say “tips” do you mean just the idea that such a thing would be possible or do you mean you essentially (to the extent you’d be able to from a TV show) learned to do these things by watching the show as your topic title seems to suggest? If the latter I should point out some issues with a few things on your list.
1- BG in no way demonstrated an effective snow shelter or how you’d go about constructing one. There are a lot of tips and tricks when it comes to snow shelters none of which were even mentioned. I hope you did some further research before you played around with it.
2- You’re not talking about beating on it with a rock or log are you? Knives are not indestructible, we have no clue how many BG breaks during his adventures. Remember, he’s trying to sell them to you for $700 a pop, if he breaks one you can bet that’s not going to make the show. If you only have one knife in a survival situation, save it for things that it was intended to do. You can bend, then twist saplings; small ones will break, larger ones you can use a large rock with a jagged edge to break the fibers at the weak point. You can’t use a large rock with a jagged edge to skin and dress a rabbit.
4- Just don’t forget to strain it into the same container that you will use to boil it. When BG did this in the Everglades he strained the water into is plastic canteen thus contaminating it. If you do that you won’t be able to use it to carry the water you’ve just boiled
6- Emphasize the term “general”. Many of his shelters are pathetic; many more are inadequate at best. These types of props are not a focus of the show so their efforts to depict them are often lack luster. Most types of shelters take a fair amount of time and effort. Often you will have to make improvements, repairs, and additions before you’ve got something that will effectively suit your purposes. Time and effort to construct shelters (boring) takes away precious time for extreme stunts so this type of slightly more in depth info will likely never be provided on MvW.

Oh, and you should avoid climbing medium and even small trees as well. Even simple injuries can cause major problems in a survival situation. Why take the risk?

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do you mean you essentially (to the extent you’d be able to from a TV show) learned to do these things by watching the show as your topic title seems to suggest?

Yes, that, including your parenthetical statement.

1. No, I didn't do any other research. Just played around with constructing one.

2. No, I'm not talking about beating on it with a log. I am, however, talking about using a small log or branch to hammer it through the wood. Especially on a living sapling, this should be no problem for a decent knife. And, though it is admittedly more from the combat and historical side of things, I do know a bit about knives. Seemed like a good trick if you needed to do it.

4. That's good additional info.

6. No worries. I used the term "general" intentionally. The show, even when it purports to offer survival advice, is NOT an instructional.

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Oh, and you should avoid climbing medium and even small trees as well. Even simple injuries can cause major problems in a survival situation. Why take the risk?

Only if I felt it would in some way aid my survival.

At any rate, it seems that even where you would caution, or provide additional info, there was nothing in my list that would put me in danger. And the things in my list are exactly the types of things that your average fan would take away from the show.

BC, in survival situations, a knife is always expendable. You use it to do whatever is nessecary. If you need to pound on it, pound on it. It's replaceable, you are not.

If a knife breaks because you pounded on the spine with a log to drive it into another piece of wood, you need to find a better knife.

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... there was nothing in my list that would put me in danger.

Well, except for the danger of freezing to death in your snow grave (that’s actually the name of a type of snow shelter not just me being a smartass) or asphyxiating because BG thought it would make for better tv if he were to pretend to bust out of his deeply buried snow shelter as opposed to ACTUALLY providing survival advice and at least mentioning that you MUST have adequate ventilation (never mind how to actually provided for that). There are some pretty basic tips to making a snow shelter much more effective as well as safe. And then there’s the issue of getting sick from drinking your contaminated swamp water. Vomiting and diarrhea while in a survival situation actually are even worse than they sound, in many environments dehydration will be your biggest threat. So that’s only 2 out of your list of 8 that will likely cause you harm because you were not suitably or even factually informed as to their proper application.

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You use it to do whatever is nessecary.

The key word here is NECESSARY. Why would it be necessary to cut down saplings with your knife? Don’t forget that much of what is done on this show is strictly for entertainment purposes. BG makes all sorts of ridiculous claims regarding the necessity of various things depicted in this show. He has to, if it didn’t seem as if it were necessary then it would seem foolish to everyone

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It's replaceable,…

In a survival situation nothing is simply replaceable. You’ll notice in my post I specified that if you only have one; if you’ve got two then go ahead and beat the tar out of one. Anytime you have limited recourses you want to use them wisely. A knife is good for a LOT of things; cutting down trees is not one of them. You can’t be miserly with what you have in a survival situation but you shouldn’t squander anything either.

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If a knife breaks because you pounded on the spine with a log to drive it into another piece of wood, you need to find a better knife.

Even an average knife should easily be able to be forced through a fairly substantial piece of green wood if, as you say, you pound on the spine. Of course a log that has enough mass to be able to provide the force required to do so is not exactly going to be a tack hammer. It only takes one bad swing to potentially damage the knife and/or yourself. And if we’re talking about small saplings that can easily be cut in this fashion (as opposed to things like the bamboo BG cuts down to make his ladder) then the question again becomes why would you need to use your knife for this task?

Out of curiosity, do you believe it’s likely that BG has never broken a single knife over the course of this series?

I bet it would be an interesting read if you could get a complete logistical report of one of Bear's trips. They are probably out there somewhere in some accounting file.

Let's face it. Would we even watch the show if BG didn't back flip out of a helicopter or wack a lizard against a tree before he ate it? This is the same argument that violent video games will make kids go out and do violent things. The show's cool, BG is cool, the places he goes to are awesome.

It does spark the imagination and the inclination to get out and do something other than watch TV. If I was going to take anything away from the show (other than the survival stuff), it would be to go out and experience life and try something new.

BTW, mace does work against animals as well. Just be sure to NOT spray your own face in the process. A college friend of mine did just that. Her eyes were burning for days.

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Well, except for the danger of freezing to death in your snow grave (that’s actually the name of a type of snow shelter not just me being a smartass) or asphyxiating because BG thought it would make for better tv if he were to pretend to bust out of his deeply buried snow shelter as opposed to ACTUALLY providing survival advice and at least mentioning that you MUST have adequate ventilation (never mind how to actually provided for that).

I suppose you got me on that one, although, to be quite honest, closing up the whole wasn't one of the things I was thinking about when I mentioned digging a snow cave. I was actually thinking of just the idea of having a snow cave (I'm not a winter sports guy, so other than hearing about it every once and a while in the news, it wasn't something that would have leaped to my mind before watching MvW), as well as actually watching how to start digging one and tips like not working up a sweat when you are doing it because you could freeze from it. So, on review, what I learned about snow caves wouldn't get me killed either.

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And then there’s the issue of getting sick from drinking your contaminated swamp water. Vomiting and diarrhea while in a survival situation actually are even worse than they sound, in many environments dehydration will be your biggest threat.

That one isn't really a valid point. That certainly is not any more likely to happen to me based on what I've learned from watching MvW, and is actually less likely, because if anything, I have learned to be extremely careful of what water you should drink in a survival situation. Also, I believe you are overestimating the damage such germ exposure would do.

I mean, on the one hand, in that kind of environment, everything about you, including your hands and face is going to become contaminated. There's no way to avoid it. You're not going to have any soap and so the only way to wash would be to rinse things with boiling water. On the other hand, I believe you are overestimating how long and how well bacteria can survive outside of their proper environment.

Is it possible you could get sick from using the same container to drink out of? I suppose. But it is unlikely, not only for the reasons I have already mentioned, but also because I couldn't see myself drinking out of the same nasty container I just strained swamp water into without rinsing it out with some of the boiling water first!

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Originally posted by MasterMisfitt:
sureSHOT,

What'd they do to you buddy?!? sureSHOTIII was a pleasant and peaceful name!!!

It WILL be remembered my friend.....

I know right? IV is just annoying. And III actually had a purpose, not just memoir of how many times I've been hit, because I've only been hit once...It said suspended though so I may be able to get it back in a little while.

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Originally posted by bc164v2.0:
In a survival situation nothing is simply replaceable. You’ll notice in my post I specified that if you only have one; if you’ve got two then go ahead and beat the tar out of one. Anytime you have limited recourses you want to use them wisely. A knife is good for a LOT of things; cutting down trees is not one of them. You can’t be miserly with what you have in a survival situation but you shouldn’t squander anything either.

If you do not expect to be spending forever out there, then you should use it to do whatever you want/need. No, you do not need to be cutting down a tree. But a branch slightly thicker than what you can break normally, sure, pound it. If you're not sure how long you'll be out there, no, keep that thing safe because its your lifeline. Of course, I bring two knives so I'm all set lol.

I'd just like to add that I am not denying that a survival expert could or would find problems with the stuff Bear does, or the stuff Bear demonstrates. But what I am saying is that those things are fairly irrelevant.

The truth of the matter is that most people (in fact all that I've ever heard of) that find themselves in a sudden and unexpected survival situation are not going to have any survival training at all, let alone be survival experts. In fact, people that simply do some hunting and/or camping, like myself, are probably going to be ahead of the game already.

Furthermore, even when it does purport to be giving advice, MvW is not an instructional. So, at best people are only going to remember bits and pieces of little things they pick up from watching the show. So, you have to ask yourself, is someone with little or no survival knowledge going to be better or worse off for having picked up a few tips and tricks from MvW? And the answer to that seems like a no-brainer to me. They will be better off.

Add to that the fact that two main themes run very strongly throughout the show that I consider to be extremely beneficial. One is to always stay hopeful and never give up trying to survive. The other is just how dangerous the wilderness can be.

Yes, despite the fact that Bear does dangerous and unnecessary things for the sake of entertainment like climbing mountains and shooting the rapids, he constantly and consistently illustrates how dangerous everything can be. The water can make you sick (which he shows in detail when it happens to himself). Animals can be poisonous. Plants can be poisonous. And he tells real stories of survival pointing out things that kept people alive and things that got them killed.

That's the stuff I take away from the show. So, perhaps you all can understand why I find it so strange to have critics take exactly the opposite message away from the show.

To add to Matt's point, people are not going to be thinking about a show when they find themselves in any scenario.

Who gets in a plane crash and says "Oh, I know what to do! Bear Grylls taught me!"

No, people are panicky and won't be trying to think about what some guy did on TV last week. They'll be thinking about how to get out of it. Survival knowledge comes with experience.

Have you ever seen the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks? Same thing. He was stupid when he got there. But within the first few days he was able to function better.

No worries, edge.

I understand what you are saying, but I would counter by pointing out that I don't think Bear is really advising people to do those things! He's just doing them. They fall under the category of, as I already said, "things that I immediately dismissed as stuff I would never do because they are clearly beyond my abilities."

I think the advice and tips he gives, the stuff that he might actually expect people to use, are the type of stuff that I pointed out in my very first post in this thread. No one is going to be worse off for picking up a few tips and tricks like that.

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"things that I immediately dismissed as stuff I would never do because they are clearly beyond my abilities."

With due respect, those things that you or I wouldn't do may be things that someone else would do. That could be a misleading element of the show, I think.

Meh. You get mo rons who reenact the WWE too. I guess I think those people are on their own if they want to be that dumb. lol

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You get mo rons who reenact the WWE too. I guess I think those people are on their own if they want to be that dumb.

I don't disagree with that. It's just that a program that is purported to teach people survival skills may not want to include techniques like some of the more dangerous ones demonstrated here.

People with little or no outdoor experience may not be able to tell the difference between the good advice and the questionable advice.

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People with little or no outdoor experience may not be able to tell the difference between the good advice and the questionable advice.

edge, I know you're new here *caugh* but...
It really isn't that difficult to determine which stunts are just a bit to dangerous to try.