It’s one of the first things you see when you walk into Fieldcraft Training’s North Carolina location. “Real Training for Real People” can be found on a sandwich board sign to your left. That is the motto or expression we use to ground students in the expectations for each class. In an industry where charlatans will peddle snake water about unrealistic scenarios and irrelevant training principles, methods, and gear, Fieldcraft Training is about reality. We hate to burst the weekend warrior’s ego or deflate their sense of badassery but we want you to have a real understanding of what it takes to protect yourself and your family in the world we live in. It doesn’t matter if you are taking a survival course with me, a firearms/personal security course with Kevin Owens, or a medical course with Doc Mac or Gerry, you will always find the realism you deserve. That’s right, you deserve realistic training because anything that lives in the domain of fantasy is meant to make money off of you and keep you from truly leveling up your skills. Even our intensive BREAKOUT scenario-based course is grounded in experience and history. We have some fun with the roleplaying but we always bring the wild nature of the course back to the day-to-day you live in. Listen, we want you to train with us and this blog definitely serves to educate you on who we are and what we do. It also is meant to give you a reality filter to assess all your other training. Here’s what we think “real” is.

Possible and Probable

Possible means something could happen and probable means something is likely to happen. Think about it in regards to your vehicle. Is it possible you could lose your wheel could come free of the axle on your vehicle while you’re driving down the highway? Absolutely, is it very probable, not really. What is more probable is picking up a nail while you’re driving around. Take experiences you’ve had your entire life behind the wheel. You’ve probably seen more people fixing flats than you have vehicles with missing wheels. Chances are, those rare outlying experiences you see on the road are exceptional and dramatic but they aren’t frequent. It is easy to focus on what is possible and build up the excitement of a bunch of students. As a survival instructor, I could easily strike fear in the minds of students by describing a car stuck in a ditch scenario. Instead, we focus on the little emergencies that could turn into a survival situation that are more probable and certainly possible like getting turned around and lost, getting cold because of bad clothing, and losing your kit. At Fieldcraft Training, we want students to be equipped with the skill, knowledge, and gear that address both possible and probable.

Honest

One of the hardest aspects of training to come to grips with is the truth. We all want to believe we are as awesome as we are in our minds but the reality is, we still need to train. It is very easy to train what you are good at. You may be proficient at running long distances but you find shorter treks with a heavy ruck difficult. You may excel at shooting 25 yard pistol bullseye targets but struggle with transitions like reloads, multiple targets, and failure drills. It is easy to assume you are going to have capability based on falsehoods. If you don’t train your weakness, you are denying the truth of your capability. It is also easy to rest on your laurels once you accomplish a goal a single time. The expression, “Truth doesn’t hide from questioning” should run through your mind as you train. Ask yourself if you will use what you’re learning. Ask yourself if you are training bad habits. Ask yourself if you are training with equipment you will not actually have on you in a most possible and probable scenario. Some people don’t like to have their methods, gear, or training questioned. You should ask yourself “why?” One of the benefits of having an actual honest trainer in front of you is the concept of coaching. A good trainer will identify a weakness and help you work through the problem to a more capable you. Some trainees don’t want to accept criticism and the truth. We like to keep it real here. We keep it real honest.

Relatable

There is a time to storytell and hear how awesome someone is. Unfortunately, not all stories are relatable because the storyteller was in a situation that isn’t likely repeatable. Of course, many stories are told in context that allow the student to understand how a skill set was used in the real world but many times, storytelling is done just for the sake of bragging. When I listen to our medical instructors describing arriving on the scene of a medical emergency, I think any of the students could be in the same situation regardless of the RN, MD, EMT abbreviations that separate the instructors from the class they teach. We want students to relate what they are learning in our courses to their lives. I pride myself on EDC consistency but what I carry will likely vary from what most of my students do. However, the concepts are relatable and transferable. Don’t be afraid to ask your instructors, “How does this relate to..(insert a type of person here.)”. You’ll find there is almost always a relatable concept. If your instructor does not know or doesn’t have an answer ready, are they demonstrating and/or storytelling for their sake or yours?

Reasonable

We stand by the fact that when you come to us and train with our team, you are going to get your money’s worth and you won’t be able to put a price tag on the takeaways from some experiences. We also know if you are attending a course with us, you’ve trusted us with your education. We want to provide as much value as we can, jampacking as much information as possible into the time allotted. Often, our instructors provide their contact information to continue providing responses to your questions. A reasonable person knows you can only learn so much in an hour, a day, a week, and we want you to create a learning habit that extends much further than that. We also know not everyone is ready to make a financial, energy, or time commitment as much as the next person which is why we want to offer various courses at various price points. We know you’ll find value from one course to the next and encourage you to start somewhere even if that somewhere is one of our free classes.

With the direction the country is headed, it is easy to have your mind go to different places and let uncertainty sink in. We’re happy to have you come train with us and we’ll help you get on the path of the straight and narrow. We’ll keep the training as real as we can since you’re the real people that make our company so rewarding to work for.