Do you know the 6 key disciplines of tracking? [Michael Douglas M.Sc.]

Six arts or disciplines of tracking:
1. Track identification - Who made the track?
2. Track interpretation - What happened here?
3. Trailing - Where was this animal or subject going?
4. Track aging - When was this track made?
5. Ecological or environmental tracking - Why is the animal or subject here?
6. Spirit track - How was that animal or subject feeling?
Reading the last five arts:
To get the sense of the subject's mindset, motivation, and intent, it's important to have a solid foundation in the previous five arts. This allows for inferences about how the subject was feeling, what they were thinking, or where they might be now.
Important concepts when studying the six disciplines of tracking:
1. The sequence in which these disciplines are presented helps build overall tracking abilities.
2. Learning track features unique to each species, such as track measurements, trail widths, track patterns, pace, scat, hair sign, and behaviors, is crucial for identifying the subjects that left the disturbance.
Interpreting track patterns and signs:
Being able to interpret pressure releases, track patterns, and signs, such as incidental and accidental ruffs, helps with the difficult discipline of trailing. Understanding the subject's behaviors, needs, motivation, and being able to interpret their track and sign for speed, direction of travel, and changes in direction make it easier to stay on their trail.
Track aging:
Aging considers all of the previously mentioned disciplines and includes factors like wind changes, direct sunlight, temperature, dew, and rain events. Keeping a weather journal and paying attention to the three primary track aging zones (horizon cut, wall cut, and floor cut) can accelerate accuracy in track aging.
Ecological or environmental tracking:
This discipline deals with understanding why the subject is in a specific spot at a specific time. Factors like seasons, time of day, temperature, weather, food availability, predatory pressures, and population pressures play a significant role. Most subjects in a given area have survival needs, which include shelter, water, and food. Human subjects may also seek fire or warmth. Trees can indicate the presence of certain wildlife species in their understory, providing shelter, water, or food.
Learning about each tree and its significance can help determine the wildlife species present in the area.Species in your area prefer moisture content and acidity. Then explore the understory herbaceous plants and shrubs. Guaranteed, you'll find trails, runs, rubs, scrapes, and scat.
Take an inventory of these things and also know the diet and preferences of the animals that you're tracking. Human beings, when lost for instance, rarely travel uphill. They seem to gravitate to openings like lake shores and streams. Knowing this aspect of environmental tracking can help aid you in the search and rescue effort.
The last part, the how this art is reserved, people who had plenty of dirt time and the other five disciplines of tracking. The discipline of how the animal was feeling is based on educated conjecture. You need a mountain of verifiable and reproducible evidence and results before you can jump to conclusions. These conclusions, however, can be surprisingly accurate. Again, that accuracy is completely dependent on how solid your foundation is in the other five directions or disciplines of tracking.
It is much like watching an American sitcom and being able to tell how the entire plot is going to unfold within the first five minutes. Those of you who have been TV junkies know exactly what I'm talking about. You know the storyline and how it will resolve itself before the first commercial break. In the same way, you can get on a track and knowing the animal's environment, behavior, the age of the tracks in the context of the scenes, the larders, the pushes and pulls of predators and prey, and mating pressure. You can predict with about eighty percent accuracy if tracking is solid where that animal is, its emotional state, what it is tending to do as you follow its trail, even at the time it is doing it ahead of you on that trail, and much more.
If you're not familiar with seeing tracks and leaf litter, if you haven't practiced on your belly looking at dusk impressions trying to find a mouse-over easement, then you're not going to see, let alone interpret the tracks and their features. In order to get to that level, people who immediately jump into spirit tracking and then enter a scene where there might be a lost person do the entire acting community a disservice. Just hang that out there as a possibility, something may be to aim for with your proficiency in the five skills.
At Maine Primitive Skills School, individuals discover a haven dedicated to the exploration of survival techniques, primitive skills, and nature education.
#Tracking
#Survival
#Wilderness
#Trailing
#Animalbehavior
#Trackinterpretation
#Ecological
#Wilderness
#Survival

[@johnswinson1028]

Wow! For the first time. I’ve seen and heard a disciplined tracker. I’m 64 and crippled with a balance issue. In 2017 I started crawling on all fours out of necessity. It opened my mind to study vegetation,insects, and animals. I’m hooked on tracking and this guy blew my mind. Many people don’t condone my crawling. I believe crawling humbles yourself to God and man. The rewards are immeasurable. Keep tracking.

[@primitiveskills]

Yeah, I'm "that guy". The new book, if you are serious about reclaiming this skill, is by Mark Elbroch. Mammal Tracks of North America. It's pricey, but a life long companion. Mark also re-did the Olaus Murry Petersons Guide. He is humble. approachable, and has a lot of material to work with. Hope this helps.

[@primitiveskills]

This vid is the intro to our biggest video project to date. There are six videos, each dedicated to one of the six arts of tracking mentioned in the video. Thanks and Respect to Tom Brown jr., Jon Young, Charles Worsham, Paul Rezendes and past and present students of Tracking for keeping these skills alive.

[@primitiveskills]

@@TrackerScout I cannot help you. Seek wise counsel.

[@primitiveskills]

@@TrackerScout Have faith. Your concerns are unfounded. These videos addressed a message from a place that they can hear not from a place of where they will all eventually lead.

[@davidcollins2648]

@@primitiveskills Sorry I can't resist triggering trolls. My apologies for the mess on your comment section.

[@primitiveskills]

@@davidcollins2648 No worries! The vision of this school is to keep the skills alive through a lineage intent on doing the same. Anytime there’s discussion whether it is good bad or ugly helps in that cause.

[@borna1119]

Thanks for this guide. Greetings from Croatia

[@johngray2924]

Good skills to know to not be tracked also. Do you do urban tracking for two legged subjects?

[@Shannon_Lacey]

Very well done video. I like the astute details, descriptions and comparisons. I have quite a lot to learn.

[@Nativesurvival]

Another great vid... thanks for all you do ; ) -Mitch

[@LiveFreeAndBushcraft]

That class is on my todo list for 2015.

[@primitiveskills]

I'd be interested in your comparison between how we were portrayed by NATGEO and what we actually provide as a school through videos and course content (primitiveskills "DOT" com). The show was a good lesson for our children on the power of media and not to believe what they see on t.v. What are your thoughts?

[@stevelucky7579]

Good skill to have on hand. Hopefully I’ll look more into this as time moves forward,

[@MasochistMouse]

Not sure if this is the right video, but the QR code for the video of this same title in the book Tracking & Hunting Your Prey by Elizabeth Dee on page 56 goes to a random video about finding water instead of a tracking video so had to search the name. 😅 Either way-- thanks for sharing this video. 😊

[@primitiveskills]

opps. sorry!

[@MasochistMouse]

@@primitiveskills It's all good. 😊

[@BushcraftSweden]

Nice one Michael, can't wait to see the vids you gonna do in Sweden :)

[@primitiveskills]

I hope we can meet while I'm there! Maybe we can do a video together!

[@BushcraftSweden]

Why not, I will be quite static in the next months, but if you pass by Gothenburg in your way up north give me a shout I can show you some nice areas, take a canoe etc... otherwise we have a winter project in January February in Norway if you are interested to join ;) ATB,// Mathieu

[@blootoons]

iv been watching alot of the videos you guys have put up on youtube and i like them alot. iv considered taking a few classes but unfortunately im not in the financial place to do that right now. someday i hope to get involved more but as for right now times are a little tough

[@taraishot100]

Lol just make a bow and arrow you don’t need money bro 😂😂😂

[@RathwulvenBushcraft]

Great material, thanks for sharing.

[@jorgelimon328]

Thank you for the video! I live in the city, and am in high school, so I'm mostly tethered to it unfortunately. Do you have any suggestions to getting in dirt time in this environment on a normal day?

[@grifcheese1076]

I'm in highschool too although you probably aren't anymore

[@NavigatedChaos]

It does thanks. If I knew you had a KZbin up like this I'd have been here a long time ago. And thanks with the new revised books,

[@NavigatedChaos]

This reminds me of the guy from Doomsday Preppers. Either way this is good to know. I found rabbit scat and tracks and I've been trying to find it's home but I don't know how to track. I know the basics but not enough to find it when the tracks are gone or the snow is gone. A Field Guide to Animal Tracking, by Murie is a great tracking book. I recommend it.

[@primitiveskills]

Thanks! We feel the concepts too important to be set aside.

[@james-mayonnaise007]

That bon jovi brought made me stay here awesome video

[@keithsparling5537]

Good video! Very informative , practical! I liked it!

[@TheNfields260]

sounds like your a friend of Tom Brown Jr. Well done!

[@plainsimple442]

Tom has taught thousands of people.

[@sargefaria]

Good stuff! Have a lot of vids to go thru now, as this is the first I have seen from you!

[@AddamsAdonis]

Good vid, sir.

[@primitiveskills]

We work with folks all the time to make sure the skills get to them. Our standard opportunities are a work-study program where you can earn up to 50% of the tuition off at $10.00 an hour toward your course and a 20% off the tuition for each full paying person you bring. Folks combine them and make it here with no money involved. We also recognize individual need. Contact the school via e-mail. They would love to work with you. Lily and Karen (office) are good folks.

[@ismschism5176]

Found some tracks just the other day, happened on the thought of, "now which way are they going?"

[@alisono5689]

Do you guys have a long term program available? I've checked out the website but the longest I saw was 5 days

[@primitiveskills]

We have a once a month skills program that one can join for a year or pay per day. It is from 9am to 4pm the first Sunday of each Month. We also have an apprenticeship which is an immersion into all the skills learning by living. Here is link to the first option. Thanks for asking about our programs! www.primitiveskills.com/course/primitive-skills-club-monthly-workshop-2/

[@alisono5689]

Primitive Skills Thanks for the quick response. Do you have anymore info on the apprenticeship program? That's just what I'm looking for

[@primitiveskills]

Yes, here is the link and our school e-mail is [e-mail] if you want to request an application. www.primitiveskills.com/apprenticeship/

[@Nativesurvival]

@sargefaria lol not surprised to see you here bro LOL looks like its just us ; )

[@blootoons]

i thought that you guys seemed like pretty down to earth people. however to alot of other "sheeple" you probly just looked like some crazy guy who picked up roadkill. i think you guys offer alot of really good information on being self sufficient and being aware of your surroundings. The only think that ticked me off was how NATGEO seems to put down your reason for prepping and say it could never happen. it was good for your children to learn the media cant be trusted though

[@davidcollins2648]

Shouldn't #1 be knowing when your looking at a track? Finding them is the first step before anything else. This is where Worsham's work on baselining and establishing visual patterns was important. It was when there was a break or a variation in that baseline or pattern indicates the disturbance/track.Still a pretty decent little video giving a good overall presentation of the steps involved.

[@primitiveskills]

+David Collins Charles was an amazing instructor and I still mourn for the loss of his talents the day he retired. The work on establishing baseline and reading the cyclic disturbances in the swells (annual cycles), waves (daily cycles), and ripples (true disturbances) is foundational. We put that in our Awareness Courses simply due to the bulk of material and the limited time (five day courses) we have with students.

[@davidcollins2648]

@@TrackerScout I was tracking seriously over 30 years ago and wrote the first paper on the tracks and locomotion of reptiles and amphibians in '92. I was also a course presenter at ISPT in 2004. I might know what I'm talking about. By all means go on thinking you're the only one who knows all the deep esoteric secrets on nature.

[@GonzalezDream101]

Heyy your the guy from preppers! A very wise man you are!

[@sargefaria]

@Nativesurvival haha.......can never learn enough brother! and these guys do some good things!!!!

[@ShoutsWillEcho1]

Will this make me more proficient at catching pokémons?

[@lyca0n535]

Yes

[@carolv8450]

Any Bigfoot tracks?

[@sasakprimitive5559]

Good 👍👍👍

[@Southernburrito]

That wind can close your message or unveil it.

[@Southernburrito]

Excellent closing! Sometimes we have Angels, sometimes we don't. We thank God for our keep, & discipline to know reliable proficient systemic methods that don't fail. We'll prove God right, in time!

[@t.diddle7998]

It's fantastic that you guys have your six spheres of tracking, or whatever. In the real world, it always plays out a little differently than our human ideas of how Nature works, no?

[@t.diddle7998]

Tracking isn't some sort of science is it? It's an intuitive thing that just basically occurs.

[@primitiveskills]

@@t.diddle7998 Hunger and Love for each player in the fabric is what makes Tracking a real and viable science and art. Without the ancestral construct of tracking, science, math, and literature may not have gotten off the ground. The Six Directions model is a simplified construct from the Eight Shields model found in tracking cultures around the world to help children develop into effective hunters and scouts. I hope this helps.

[@t.diddle7998]

And what I really meant by that comment is that we, as humans, come up with all sorts of explanations about Nature, but at the end of the day, Nature decides, and human machinations are folly. I've been out there (out on the edge of insanity), and I have seen. But, of course, I'm just a speck in a sea, and there are myriad ways that others could have, and have, seen.

[@t.diddle7998]

@@primitiveskills And, I was just rereading your post. What you say sounds like Buddhism...the Six-Fold Pathway. I'm a fan of Gautama Shidharthra. Although I will say that I think that technical and legalistic Buddhism (exemplfied as misconceptions about kamma and dharma) seriously miss the point of the Oneness that I, personally, have imbibed from Gautama's teachings. I do not call him the Buddha, because 'buddha' is a state, or perhaps a non-state, not a person.

[@t.diddle7998]

Oh my gosh! Here, I have waxed New-Agey! KILL me now!!!

[@blootoons]

omg thats the guy from doomsday preppers

[@TheWildernessChannel]

If you are interested in African wildlife tracking here is a short video on some of the more common tracks kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2LEZZWeptd6gpI

[@Torino88247]

Road house!!!

[@ozenko8356]

Arthur

[@CM-nn5vb]

I'm tracking something, oh wait, hold on, I'm going to build a sundial around this footprint.

[@primitiveskills]

Excellent! The difference between a typical track follower who normally loses the trail in difficult substrate compared to the depth of knowlege required to know the subject so wel that the physical tracks, trail, and disturbances are confirmation. Well put! Trailing a subject without the required dir time is lke following a string of print written in an unfamiliar language, where the trail is meaningless and when it ends nothing is gained.

[@CM-nn5vb]

@@primitiveskills Also come on man that sundial thing was hilarious.

[@craftpaint1644]

I type "how to track while exploring" and none of the videos are about animals or the wilderness.

[@schmiedeltv5835]

tracking a mouse over pavement? really?

[@primitiveskills]

Using dust and grit compressions, much like the marks on a chalk board after it is erased, the track pattern, trail width and tail drags can be seen in ideal lighting and with side angling. It was one of the training techniques we used in the Pine Barrens with Tom Brown Jr. While it took hours, every track afterwards, like fox in moss, stood out in bold relief. We use this training technique at the school to this day in our tracking courses.

[@schmiedeltv5835]

what did you do with the mouse?

[@primitiveskills]

In these courses, it was enough to learn through it's tracks about the individual habits and dietary preferences as well as increasing our own tracking ability. If it were a survival course, we wouldn't bother with mice. Red squirrel is as small as we go due to calorie investment vs. calorie return.

[@jeffstarrunner1]

Are there videos of people actually tracking something and finding it using these techniques?

[@calvinhart6793]

Can't hear you, sorry

[@mondaybores1547]

Glory to Daryl Dixon

[@skillustrates]

0:03 This elderly, fine-wine white man has good taste in music: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gHqQqGaYh7d1bsk

[@walterwhite5449]

WHAT SONG!?!?!?

[@jamesaritchie1]

This is just my experience, but I don't think jumping into "spirit" tracking is even possible. I do, however, believe you're wrong about those who put it first, unless you're talking about some city clown who has never even been in the woods, but who thinks he's a great tracker. Even the term "spirit" tracking is pretentious BS that no real tracker would ever use. Those who put number six first are doing a disservice to the entire tracking community? That's more pretentiousness, and arrogance on a ridiculous level. It's blatant BS, and something no real tracker would ever say. What, did you not learn to track until you were already an adult? My experience is that most woodsmen learned about animal behavior long before they learned about proper tracking techniques. I certainly did. I could tell you where a deer or a moose or a fox or a wolf had been, where it was going, how it felt, long before I could track it well at all. In fact, I learned to track by first knowing where an animal was going by knowing what it needed or wanted or felt at that moment. Knowing where an animal was going meant I could lose a trail and then pick it up again just by knowing how that animal felt, what it wanted, and where it would go to get what it wanted or needed. I never would learned to track really well without knowing the "spirit" tracking part first. When I lost a trail chances are it would have stayed lost. "Spirit tracking? Yeah, right. And get up off the ground and stop acting like Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass. You have those poor suckers believing that's how you learn to track. A good tracker may kneel down to poke at a pile of droppings with a stick, or maybe to move something in the way, and may sit there a minute thinking about which way his prey is gong, and what the final destination is, but he doesn't get down on his hands and knees looking at a tiny scratch in the dust because there's never a reason to do so. Walk twenty or thirty feet, and go in a circle. Then do it again. You'll either find a track that's clear enough, distinct enough, to tell the story, of the trail is lost, and all looking at those scratches in the dirt while on your hands and knees do is make it look like you're a real by God expert. Who else would get down and do that? KZbin keep getting sillier and sillier, with more and more "experts" at this, that, and the other who couldn't find their own asses with both hands and a map.

[@primitiveskills]

Except every hunter-gatherer tracking culture with an oral tradition still intact. Akimbo, Tinde', Lakota, etc.

[@MichaelMajor-rx1md]

Wow all that and not one like.... damn

[@twoinchglocc5149]

came cuz i’m trynna b daryl dixon lmafoo

[@austinevans2804]

bears beats battle star galactica

[@douglasmcintyre3297]

Really? How the animal was "feeling"? " Hi, I'm Mr Mule Deer and I'm really bummed out that that fruit tree no longer drops apples conveniently down to ground level for me to eat. All there is left is green food and i am sooooo bored with green food. I guess I'll have to take my own life, since life without sweet apples is intolerable!" Seriously, aren't you basically ascribing human attributes or even neuroses to animals that are mostly concerned with where their next meal comes from? Even relatively intelligent animals like dogs are controlled and disciplined daily by when and how and how much we mete out their food. Stop feeding a fat dog for two days and you'll see how little that animal has any feelings or loyalty to you..

[@primitiveskills]

It's understandable that folks illiterate in tracking and/or animal behavior would assume there is no difference between the tracks of a well fed and relaxed subject versus a nervous and hungry subject. If you have a pet, especially a canine, you can readily interpret emotional state through body language cues. These cues also shoe up in tracks, track clusters, and track patterns. Hope this helps!

[@primitiveskills]

Cool, a fellow Jar Head. Lets get in a pissing contest over thirty eight years tracking to fill the freezer, sharing tracking, and working with tracking dogs versus visual tracking since 1979 compared to. . . your what? Coe on up, Devil Dog. Lets go on a five day outing, rock tools only. See where your at. No guts, no Glory. Right Devil Pup? I would put forth that the woods illiterate and ego centric approach to hunting and interacting EFFECTIVELY with the landscape is historically lacking. Our lofty self opinion of our own intelligence, as a species, has been our undoing since the hanging Gardens of Babylon (now desert), the Lush Flood Plains of the Nile (now Desert), even the Cliff Dwellings of the Desert Southwest. I would argue, based on empirical evidence, the archeological record, and repetition in history, that we, as a species, once removed from the dynamics of living systems through the cycles of outsmarting ourselves beyond the carrying capacity of the landscape, predictably fall apart as soon as we ignore certain tenants and reproducible results, including animal behavior, track and sign interpretation, anthropomorphism, and managing the carrying capacity of the landscape.

[@douglasmcintyre3297]

What, if any, does that have to do with ascribing human qualities onto animals?

[@primitiveskills]

Success in interpretation, hunting, and trapping.

[@scouttroop291]

lol feeling

[@primitiveskills]

+j lin Yup. The difference between a full freezer and/or found person versus the hit or miss (mostly miss) of the average track follower. It is only track illiteracy that causes most people to miss the obvious indicators. Come to one of our courses. After you effectively interpret your tracking partners trail, to include profiling emotional state through track clusters, track pattern, pressure releases within each track, placing these elements within the overall context of the environment, time track was made, and seasonal context, the rest becomes more predictable.

[@scouttroop291]

im too dum un skill right be in esar us border top south west tracker showed us how to track i think you butt hurt that i was not in his class may be more then one top tracker in the usa tom in my eye is fake lie and conman and worked hard to kill any one that speek out on him the job not about money or fame it saving life ~~! you see the point can see what fake he is

[@primitiveskills]

I'm just going to leave this here. Prime example of how NOT to approach tracking. That, combined with your writing style, is one of the best examples of arrogance and ignorance I've been presented with to date. I will use your post as a prime example for my students. In fact, I just copied and pasted it to a word document to be added to our powerpoint presentation on what not to do. Thank you Mr. Lin. Don't worry, I respect the Shadow Trackers, Mr. Learny, and many of the Trackers in that area. I also know where their abilities are in comparison to Tom's. You, on the other hand, present as a complete moron.

[@chrisjohnson4095]

Nerd!!!

[@discipleoffire666]

Did they seriously just use music from Naruto to open? Lol im subscribing.

[@MrRugercat45]

It's Bon Jovi "Wanted" from the Young Guns soundtrack.

[@discipleoffire666]

unsubscribing...

[@connork7301]

+DiscipleOfFire lol

[@artvandelay4485]

No its not. Its Wanted dead or alive from slippery when wet album. Blaze of Glory is Jon Bon Jovi solo soundtrack album from Young Guns II

[@o80y1]

weeb

[@loadapish]

So u dont taste shit?