Lesson 9 of 25
Nav 1.2 Polaris and the sun
Let me start this lesson with a couple of explanation to the mentality of this system. First of all keep in mind that this is the most basic levels of knowledge for the ten branches of training. They are intended to simply insure that everyone is on the same page as the lessons get more involved. Secondly it is important to explain why this is important to survival. There are thousands of skills out there you can try to learn to help yourself be better prepared for an uncertain future. The question is which one is more important and should be learned first? Without knowing what is coming there is no way to answer that question. The only thing that we can do is to sharpen the best tool that we have, ourselves. I don't mean just is learning skills and buying gear, I am talking about making yourself better. Better informed, better trained, better equipt and better prepared.
The martial arts is about striving for perfection. You work on a technique until it is flawless. You work on your character to make it the same. A black belt represents the best that we can be physically as well as mentally and spiritually. That is why is lends itself so well to survival and prepping.
You can have enough food for two years and enough bullets to shoot a million attackers to your home but if you are not ready in your mind then you will lose everything, one way or another. These skills in this course are just simple lessons to give you an understanding of the ten branches and a solid foundation of knowledge that we can build upon later. Before you learn to run you must first learn to walk.
Navigation is one of the ten branches of knowledge in SPEAR Survival because without the ability to move you are stuck in one place and that is dangerous. You will need to move at some point in an emergency whether it is to get home or to get to a family members house. You might be at home and need to go out an find resources when you don't know what is going on in the world just a couple blocks away from your house. Basic navigation will be essential for you to be able to move but also to be able to move quickly and unnoticed which we will cover in a future lesson.
Remember, at this point you are just a white belt and these simple skills need to be practiced over and over to become part of who you are in order to proceed. It doesn't matter if you have a black belt and karate somewhere else, if you can't put on a white belt and humble yourself to some basic skills then you won't be accepted into most martial arts schools.
Lets get started, Polaris is the proper name of the north star. It is a constant in the sky and doesn't move. It will always be north of your location which makes it great to navigate by. The north star will help you orient your maps to find your direction without a compass. To find the north star you can use a simple trick that I learned as a kid. Find the big dipper (you know, the pan shaped constellation) and locate the two stars that make up the side of the pan that are farthest away from the handle. Now take the distance between those two stars and multiply it by roughly two and a half going up from the pan in a straight line using those two stars to find Polaris. You can't assume that the brightest star in the sky is going to be the north star because if a planet is visible it will usually be brighter than Polaris.
Polaris is a simple method of finding north while the sun is a bit more complicated. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I live in the northern hemisphere so that means that the sun at noon will always be directly south of my location. If you have a watch and know the time of day you can guess which way is south and you will be close enough for simple navigation. If the sun in almost set you are looking south west and if it is rising you are looking south east. This changes depending how far away from the equator you are. The farther away you are the further south the sun travels. The sun also is lower in the sky in the winter months than in the summer months.
Regardless of all that, here is a fool proof way to find north if the sun is shining. Take two sticks and put them in the ground sticking up so that the shadow of the first stick goes over the shadow of the second stick. You now have two stick that are in line with the sun. Wait thirty minutes or so and put another stick in the ground that is in line with the shadow of the first stick. If you connect the two second sticks together in a straight line and put a stick in the middle of those two the line that is formed from the first stick and the new stick in the middle will point due north in the direction away from the sun.
By knowing north and south you can use that in your basic navigation to be able to move around. You can head north and continue in that general direction by using the track of the sun. You can find the moon and set your direction of travel for the next day.
This is the basics that you need to understand about navigation. These lessons will make you better today and that is the goal. Remember, Polaris is north and the sun is south.
Continue to the next lesson: Lesson 10
Start at the beginning: Lesson 1
For an overview of the course: www.spearsurvival.com
SPEAR Survival
Prepared for the Everyday
Till The End Of Days
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