After having previously mastered the
techniques of organized living in a community on low mountains and near rivers,
this year we dedicated ourselves to studying the skills to surviving as a larger
group of people in a forest. And this
past weekend proved that some of the members of Bujinkan Macedonia are
unstoppably taking in all the knowledge that has been piling up through the
years in the instructor Igor Dovezenski, and who is always unselfishly trying
to pass on a part of his experience on to his students.
The seminar was held in the forest Mlaka,
in the valley under the mountain of Lipac and in two different locations. About
the feeling of being a part of this event, we will share part of the
impressions of some of the participants.
“We arrived at Homby Dojo at 08.00 hours,
and Sensei was already ready waiting for us. Before we started for the forest
he said that from all the excitement he couldn’t fall asleep and he could
barely wait for us. Afterwards I learned that a day earlier he had ‘caught’ a
stomach bug, but I didn’t notice any signs of weakens from him during the
entirety of the seminar.
When we found the location we were looking for, Sensei first held a lecture and
told us the most important thing we should know if we find ourselves in a
situation to organize living in a forest for a longer amount of time. Our questions were answered in great detail.
After Sensei assigned different tasks, we went to work. We arranged the sleeping pads, we readied the
fire, and we cleaned the field where we were supposed to camp for the next two
days. Afterwards we started to prepare the ‘lunch’. We dug a big hole next to
the fire and we filled it with 
potatoes which we subsequently covered in embers
from all sides. Immediately after satisfying our hunger we started to prepare
the next meal. As Sensei always teaches us, surviving quickly becomes a fight
for calories. When it got dark, we started to prepare for sleep. The watch was
set, and from all sides started ‘coming’ the sounds of the forest. The sun rose
and Vlatce started rousing us. After we were done with the mourning hygiene ,
we dispersed the camp and moved to another location. Sensei and Taki went to
find some ‘proteins’, and the rest of us started to tidy up our equipment and
the location. We cleaned the ‘proteins’ from guts, we cooked them and got them
‘inside’. Then Sense showed us how we can with primitive tools make bows and
arrows for a hunt.
The second day ended with ‘breaded’ snails which were very tasty” – Todor
Angelovski
“I’ll start from the end. While returning
home I got to thinking how few have the opportunity in a time of peace and
prosperity to taste how it feels to organize life in the wild and to survive in
some seriously hard conditions. When you don’t have access to 99.9% of the
resources you have at your disposal while in the city. To understand this
feeling, meaning to feel it on your own skin, it is necessary to go out in the
field and to experience directly how hard it is to survive outside of a
populated area.
This kind of seminars I will always support and I will try to take part in as
many as possible, because in this way not only are many useful techniques
learned, you also learn to appreciate life in its entirety. And not only your
own, but those of the people around you, and the life of all the plant and
animal life around you. Only in moments like this we can understand that we are
not the center of the Universe” – Vladimir Antovski