WriterByNature.com

I dug out my old notes from Tom Brown’s Advanced Tracking class. Either I took really good notes, or I copied them over right after I got home. I took Advanced Tracking in 1991. How time flies.

Virtually everyone I respect in the world of wilderness survival has taken classes from Tom Brown. He’s a charismatic speaker and an enigmatic personality. I struggled through those classes, but despite my fears and my inadequacies, I learned something.

As I think about how creatures move and how the shift in weight is recorded in the movement of each foot, (that’s a very simplistic explanation of pressure releases), I rediscover Tom Brown’s coffee cup tracking technique.

I can study pressure releases by filling a coffee cup with sand and making thumb prints in the sand. I can pivot my thumb, turn right or left, push off, back up, or any other move I make with my feet.

The Internet is handy, because Tom Brown has posted a lot of this information, which means I can double check my notes. A true blessing. It also demonstrates that, eccentricities aside, Tom Brown really wants people to share this information. I got hooked back then when he described the art of tracking as a form of reading the landscape, like you would read a story or a journal.

I’m still learning the ABC’s of tracking. I couldn’t read letters or words before I was three-years-old. It’s about building a solid foundation and practicing. I learned to read words, sentences and paragraphs. I know I can learn to read tracks.

Cup of sand, anyone?