MCQBushcraft Q&A: Ep01 - About Me

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MCQBushcraft:

If your interested in Bushcraft & Survival skills, fishing, hunting, fire lighting, plants & mushrooms, camp cooking, shelter building, self reliance, wilderness & primitive living skills, weaving plant fibers, knives, axes, saws and maintaining these tools in the field and much much more then check out my channel page below for playlists and more videos.

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Video Transcription

hi there guys it's Mike from mcq bushcraft here and welcome to another video on the channel this is episode 2 of the Q&A video where I'm going to answer some of the questions you asked me in the first episode and I've been out here on the case today just seeing a bit of camping gathering some shellfish and doing some filming but I thought it'd be a good opportunity is it's a really nice location and a beautiful day to do a Q&A episode I've got a nice fire game just to keep me warm it's a little bit cooler now at this time of year finally and the dampers let off a little bit which is great for me and great for filming and actually going out and doing bushcraft

so it makes it makes life a bit easier but one of the main questions I was asked in the first episode was about me personally it was about my backgrounds my training

how I started learning about bushcraft why I do bushcraft and what I do for an occupation and although there are an abundance of other questions I thought it would be really good just to answer those three and just tie it up as a bit of an introduction for this first episode and in episode three I picked a whole load of specific questions I was asked in episode one and to answer in the third episode things that people have actually asked me and I can quote people and give you some answers that you're looking for but just as a bit of an introduction to the series I thought I'd answer the questions about me because there are so frequently and somebody suggested to be a great idea to do as an introduction which I thought it was so how did I get into bushcraft and why do I do it I think why I do it is going to be a question in itself but how I got into it I suppose I should start when I was a kid when I was a child it was really just on the era before mobile phones really came into play wasn't really the computer gaming culture they have now I think as a result we played outside all the time I grew up really not having a television some of the time and didn't really watch a lot of television I think the only thing I watched on TV when i was a kid was ren and stimpy which still today remains my favourite cartoon and i do have the box sets it's a pretty mad and only now as an adult when you watch it you think oh my god I was this on at 12 o'clock midday for kids just wouldn't happen anymore but I didn't watch a lot of television and I spent a huge amount of time outside with friends playing and me and my friends still catch up these days even ones I've grown up with and we talk about the things we did when we were kids we do an awful lot of stuff and with no real training or background we were just really interested in the outdoors and we'd play outside all the time as a lot of people did before you know all the sort of computer game culture and mobile phone culture really kicked in it with some a lot of just playing outside and we play by the rivers we got camping a lot and on the side of that I was from about the age of 12 probably younger 12 is about as far back as I can remember with this sort of thing is I was obsessed with putting together survival kits

it literally dominated a large portion of my life making assault vests and survival kits and putting together cooking kits and fire lighting kits and survival kits going out making traps reading the SS Survival Guide going out in the woods and trying various things I was literally a huge part of my childhood and it was just something I was completely fascinated with mainly on the trapping hunting side of things survival fire lighting knives axes swords tools guns and all those sorts of things are the things that interested me as a young lad I think you know seeing my nephews and things today it's the sort of stuff that interests them I think it's just being a young lad really out in the woods playing and doing all sorts of stuff but it really was something that never left me and I remember my mum saying to me once Mike what's wrong with you why do you think the world's going to end why are you obsessed with all this yeah it's not the world's not going to end you're never gonna need to use these skills and you know you should focus on something else you mate you know she wondered why I was completely obsessed but I always said that it's just an instinct man it's just an instinct I think one day I'm gonna need these skills or I'm going to need to know how to use this stuff and how to survive and I'm going to need to know about the environment and need to hunt and trap things and fish and all of this sort of stuff and I couldn't explain it it was just something I loved to doing it was also something I couldn't not do just like an instinctual thing and I look at it today I think well yeah I mean it's my job now I teach bushcraft for a living I run this YouTube channel I guess I do need it in a way and it's something like these situations or situations I choose to put myself in and I enjoy going to other parts of the world and learn the natural environments that are there and the cultures and the things that people have to need to live over there but really going back to when I was a kid I just had a bit of a fascination with natural items as well I remember being a member of lots of different insect clubs and butterfly clubs and going out with groups and we collect insects and ID them collecting bones I remember one summer me and my friend fished out almost an entire cow out of a river just the bones of course and tried to reassemble it with wires we'd find animals we dissect them try and learn about them the guy and fish and we cook so it was really just about natural the natural world was just an obsession for me and living and surviving within it and I never read any ray mears books as a kid or watched any TV about this sort of stuff it was just really getting out there and doing it that's what I wanted to do I just wanted to get outside and do it with my friends and then that's kind of what we did so that was a large portion of my childhood as I got older I went into education and stuff and it really became a sideline hobby all that sort of thing I do remember slingshot will catapult hunting I should call it was a massive thing when I was a kid me and my friends got black with it what we used to make our own catapults but we always wanted the Black Widow everybody wanted the Black Widow back then and I remember getting the Black Widow and done I had loads of lead at home from work that was done on the house and just they were derelict a lot of derelict buildings and I was a kid around where I lived there aren't so many now I remember an entire milking parlor was derelict and used to go there and go after the wood pigeons and the rabbits and hares and sometimes pheasants as well when they took roost on top of you know trees and things or perch themselves high up they're easy targets and in a slingshot will catapult hunting was a huge deal back then so that's been with me from a young age and I've always seen it as such a sound method just this compact tool if you know how to use it in the right hands it really is the wrong tool if you're if you're a wood pigeon or a rabbit or something like that and it's still something like practice now just not as much because I have firearms they're far more humane and for me seeing animals suffer this is something I really enjoy anymore on that lot I enjoyed it it's really the wrong thing to say what I mean is is when I was a kid you could sort of tolerate it more as it was on the whole survival guideline in this and the catapult was all you had but now I have a sling I have a shotgun I can use rifles and air rifles I really don't like seeing things suffer not that I ever did but it's just that I know I can use the catapult and hunt with it I know I can trap but legally and there are various guidelines it's all you know I'm not a child anymore that's what I'm trying to say mo Chou

and you know I choose to take a sound approach but as I got older I went into education and I was always very arty and creative as a kid loved making things loved working with clay loved building things I loved painting portraits I loved painting animals with oil paintings I loved fantasy art as wise draw sorts of fantasy illustrations and things do tattoos and stuff and I went into University studied art to be a traditional illustrator and portrait artist and I came out of Union you know I always had them you know I was quite talented on that side of things but in the commercial world I've never been commercially driven always failed quite miserably commercially and never really sold myself very well and it just didn't go very well I ended up getting a job as a graphic designer so I realized that the traditional side was very competitive and sort of failed at that and trying to combine it with the digital age which was up-and-coming you know Photoshop and all these computers and Macs and things coming out it will took off real fast and I combined my skills with that managed to get a job as a graphic designer designing websites and stuff and that's probably where you connect the dots and you can see my channel I do all the graphics on it and all the website stuff and that's really it's a useful skill so in a respect I'm glad I have those skills because it's allowed me to create the image I've wanted today with the channel and everything but not the ideal path for me because I realized it wasn't something I wanted to do and after about 8 years of doing that I'm feeling like more of a tool than a creative person you know you're more of a tool for somebody else's creation somebody else's imagination because you can use all these tools and know how they work that you're doing there you're sort of just creating what they want you to and it just wasn't wasn't interesting enough for me so I thought I want to I want to teach brush craft skills I want to get into the outdoor world I want to teach kids I want to work with people I want to teach wilderness living skills had no experience apart from all the stuff I've done throughout the years on the sidelines as a hobby but no experience in the terms of actual employment so I thought what do I do so I created a youtube channel I basically sat down one day I went out with my did some planning went out with my camera and created a YouTube channel and I thought this is going to be my CV this YouTube channel will be my CV and it ended up being my CV and five years on it's a really successful channel it's got a good audience so I have real high standards with my channel as I do on everything in life I only put out the best quality videos I can worked really hard at the channel and the channels become like a full-time job it literally takes I mean take where I am now I've driven about three hours to get here it's cost me a lot of money a huge amount of planning's involved I'm out here literally living out here for at the back of my truck from for maybe five or six days really just for the purpose of being in an environment where I can get good quality films done because a lot of the films need to warrant their environment there's no good me being in my back garden doing a video about shellfish that I've bought from the shop I need to be in the environment I need to practice the skill as well

needs to be authentic so I put a huge amount of work into my channel and for those who follow the channel I know you appreciate that and I'm really grateful for the audience I have I'm really grateful and hopefully the videos I do you know they're there um they warn the audience and the audience enjoy it and I hope they do because I put a huge amount into it so the channel 5 years honors has really become a platform for me to win a lot of work I've had a huge amount of contacts from people all over the world saying come here come there I'll offer you work do this and those opportunities I've taken and in the future hopefully you'll see videos like that on the channel I'm in other parts of the world and doing other sorts of things and meeting people meeting subscribers and I imagine that's all on the cards but it's taken time to get to that point and it's really only now started to happen but hard work pays off and that's that's the key really if you love what you do like I do then you'll put the work in and it will pay off but really the channel has become a platform I've won a lot of work threat I've met people I've got work in the bushcraft world

I teach bushcraft for a living so alongside the channel where I earn a little bit of money get the money from the channel really just pays for the channel in a respect which is great for us I wouldn't be able to do the things I could do with it but on the sideline I teach bushcraft and I teach bushcraft for a variety of different schools and companies I work for a company in the Forest of Dean called forest bushcraft I met mark Austin sleeping in a primitive shelter on the River Wye and he came over and spoke to me and then I told him about the channel I met up with him and he gave me a job I did have to volunteer with him for about 8 to 12 months so I was already working five days a week and I had to volunteer at least one weekend a week to teach bushcraft I wasn't being paid at the time that was really hard work just the sheer hours getting up at half 5:00 in the morning traveling and running these courses and just doing all the grafting work but it paid off because he I run courses for him now and I get paid for it and they give me work so that's that's money in the pocket that's working you know that's what it's all about I also work for Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust I'll be running a lot of courses for them this year and they're running some really good courses actually in some beautiful parts of the country so if they let me outfit ice for them to know they don't like that they generally like to advertise for themselves because they want people to become members and sign up and stuff say if they do need help with the numbers are definitely advertise it on facebook on my msq bushcraft fan page and if you're interested come along on the course they're reasonably priced they're about 50 pounds for the day I think you might even do some camping ones as well in some really stunning locations and we'll really be focusing on bushcraft skills from a point of view of history as well at real primitive living stuff so it should be quite good but earth also work for a company called Trek TP in the forest sorry in the lake district up north and a dainty huge amount of courses for them because it's a lot of travelling you know it's a six to eight hour drive for me in my truck it doesn't go very quick up the up the motorways and I don't run a huge masses for them but I will put some some feelers out if you are interested any of these courses just write in the comments section and I will post it on my Facebook page because I don't like to tread on other people's toes if they want to advertise and they just want me to be the instructor and that's it so I don't like but put my nose in thoughtful people like that because it's not very polite really in that respect I work for a lot of schools as well forest schools and all sorts of schools working with children with disabilities volunteering children who are disadvantaged with the youth of venture Trust and they do that sort of stuff all year round really especially in term time as well so that's really where I come from on them an employment and that's my background so you've probably gathered I have no special training in bushcraft I have no qualifications in bushcraft there are none you can go out and waste money on qualifications but really it was all in the experience it's all in experience and selling yourself and just putting yourself out there if you want to be an instructor you know I went about in a bit of an unorthodox way through YouTube but that was a platform for me to market myself and and it really never started off as a way of making money it was just and I love bushcraft and love I didn't even know what the word bushcraft was when I was a kid till I was about 19 years old and watched ray mears on TV but some you know that's what it's called now and everybody can relate to it so I call it bushcraft but you know it's a primitive living skills is something I love you know human beings relationship to the landscape around them is I think is so important and that brings me on to really my next question the next question I was asked was why I do bushcraft the final question why do bushcraft

I think that when you look at the environment now especially in the Western world in the British Isles we really try and preserve the wild areas and the nature reserves and there are thousands of people all over the country that work very hard to protect these these beautiful places and you've got to give them those people respect because without them housing companies would be building on them because the reality is is it's not these people in housing companies they care about the environment it's just that that's that's the job they have to do and the environment comes second because they're thinking about the future of that business and unfortunately that's just the way it is there's no single individual that needs persecuting for the diminishing of the environment it's everybody it's all of us it's me it is you watching this we are all to blame we all go to shops we all buy food we'll go and buy meat so things need to be slaughtered for us to buy milk their cows need to be milked we buy tires for our car so tires need to be made and shipped over here supply and demand that's it that's all there is to it supply and demand and that's why the wild wildlife in the natural world is diminished because of supply and demand because we want stuff in the Western world for a consumer society you know so things need to be made for us and if there was a balance it would be great but unfortunately that balance tipped a while ago and I thought you know you just have to look along this Beach plastic as far as the eye can see I don't shout in my videos because I don't like to show it maybe I'll do a video just about the plastic on the beach one day but you know for me I like to show the natural environment and you know I sort of see the plastic in the background I think dasu shame but there are beautiful places like this really remote you can come to and we can make the effort and go and visit these places and respect them look after them and enjoy them and with more people did that I think we more people did that it would be great but unfortunately they don't so I think the environment comes second and based on that human beings have become very dependent and this is the most important thing really we are like babies running around with our thumbs in our mouths not all of us but a lot of a son we all are to a degree even I am to a degree you know you may not like to admit it but it's the truth we are all dependent to a degree we depend on things like heating a roof over our head all sorts of things entertainment healthcare education data that I know a lot of that is based off the side the world we live in today but we're very dependent on a lot of resources like food and water and clothing and warmth and we have no idea how to get them if the supermarket's had no food in tomorrow people would run riot they really would they would run riot people would starve and eventually we probably be eating each other like they did in Ukraine people will be foraging and there's a bit of food around but really you need it in fast quantity and there are just too many of us so for me bushcraft is is it is like independence it's like a gateway to independence to take your it's the cut back now away that hand that feeds you and saying I don't need to go to the supermarket I don't need to buy fish I don't need me I don't need greens there are greens right here this is something you can eat it's perfectly edible and it's delicious it's in front me here it grows everywhere along with loads of other stuff along with fish along with edibles on the beach forage above shellfish pigeons are flying everywhere no rabbits there are bigger animals like boar and deer you can hump and if you can't hunt you can't fish you can always source this stuff from local people

much better way to go really is but for me Bush crafts like a method of Independence really but I think that's what I had in me as a young kid you know when I was 12 years old I thought I want to know how to survive in this environment if things go wrong we're going to starve and die I'm going to freeze to death I need to know how to live in it and that's where exploring our ancestors comes into it as well bushcraft skills come in you know you're exploring people who lived you know off of the land for for millennia civilizations of people who lived without metal and these sorts of things for a long time and exploring the methods that they used is a is fascinating and practice them so that's really what bushcraft is to me it's um it's a gateway to independence and it's a long road it's a road I've barely walked in all honesty there's a long way to go if you want to learn bushcraft skills but that's really it for me so that's where I stand as an individual those are my beliefs that's my history as a child and a little bit about my education I won't go into too much about it and obviously my views on bushcraft what I do for employment I believe very strongly about it I try to be positive in my thinking about it as well it's easy to sit back and look at the world and go what a horrible place be really to turn around and look but the beauty of it as well and just get out there and if you're sitting in one day and it's raining think I don't care about the rain I'm gonna put my waterproofs on and I'm going to get out there and I'm going to see what life's like in the rain out in the woods right in the wilderness or whatever kind of environment you live in whatever environment you live in you've got to make it work for you and you've got a fine resources within it and look at primitive peoples that lived in it and what they did and then that's your gateway to independence that's your ticket out of the dependent world of the modern human being but I hope you enjoyed that first episode or second episode of the Q&A about me personally a little bit about myself there's obviously a lot of mistake

a lot more stories to tell but has any so much I can say on on video and this has gone for long enough really I suppose it's been a long episode but I've picked I should say hang fire on asking me questions on this episode episode two I've answered questions from the first episode on episode three so keep your eyes peeled for episode three and I've picked a whole range of questions that you guys have asked me I will answer them specifically so thanks for asking me that question I hope it's suffice tin terms of an answer and as you can see I have no special training or education and bushcraft and wilderness living skills I'm completely self-taught and it's really just the passion for it that drives me and that and that's really it so anyone can do it it's not not difficult stuff it's all just really easy stuff so thanks again for watching guys I'll see you very seen another episode - take care