These Prepper Essentials Are What You Need to Continue Training After the SHTF

Here’s the bottom line – never stop the training.  Even after the world comes to a screeching halt, do not stop.  That may sound inane but there are several reasons behind it and several purposes in front of it.  There needs (as in all things) some structure to provide an organizational framework, so first let us define training after the “S” hits the fan.

You’ll have more time, and you’ll have less time.  You will not be held by specific time constraints, such as the 9-5 “rat-race” from Monday to Friday; however, you will still need to budget your time.  Necessities such as food (obtaining it, growing it, storing/preserving it), water, protection from the elements (wood for heat, for example), and protection from disaster-related factors (ex: radiation from a nuclear exchange, or tektites from an asteroid/comet impact) will occupy a great deal of time.

For a step-by-step guide to planning for short and long-term emergencies, click here ^[1].

You will need to train and study more than ever.

1. First-Line Materials: These would be your books and physical archives set in paper and in notebooks.  All your printouts and information…you will be relying on these for all subjects from farming to defensive tactics. Here are some basics for creating a preparedness binder ^[2].
2. Videos (Instructional): These DVD’s and films will be invaluable for refresher training, as well as introducing the youth to things they might have to have a “crash course” in a video to learn. The portable battery-powered DVD player ^[3] is a must…ensure it works, has extra batteries and a charging system, and stick it in a Faraday cage until it is needed.
3. SME (the Subject-Matter Expert): individuals who are experts in a field who are willing to teach the basics to students, whether adult or youth. Becoming a member of local groups in your area and even attending local classes before a SHTF event will help you find these invaluable people to learn from.
4. Downloaded Material and a Computer in a Faraday Cage: scan everything you can possibly cover, and store the information on jump drives, external hard drives ^[4] or pick up a computer with enough hard drive and wherewithal to handle it and the “strain” of periodically being used.

There are many categories to train upon, and the training isn’t ever complete: you’ll always need a refresher.  Physical training is paramount.  This includes exercise, such as weightlifting and calisthenics, as well as combat training and instruction with weapons and their employ.  Understand: when I was in the Army, we conducted PT (physical training) in the field.  You need it.

Exercise reduces the triglycerides in the bloodstream, and it also is responsible for a good portion of osteogenesis.  This last term is a formation of healthy bone tissue.  I’m not going to cover the subject entirely: the physical training stimulates the formation of new bone tissue and the “recirculation” of “recycled” material at the end of the cycle of ossification.  Exercise prevents the muscles from atrophying, and it is an excellent way to relieve stress.

Hand-in-hand is recovery, and this is a critical component of physical training that is mostly overlooked.  The importance of it cannot be understated and it must be instructed as part of a course.  After it hits, should our society (whoever has survived the initial destruction and shocks) revert and return to what made our society weak and ineffective, or should we chart a new course?

Many will take a “devil may care” attitude, and this is not what is needed to survive.  Freedom from the constraints imposed by a superficial “phony” society based on the material and superficial instead of value and substance may have been granted…but self-awareness and self-discipline must be followed at the individual and group level.  Many are the communities that emerge from a tyranny to merely replace it with another, or leave a failed society to continue it elsewhere and fail subsequently.

Training needs to incorporate history, science, and self-sustaining ^[5]arts (farming, metallurgy, construction), as well as training to address the immediate and pressing issues faced by the family and/or community.  Why would anyone halt what they’ve already begun?  A training program doesn’t need (and shouldn’t!) come to a halt because the wheels of society do so.  The training serves a purpose:

Ongoing training in critical subjects sustains individuals and groups for continuity and it enables people to thrive.

That last word: thrive – is an important word, indeed.  It means more than just survival.  It means going beyond the bare needs of the physical and continuing in the quality of life…to build a future.  Many civilizations have built upon the ruins of an older society.  Look at the fall of the Roman Empire for a prime example…and the Dark Ages that ensued.  Eventually, our adaptive species began to adapt and “rewire” itself into formats that enabled progress and continuity.

Your challenge as part of a family or a group is to determine the critical areas and train in them without ceasing.  Train each available moment, taking the failures and experiences of the past to formulate something new that may work for the future.  Stay in that good fight.  How you train in peace is how you fight in war.  Do not stop the training, and keep with it fervently even after the SHTF.  JJ out!