subject: Going Back In Time To Learn The Art Of Survival [print this page] Survival has been a basic instinct that humans had to develop in order to stay alive. The conditions were indeed hostile and the resources or rather the resourcefulness limited. We became ingenious enough to start inventing and using tools to accomplish tasks that were done laboriously using our bare hands. Necessity being the mother of invention lead to man focusing on surviving by using his brain more than his physical prowess to stay ahead as compared to lesser living beings that had to still rely on the basic hunting instincts to survive. It is another matter though that from surviving in the real jungles he is actually struggling a lot to survive in concrete jungles of our cities today.
Reality shows, especially the ones that deal with survival tactics have helped us to make an attempt go back to the wild again. One can actually get exposure to some real time situations where we have to again draw upon our basic skills to survive. Imagine being used to all the basic comforts of life and having access to them at the push of a button and then being suddenly transported to somewhere out there in the jungles or deserts with nothing save your instincts to guide you. The prospect could be frightening for many and definitely exciting for some. Of course there is back up as the crew directing and filming the entire episode is at hand at all times, and the participants may have had to try really hard to bring that perplexed and scared looks on their faces. However just imagine if one were to be in such a situation for real with no one to turn to? Now that can put off the bravest of hearts. What we actually see on film is not exactly the true picture, though it always seems that way. Maybe the participants are preparing themselves, should such a situation ever arise in the future.
Lets take a closer look to see what some of these shows are all about. One such popular show is Bear Grylls Man vs. Wild where he is left all alone in the wild to fend for himself. The location would be somewhere in the wild with touch terrain and wild animals in the jungles to contend with. Grylls manages to survive on these episodes. What most of us do not know however is that he has had several dry runs with intense training for at least a couple of days. Moreover, though it appears that he is left all alone, the truth is that he is followed by the cameraman and his assistant. Helicopters are used to scout the terrain and detailed reports provided. In spite of all this, the show went on to do really well with top rankings.
On another show that had top rankings was slightly different in that the participants were in a group and split into teams that were competing with each other. There was a process of elimination where individuals were eliminated, sometimes leading to an entire team being wiped out in the process. There were prizes to be won and the competition was stiff, as the sole survivor got to carry home $100,000. As this show seemed to have a better purpose, it attracted more viewers. Some of them were also aspiring to participate in this show. It was aired by popular service providers like verizon-fios-tv. Besides these there were other such shows like The Colony, Dual Survival, Man, Woman wild, Surviving Disaster and Mantracker that did pretty well too. As there are a lot more unexplored zones, more such shows are on the cards.
