Hey guys, how is it going today? Today, me and my dog Shadow are practicing some survival skills and today I’ll be showing you some different knots using paracord, really good ones for the outdoors. Also I’ll be showing you a couple of other things that has to do with outdoor survival.
Also I can't stress enough about practicing all this stuff that you learn. You can watch as many videos and read as many books as you want about survival but practicing is the most important thing. You may need to use the skills and knowledge someday so it’s really important that you practice what you’re learning so when a disaster happens or whatever the scenario is you’ll know exactly what you’re doing. That goes for all the gear that you buy too. You should practice with it often so you know how to use it properly and it will be like second nature when a real situation occurs and you actually need to use it. So thanks for tuning in as always and let’s get started.
All right, so now I’m going to show a couple different knots that are really good for the outdoors. These knots would also be good in other situations indoors but this work really good in the outdoors. I’m not going to show you every single knot right now, just a couple. It will be easier to remember that way if you just learn a couple at a time if you’re new to knots. In the future, I’ll make more knot videos. So this will just be a couple.
All right, the first knot I’m going to show you is called a sheet bend. And what this knot is use for is to join two different ropes. You can do it with ropes of different thicknesses or rope of the same thickness. I’ve used this one many times in the outdoors and the reason it is good is, if you only have two ropes and they’re not connected and you need one large rope this knot will connect the two ropes very well and hold securely making one larger rope.
All right, so the first thing you want to do is make two loops, one on each end of each separate rope like this. Take one of the ends, the loops and insert into the other loop so you kind to have a pretzel looking thing. You’re going to take this loose end back here and put it through this hole.
Again, take this end and put it through this hole and then you can pull it tight and that is what a sheet bend looks like. And I have longer ends just for demonstration purposes. The more you practice this the smaller you can get the ends and the longer your rope will be and if this gets pulled tightly the tighter it gets pulled the tighter the knot becomes. That‘s why a bit just a regular knot or some other knots. So this is a sheet bend and it’s very effective at joining two separate ropes of either different thicknesses or the same thickness.
All right guys, the next knot I’m going to show you is called the bow line and this is a loop knot and what it is, is a secure loop knot. The knot you make to make the loop will not budge in either direction. It stays firmly there. So the first thing you need to do is make a loop like so. Take the smaller end and put it up through the loop. Pull it up, bring that end around the longer end and back through the original loop.
So you make a loop like so. Take the smaller end and put it up through the loop. Pull it up, bring that end around the longer end and back through the original loop. So before you pull it tight that’s what it looks like. Now you tighten it and that is called the bow line. It’s a loop that will budge. It’s very secure.
All right, the next knot I’m going to show is called the Clove hitch and its use to attach a rope maybe that hanging down from a horizontal stick or bar or something. I know this is incompletely horizontal but it works anyways and you could use it to hitch other things. It doesn’t have to be horizontal. It’s a good one to know a clove hitch.
The first thing you want to do is take one end and loop it around, bring that end back up over the loop like so. Bring that end back down and take the end again and put it up through this loop and then you can tighten it. And it’s pretty secure and you can put a lot of force on it and it won’t come on done. And it’s really easy to take off, you just undo it. So it’s pretty secure and pretty easy to come up and that’s called the clove hitch.
This is a signal mere.
All right, so that was just a quick demo of the signal mere. It’s an excellent signaling tool. I have a whole video about it check it out. They can be seen from auto like a hundred miles away in some cases and if you broke your leg and you’re injured and can't move or something like that. This maybe your only chance at survival is signaling an aircraft for rescue. So I definitely recommend everybody has a signal mere in their survival kit.
All right guys, so that’s basically up for this video. Remember to practice the knot I showed you and any other information you learn anywhere in a book, remember to practice, test out your gear. I can’t stress out enough. It’s important and someday you might have to use the stuff and it could save your life. So it’s important to keep practicing. Thanks for all your support guys. Thanks for watching and I’ll talk to you later. Bye.
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