Training Courses

Praise be to the Lord my Rock,
    who trains my hands for war,
    my fingers for battle.

Psalm 144:1

Fieldcraft

The Fieldcraft Course is based on TW-02. We will practice individual and team movement skills, how to select and set up a secure overnight site, land navigation (both day and night), mindset, and observation skills. We will also learn a few ways of setting up a tarp shelter. Students should be prepared to be out in the weather and we will be camping throughout the course. Immersion is the way to learn. When you register for a course, a required and suggested gear list will be sent out.

I have recently added a winter fieldcraft variant. This course will cover additional fieldcraft skills for a winter or mountain environment.

Community Security Operations

This class is based on TW-03, Defensive Operations. In this course you will learn the skills requred to set up local security operations during a without rule of law (WROL) situation. We talk about different types of defensive positions, discuss interior guard procedures, practice checkpoint and entry control point tactics, and conduct local security patrols. Caches and emergency camps/safe houses will be covered as well.

Mountain Partisan Series

This will be a series of courses designed to introduce the Partisan concept while teaching small unit tactics for the defense of a local area. In addition to basic tactics, the course will cover survival skills and fieldcraft in a mountain environment at our Montana training center, set in a beautiful mountain wilderness. The series will progress from basics to advanced skills, using TW-04 Scouting and Patrolling as the base, but incorporating additional mountain skills.

Combative Skills

This 3 day course will immerse the students into fighting skills with the empty hands, sticks, knives, and cold-firearm combatives (using the firearm as a blunt weapon or with a bayonet). This skills build self confidence and warrior spirit as well as giving a student a means short of lethal force to protect themselves. We can build custom self defense courses for all ages, as well as women-specific self defense.

Communications for Preparedness

This is a very basic 2 day primer on radio communications for preparedness. It’s designed to get a student from no knowledge to at least a working knowledge of radio use in a preparedness context. We will cover radio programming and set up, and develpo a communications plan. This is NOT a Ham radio course – we will focus on license-free options and GMRS.

Mountain Survival

Learn basic survival skills specific to the mountain environment. We will be outdoors learning for the majority of the class, regardless of the weather. We will learn the basic skills to survive with whatever is in your pack. This course is absed on the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare School’s Summer Survival Course.

Getting Home

The single day course will cover the skills to get you home in the immediate aftermath of a disaster or major power outage. We will discuss building a Get Home Bag and developing a Get Home Plan, complete with area study focus. We will practice some very basic skills for mevement, self-aid, and conflcit avoidance. Some very basic radio skills will be covered as well.

Baofeng Basics

This half-day course will cover the basic settings and menus on your Baofeng radio. We will discover the best ways to set up yiour radio so that you can use it in an emergency almost immediately. We will get some trigger time using the radios to get comfortable with them. We’ll cover the best add-ons, settings, and accessories to optimize your Baofeng.

FTX – Short Range Patrol

This course is an advanced fieldcraft and patrolling course. You need to have attended either my Fieldcraft Course or and NC Scout Scout Course (or equivalent) to attend. We will conduct a brief review of patrolling principles on Friday morning. The students will be given a patrol mission and must plan their patrol. The team will step off Friday afternoon, move to a location and set up a patrol base. The patrol needs to establish an observation post and watch an assigned target. A follow-on mission will be given on Saturday morning, which the patrol must accomplish before returning to base camp Saturday night. On Sunday, the patrol must work together to produce and then brief their patrol report. A review class of follow-on activities will wrap up the weekend.

You will sleep in the field in whatever gear you bring for one night of the class.

Upcoming Courses

December 13-14, 2025: Winter Survival, Camp Ponderosa, MT

January 9-11, 2026: Winter Fieldcraft, Camp Ponderosa, MT

January 23-25, 2026: Combatives Weekend, Camp Ponderosa, MT

February 7-8, 2025: Winter Survival, Camp Ponderosa, MT