Our one-day “Stay Alive” Survival Skills Course is a dynamic blend of traditional and modern survival, bushcraft, and outdoor safety skills. Designed for beginners through to outdoor enthusiasts, this course teaches you what to do if you become lost or stranded in the bush.

You will learn what essential survival gear to carry, how to construct emergency shelters using both natural and man-made materials, how to light a fire without matches, and how to find, collect, and filter water. The course also covers map and compass navigation, effective emergency signalling techniques for rescue, and core wilderness first aid principles.

Course Content Includes:

• Emergency shelter construction

• Survival fire-lighting skills (no matches)

• Water procurement and filtration

• Emergency signalling techniques

• Survival navigation (map & compass)

• Emergency first aid considerations

• Survival equipment selection

• Basic bushcraft, tools, and equipment

The course is conducted in NSW State Forest on the Central Coast, just one hour north of Sydney, providing a realistic and immersive outdoor learning environment.

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Our Two day ‘Stay Alive extended’ wilderness survival course is a dynamic combination of both traditional and modern survival, bushcraft and safety skills and extends our 1 day course, to include staying out overnight, for an extra days training. Learn what to do if you get lost in the outdoors, what important survival gear you should carry, how to create emergency shelters from both natural and manmade materials, light a fire without matches, find & filter water, navigate with a map and a compass, use effective signalling techniques for rescue and much, much more!  This course is held in NSW State Forest on the Central Coast, 1 hr drive Nth of Sydney

The course content includes:-

Emergency Shelter Construction, Survival Fire-lighting Skills both Primitive & Modern, Food and Water Procurement & Treatment, Emergency Signalling & Survival Navigation, Night time Celestial Navigation, Emergency First Aid and Survival Equipment Selection, Basic Bushcraft Skills, Tools and Equipment, Off Track Navigation & Orienteering and more.

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ASI’s 4 day survival course is the flagship survival course taking the knowledge of the 1 and 2 day courses and building upon them while providing students with the opportunity to practise their new skills.

From the outset, practical skills are in use with a ‘hands on’ approach being promoted. Subjects covered include, Protection & Shelter – Emergency Shelter Construction, Improvised Shelter Materials, Traditional Aboriginal shelter construction, Jungle shelters. Survival First Aid: Priorities For Life, Treating Common Survival Illnesses & Conditions, Bush Remedies & Improvised Treatment, Hypothermia “The Silent Killer”, Survival First Aid Equipment. Location & Signalling – Improvised Signalling Methods & Equipment, Signalling Aircraft, International Signal Code, Signal fires, Flares and Mirrors. Water Procurement – Transpiration Method, Wells, Natural Water Sources, Emergency Water Sterilising, Water From Plant Sources, Improvised Water Storage. Food Procurement – Survival Archery using primitive bows, Use of Snares & Traps,  Edible Plant Life, Emergency Food Preparation and Improvised Cooking Methods, Wild game butchering & skinning. Emergency Fire-lighting – Improvised Fire-lighting Methods, Use of Flint & Steel, Fire Bow and Drill, Hand Drill, Natural Tinders, Types of fires. Navigation – Use of map & compass, compass types, magnetic declination, Grid references, Latitude and longitude, GPS, pace counting, navigating by sun and stars, navigation using natural features. Primitive skills, Bush foods and improvised bush cooking methods… and more

A.S.I’s four day ‘Comprehensive’ survival skills course  is held in a remote section of Central Coast State Forest, 1 hr drive north of Sydney.

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Learn how to forage for bush tucker and medicines. How to identify, cook, and use native Australian plants. This one day intensive course teach’s you how to identify edible and traditional useful plants. How to harvest, cook and prepare them, how to use them in a traditional and historical fashion,  and you will also learn their nutritional and medicinal values.

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This one-day, entry-level Flint Knapping Course introduces students to the fundamentals of stone tool manufacture and the core techniques required to create functional tools.

Participants will learn and observe various methods of removing flakes from larger stone cores, producing workable pieces suitable for smaller, finely shaped tools. Instruction includes both demonstration and hands-on practice.

Students will gain an understanding of the historical use of stone tools, how to source suitable stone, and the tools used in knapping. The course covers essential techniques such as platform preparation, percussion flaking, and pressure flaking.

The practical focus of the course is on creating blades and microliths for a wide range of stone tool applications, including drill tips, cutting blades, points, and scrapers.

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2-Day Longbow & Selfbow Making Course

Our two-day Longbow and Selfbow Making Course is a dynamic blend of traditional and modern woodworking and bow-crafting skills, guiding students through the process of creating their own functional longbow or selfbow.

Participants may choose from a selection of native timber staves, and at times processed mill timber sourced from the U.S.A. You will shape and tiller your bow, make your own bowstring, and test your finished bow on our 3D archery targets. During downtime, students are welcome to explore the surrounding State Forest.

The course also includes an engaging look into the history of archery through the ages, including what equipment Ötzi the Iceman carried, as well as hands-on viewing of our own custom bow creations.

A variety of timber staves are offered throughout the year, depending on availability and season.

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A.S.I. is proud to offer our three-day Primitive & Traditional Skills Course, an immersive hands-on experience covering a wide range of ancestral technologies and bush-living skills.

Course content includes game preparation and skin tanning, primitive pottery, cordage, weaving and basketry, flint knapping, and bush tucker. All materials are provided, including English flint for stone tool manufacture.

Students will learn how to locate and dig natural clay, then craft functional cookware suitable for use over open fires. Each pottery project is completed using a traditional firing process inspired by the Anasazi people of the Southwestern United States.

Traditional cordage, weaving, and basketry skills are taught alongside the history and plant uses associated with Indigenous dilly bags. Participants will also skin and butcher small game, followed by instruction in traditional tanning methods, including the use of brains and other natural proteins.

The course also covers stone technology, with hands-on instruction in flint knapping to create functional stone tools.

The goal of this workshop is to enrich students’ lives through the learning of long-term primitive living skills, fostering a deeper connection with nature’s abundance of raw materials and the knowledge required to work with them sustainably.

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ASI are proud to offer our 2-day Primitive Blacksmithing course, students will learn to forge a full sized field knife, roman fire steel, S-hook, and chisel & punch, as our ancestors did with simple tools, charcoal, and an earthen pit forge. This is a creative partnership between you and the primal elements of Fire, Earth, Water, and Air in the creation of  custom, hand wrought, bushcraft toolse from high carbon tool steel. The Bare Bladesmithing 2-Day course does not have prerequisite requirements and is open to beginning level students without experience.

In this course, you will:

• Learn the fundamentals of high carbon steel metallurgy
• Forge an S hook
• Forge and Heat Treat a traditional Roman fire steel
• Forge and Heat Treat a Chisel and Punch
• Forge a high carbon steel alloy knife blade in a primitive earthen forge
• Understand the essentials of practical blade and edge geometry for survival and bushcraft knives
• Heat treat your forged blade to harden and temper a perfect balance of edge retention and toughness
• Sharpen and hone your blade into a razor’s edge without relying on jigs or modern angle guides.

*This class includes an overnight camp-out in Central Coast State Forest

Kevin Newton 0423 572 048

Australian Survival Instructors
ABN# 751 379 43351