Discovery Channel’s Dual Survival co-host Cody Lundin taught SRU students outdoor survival skills Tuesday night in the Student Center Ballroom.
Lundin has been instructing students on survival skills since 1991, when he found the Aboriginal Living Skills School.
He stated that one of the most common questions that he’s asked is, “why don’t you wear shoes?”
“Indigenous people are my heroes because they’re the real badasses,” Lundin said. “Shoes take resources to make. Another aspect is walking slower and being able to pay more attention to the resources around you. The other aspect of that is that I don’t want to be a pussy and be holding somebody’s shoes. There are a lot of people who have a lot of skills, but if they lose their boots, they’re fucked. Do you want your life to be dependent upon what you have on your feet? I don’t.”
Lundin explained that when he began to teach, survival skills were not subjects that were taken as seriously as they are now. Because of this, his friends and family questioned his way of life. He stated that he believes that most college students go through a similar process of being questioned, and that they have to press through that in order to be successful.
“It’s natural progression of not giving up, not giving into people’s bullshit. Mom and Dad said, ‘Well you really should get a real job.’ Well, I like what I’m doing. If you don’t like what you’re doing then you don’t like what you’re doing. Life is short. I’m living proof that you live your passion, do what you want to do, and still make a living and make income.”
“If you don’t make a living, then I’ll take extra fire sauce with my seven-layer burrito because you’ll be [working] at Taco Bell and that’s unacceptable.”
He separates his teaching style from others by using humor, imagery, and cartoons.
“My style is different than an outdoor survival manual, and it’s that way on purpose. One: because it’s who I am. Two: Because I know how people fucking learn. They don’t learn in a pile of drool with their head down trying to remember this person who has lost all passion for what they’re teaching.”
Lundin not only separates his books from others, but he also distances himself from other survival-themed television shows.
“I’m actually an outdoor survival skills teacher,” Lundin explained. “I’m not an adventure actor. Bear Grylls is an adventure actor. If George Clooney played a physician on television, would you want to get surgery from him?”
With that being said, he admitted to never watching his show, Dual Survival, because he believes that it would most likely piss him off. He stressed that his main focus was to teach students skills that they could use in order to potentially save their own lives, and be able-bodied American citizens.
“When you think about Pennsylvania 100 to 200 years ago, you were one of the breadbaskets of North America. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, you’re founded on independence. You fuckers made independence. The Liberty Bell is here, and yet we don’t know where to put our crap if the toilet doesn’t work. That’s not independence. That’s not freedom. That’s being chained to grid and I will prevent that at all costs, because that’s not what this country was founded upon and that’s not what I feel Pennsylvania stands for.”
