Zombie Defense Network Preparing for the Zompocalypse

Bored on my couch in San Francisco, I flipped through mid-day television in the desperate hope of finding something somewhat entertaining.  Having just finished Mass Effect 2, I needed something that required very little attention -- just enough to keep me occupied while I absorbed the end of my game play experience.  Behold the power of the television set.  Now, one may propose I turn off the TV and, instead, read a book, take a walk, or some other hipster activity.

Screw That

It was f’ng 40 degrees in our place, and our only source of heat was a portable space heater and my 60” plasma television.  That thing needed to stay on to keep my wang from falling off.  I didn’t care if it was on HSN or the Jesus Channel; it just needed to stay on.  Seriously, it sucked balls.

In any event, huddled in my brown Snuggie, I finally made it up to the Discovery channel.  I was about to change the station, for there are only so many American Chopper episodes one can watch before going insane, when a preview for a new show ran.  This series featured two survival experts with radically different survival methodologies demonstrating various survival techniques.

I remain a sucker for survival shows, for they fit perfectly with my preparation for the zombie Apocalypse.   This show, however, seemed special, for in the preview they showed a f’ng stupid, barefoot hippy out on a glacier in shorts.  THIS was a survival expert?!  I was struggling to fend off shivering in my condo, and this guy was going to walk off a glacier in little more than a bathing suit?

I turned to my wife and exclaimed, “OH MY GOD!!  This show is genius -- that moron is going to fucking DIE!  We have to watch!”

Watch we did, and by the end of the first episode I began to realize just how wrong my assessment was.  By the second episode, I was looking up Cody’s school on the Internet, and by the third I was on his email list.

Fast forward a couple of months.  I found myself between flights at LAX, and my phone alerted me to a new email.  It was from the school -- the year’s class list was just released, and we could sign up for any of his courses.  Knowing they would fill up fast, I selected the toughest sounding one and sent in my cash before boarding a plane for Detroit.  I received a confirmation response from Cody, and my fate was sealed.

With an information packet from the school, I began my preparation for the Desert Drifter course.  I bought equipment, beefed up my cardio training, and gave up caffeine.  The details of this justify another writeup entirely, so I shall skip them for now.  Suffice it to say, as the course start date approached, I found myself almost giddy with anticipation.
Thus, on a cool May morning in Prescott, Arizona, I found myself face to face with Mr. Lundin.  First, and the show doesn’t really give you a good sense of this, but Cody is f’ng huge.  He’s not only tall, but he owns two arms which, if severed from his body and weighed, would easily eclipse most seventh graders (outside of Texas . . . childhood obesity yeah!).

Seriously, the man takes physical fitness very seriously.  There were times on the course that truly drove this point home.  For example, I spent a good half hour whittling down a tree branch to make a hearth for my fire-by-friction kit.  As time passed, I grew happier and happier with my work, and I felt I was doing a great job.  Shortly thereafter, Cody walked by, saw me working, and asked to take a look at my progress.  I passed him the branch, and in two, swift strokes of his knife, he cut it in half and passed it back to me.

Yeah, humbling.

Physical ability aside, Cody also possesses a sharp intellect.  Cody’s spent the past twenty years living the lifestyle he teaches.  Consequently, he knows his shit -- literally.  Find some scat on the trail, and he’ll know what animal dropped it.  Cody can identify pretty much every plant in Arizona.  He knows what parts are safe to eat right off the plant, and he knows how to make others edible.

Cody possesses a metric shit ton of knowledge about primitive living.  He can make a shelter out of discarded sticks and a trash bag.  As a good friend of mine said after watching a season of Dual Survival, “Cody can start a fire with just a spoon and a glass of water.”

Yes, yes he can.

No matter what skills he demonstrates in his books and on the show, however, it all seems to come back to one thing: his perpetually bare feet.

The show uses this to help illustrate differences between Cody and Dave’s style, and folk are often quick to dismiss it as a hippy lifestyle.  Cody even helps feed this by saying he chooses to shun footwear because he wants to be closer to Mother Earth.  In fact, just about every episode of Dual Survival has a soundbite of Cody saying something to this effect.  Having spent a week with him, however, I disagree.

Cody doesn’t wear shoes because shoes are for pussies.

Seriously.  Why wasn’t he wearing shoes and anything more than shorts in freezing temperatures on top of a glacier?  Simple, pants and shoes are for little bitches.  If you’ve let the comforts of modern society turn you into a weakling, great for you.  Cody, on the other hand, actively and aggressively fights against this slackening.

A number of survival schools exist in the United States, but very few of them possess a lead instructor of Cody’s caliber.  Cody remains passionate about the material he teaches, and he lives the primitive lifestyle on a day to day basis.  This isn’t something he’s doing during the summer to scrape together cash for college, for living outdoors is the path Cody’s chosen for his life.

One can study primitive living and see how far we’ve come as a species, or you can look at Cody and be reminded of just how much we’ve lost.

Cody Lundin is a fucking bad-ass.