Skills over Gear
How gear does little to improve your lack of skill
A lot of preparedness is about gear, that is what the internet people (who want you to buy their stuff) tell you. You cannot survive without spending thousands on this tent or that rifle. On my team, I would rather have an expert with a POS rifle than a novice with the best rifle ever made. Best of both worlds is optimal, but if I had to choose…
I want to expand on a subject and a poem that is near to my preparedness philosophy.
The Touch of the Master’s Hand
‘Twas battered and scarred,
And the auctioneer thought it
hardly worth his while
To waste his time on the old violin,
but he held it up with a smile.
“What am I bid, good people”, he cried,
“Who starts the bidding for me?”
“One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?”
“Two dollars, who makes it three?”
“Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three,”
But, No,
From the room far back a gray bearded man
Came forward and picked up the bow,
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet
As sweet as caroling angel sings.
The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said “What now am I bid for this old violin?”
As he held it aloft with its’ bow.
“One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?”
“Two thousand, Who makes it three?”
“Three thousand once, three thousand twice,
Going and gone”, said he.
The audience cheered,
But some of them cried,
“We just don’t understand.”
“What changed its’ worth?”
Swift came the reply.
“The Touch of the Masters Hand.”
And many a man with life out of tune
All battered with bourbon and gin
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd
Much like that old violin
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on.
He is going once, he is going twice,
He is going and almost gone.
But the Master comes,
And the foolish crowd never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the Touch of the Master’s Hand.”
~Myra Brooks Welch
The lesson of the story is that any piece of gear is only as good as the person who uses it. You can have the most expensive and high-quality equipment, but if you lack the skills to use it correctly, it might as well be junk. Conversely, a substandard piece of gear can perform above expected standards in the hands of a true master of skill.
In our modern materialistic world, we have a tendency to buy first and build skills later. While this works for some, most people lack the tenacity and commitment to become true masters of a skill. They buy the best rifle, expertly crafted and capable of accuracy out to extreme ranges, only to have it be a range queen that they might use once every other year when they feel guilty that it’s been in the gunsafe for too long.
They rezero it on the flat range, get jealous looks from the other guys at the range as they lament not being able to afford such a nice rifle. They return the rifle to the safe and forget about it, remembering the jealous looks and feeling good about their purchase.
Is your skill high enough to take advantage of the higher quality of a better piece of gear?
Going back to the rifle analogy. If you are only taking your rifle to the range every other year, you can get the same results from a much cheaper gun. Only when you’re pushing the limits of the equipment, and cannot improve your skill because the gear is at its limits, is the cost of better equipment justified. This comes with the added benefit that you actually know what you need and what will work best for you to improve your skill; everything before that is substituting your understanding with other people’s “expertise”. In the gun market, expertise often comes with a substantial upfront payment. Guntubers get paid tens of thousands to do reviews for gear; it’s a marketing expense, and a lot of people fall for it. Buying gear that “special forces experts” recommend/use. You cannot innovate what works best for you if you’re always following someone else.
Build your skill with cheap gear, find out how to use it, and increase your skill. Break rifles, tents, backpacks, or boots. Use them to the limit of their abilities and then decide what is best for you and your use case. Gear that is stress tested in the swamps of North Carolina might not function correctly in the desert mountains of Nevada. This gives the added benefit of stress testing you.
What are your limits?
How does your gear expand your capability?
Is it worth the extra money to spend on better quality gear?
Is the more expensive gear of better quality?
If you don’t know the answer to these questions, spend some time training, use your gear, and test it in scenarios that you anticipate being in. Only through doing will you know what you are capable of.
Skills are the foundation of preparedness.
Mike Black
Great article. I am guilty of doing this very thing. I sometimes tell myself I will make time to test things out better but life seems to get in the way to often. I need to "make a date on my calendar with myself" and really get after trying, learning, failing, figuring things out and the succeeding.
Thank you for this very wise counsel! We appreciate you sharing your experiences and expertise.