From shooting to making a fire: six survival tasks that have to be mastered in a team on a circular course under time pressure. The Survival Rally 2024 demands a lot – and yet should be achievable by anyone who enjoys the outdoors and has the will to improvise. Heinz Eichinger, shooting instructor in an Austrian special forces unit and survival trainer, developed the new event concept, which is primarily intended to be fun and provide some new insights.
He found enthusiastic support from YouTuber and survival expert Reini Rossmann and the Eichenwerk team. Militär Aktuell met with the mastermind and asked him questions about the survival circuit, the usefulness of survival training in the 21st century and getting to know his own capabilities. How did the idea of setting up a survival circuit come about? I’m always collecting project ideas, including on topics outside of HESA shooting training. The positive feedback from my previous survival courses in the Bucklige Welt, the Seetal Alps and in Schwarzenbach an der Pielach spurred me on. I got to know Reini Rossmann and his “Waldurlaub” project at just the right time. He was enthusiastic about the idea and we were soon able to start exploring the large property, which also has a cave with kilometers of tunnels. 
But why bother with the topic of survival and survival in the great outdoors or in urban areas? You could say that we live in a kind of “feel-good bubble”. My aim is to get people out of their comfort zone and to impart the basic knowledge that we have always had but have forgotten in our part of the world. The more you know about the subject matter, the easier it is to overcome one crisis or another. I’m not talking about the end of the world. But if I’ve ever experienced coping with everyday life without running water or electricity, I find it much easier to deal with these situations, which can last for more than just a few hours. Crisis preparedness is important, but even the best equipment is useless if I haven’t learned how to deal with it and regularly refresh my knowledge. In everyday life, there are plenty of ways to stay “in the juice”. Just one small example: instead of using a lighter to light the fire or barbecue, use a tinderbox and tinder to learn this technique and stay in practice.
“The reward is a sense of achievement that burns itself into your memory.“
Is it actually possible to train for survival if there is always some kind of backup available, from a readily accessible water bottle to a smartphone and ultimately life insurance? If you think of intensive survival training as “camping” alone with a tent and a great sleeping bag near civilization, it won’t work. In a course, however, the group dynamic and the mentor, who should have demonstrable references, play a major role. Then, in the right environment, where there really is no civilization noise to be heard, a very specific feeling arises. And of course you really have to want it. In my training courses, I teach people how to get by in nature with minimalist equipment and how to stay motivated even when they are soaked and hungry. The focus is on slowing down. It is important to me that the participants get a feeling that takes them away from everyday life. How do they feel when they hand over their smartphone and watch at the start of the course, how do they feel when they suddenly have to take care of the really important things without a tent and sleeping bag, without running water from the tap? The reward is a sense of achievement that burns itself into the memory. 
What do you really need to survive? Clearly two things: the mental attitude – the mindset – and the knowledge. Why? You can have the best equipment at your disposal – if you don’t have the right attitude towards survival and at the same time know how to help yourself in the respective situation, the emergency situation can turn into a life-threatening situation in the worst case. https://militaeraktuell.at/soldaten-der-siebenten-beim-us-ranger-kurs/Was Is pushing yourself to the limit again and again what appeals to you personally? For me personally, it’s that you feel yourself fully and completely. By that I mean that you go beyond your own limits and feel your whole body. During my training, I was able to experience first-hand what it feels like when your body is dehydrated or when your fingers are so frozen that you can’t even tie your shoe laces. There is only one choice: bite in or give up. Particularly in special military training, you are repeatedly put in situations where you have to say: “I can’t do this, it’ s impossible.” If, for example, a rescue zone has to be reached in a certain time during an exercise because the helicopter will only land briefly for the rescue, then you reach such a point. In this way, the body is consciously pushed to its limits – and you learn for life. You need a wealth of experience like this that you can draw on again and again. Such experiences have shaped me.
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