View Full Version : Pressure releases?
damh_bard
26-09-2005, 12:09
Greetings!
Over the years I've found the 'pressure releases' taught by Tom Brown jr to be of immense value. A wonderful way to get inside the mind of the animal. I find they make tracking more than just following tracks and provide a deeper understanding of the creature you are tracking. They make reading the tracks more like reading a book.
Might be a silly question but does anyone else here use them? I've not seen them mentioned yet.
Peace
Damh
Abbe Osram
26-09-2005, 12:22
Greetings!
Over the years I've found the 'pressure releases' taught by Tom Brown jr to be of immense value. A wonderful way to get inside the mind of the animal. I find they make tracking more than just following tracks and provide a deeper understanding of the creature you are tracking. They make reading the tracks more like reading a book.
Might be a silly question but does anyone else here use them? I've not seen them mentioned yet.
Peace
Damh
Hi mate,
could you twell a little on the subject! I would like to learn from you.
:o I cant use what I dont know about.
thanks
Cheers
Abbe
damh_bard
26-09-2005, 12:35
According to Tom Brown pressure releases was the system of tracking taught to the Native American Scouts, although they called them the 'Spirits, or Voices of the Track'.
Basically, every tiny movement we make either in walking, or simply by standing still and looking up, down, etc make impressions on the track. The various types of pressure releases can tell you what the animal was doing, thinking, looking at etc. Whether it was at ease, frightened, how fast/slow it was moving, and also the pressure releases can very effectively point to where the next track can be found.
One of the great things about them is that the releases are exactly the same for every land creature, no matter what type or size. So the pressure release that tells you the deer came to a sudden halt, is the same as the pressure release that tells you the human/fox/mouse came to a sudden halt. It's just the size of the release that changes. Like fractals within tracks.
There are thousands of pressure releases to learn, but even learning the basic few can really help your tracking skills.
Peace
Damh
Abbe Osram
26-09-2005, 12:44
Great stuff mate,
could you teach me the very first important onces.
cheers
Abbe
damh_bard
26-09-2005, 12:51
You really need a tracking box or at least diagrams etc to teach them. If you're interested I'd recommend Tom Brown's book 'Science and the Art of Tracking'. It's a very useful introduction to the pressure releases.
By pressure release do you mean for example if the track depression is deeper at the front ,it was running ? Or deeper at the back and it was slowing rapidly .
I may have got completely the wrong end of the stick , but would love to learn more (as this is all my knowledge on the subject )
Cheers
Pumbaa
damh_bard
26-09-2005, 13:07
Sort of. Imagine the track is a small landscape, it has tiny hills, valleys, caves, cave ins, there is a floor, and a horizon. There might be a ridge on the horizon, one area of the track might be deeper than another. Outside the track the landscape continues. there might be dish-like objects, or an explosion of sand. The pressures that created this mini landscape are similar to those that created our own landscape, and we can read the landscape within the track like a geologist might read the landscape around us. All of those tiny little imressions are pressure releases. :)
This is all absolutely fascinating! I would really love to learn more about it when I have the opportunity. I can imagine that you must feel really at home in the outdoors, and very content to be able to understand what's going on around you like that. It's a far sight from the average person tramping through the forest and then wondering why they don't see any animals! :)
Abbe Osram
26-09-2005, 13:21
thanks mate very interesting. Is he teaching something about tracks in snow too as I am trapping mainly in wintertime. Reading tracks in deep snow is a thing I have to get better.
Cheers
Abbe
C_Claycomb
26-09-2005, 13:24
I have read about these in The Science and Art of Tracking by Tom Brown, argueably one of his best, I think. I was very taken with the idea to begin with, but am less so now.
http://trackertrail.com/tracking/index.html
Damb, how did you go about learning? It seemed to be an incredibly laborious empirical process which had to be learned under controlled conditions to a fairly high degree of proficiency before it could be applied on a real trail.
What circumstances have you found examining pressure releases useful?
Please don't think I am being hostile or anything. I read the book and thought it a good idea, then talked to a number of people who have lived by tracking, or taught it who asked "Why" one should spend the time examining a single print, or a short series if the goal was following or finding the track's maker.
There was an excellent article posted about Saudi trackers.
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200402/reading.the.sands.htm
that offered something to be said for understanding a single track, but it still seems a very specialised and difficult to master art/science.
damh_bard
26-09-2005, 13:41
Sorry, posted the original reply before you edited yours :)
I was originally taught by Thomas Schorr-kon about 10 years ago on his first Trackways course, who was taught them by Tom Brown's trackerschool. I find pressure releases both inspirational and at times infuriating. without doubt the best place to start is with a tracking box and wet sand. Then just putting in lots of time studying the character of the basic releases. The hardest part IMHO is telling what is a pressure release, and what is the result of an outside influence such as a stone under the track, a falling twig etc. As tom says though, although the releases are part science, they are also for a large part down to awareness and intuition.
You're right though, they do at first add time to the tracking process, and if what you really want to do is follow the animal, there are quicker ways. But I personally wanted more out of the tracking experience, and love the idea that it lets you into a bit of the animal's psychology.
I'd just like to point out that tracking skills can be used in suburbia as well as rural areas, there are sign everywhere!!! If you apply these skills in your everyday life you'll be surprised how much you've not noticed. Try it next time you go to the shop or the pub!
Cheers
Karen
firstly before I start, I do not claim to be able to track these are just my observations
When I first read of this technique and even listened to Thomas Schorr-kon explain it I was very sceptical. Since then I have had the chance to spend time with people who depend on tracking to supply themselves and their families with food and others that track as a professional occupation, none of these people employ this technique or anything like it.
so talking with these people has done nothing to alleviate my scepticism of this technique in fact it has served only to strengthen it.
if the track is so clear that you can see the most minute details in it, you don’t need to get down on your hands and knees and study it, just follow the track!
in the western world we often see tracking as a mystical lost art and believe that the native people who live by it can see something in a track that we cannot.
I shall recount a story which in an attempt to illustrate what I am trying to say
I spent some time last year in the jungles of Borneo with members of the Penan tribe, a nomadic group that still subsists by hunting and gathering. I was out learning to forage and trap with a young Penan man called Lang ub when he stopped and pointed out a track "baboy" he said which I understood to be wild bushpig. immediately we changed direction and were hot on the trail of the bushpig with Lang ub moving so quickly that I was almost at a jog behind him, my eyes darting around trying to catch a hint of the tiny disturbances that lang ub was following...... I saw nothing.
after 20 minutes of following him and failing to see a single sign I stopped him and though a mixture of gestures and repeating the word baboy (one of the few words I know) I asked Lang ub what he was following, he gave me a confused look and pointed over the ridge "ubi cayoue" (sp?) he said which I understood to mean cassava (a root vegetable).
this left me utterly perplexed but when we arrived at a valley filled with cassava and Lang ub showed me where the bushpig had been digging up the roots I finally understood........... Lang ub hadn’t been following anything and I couldnt see anything not only because I cant track, but because there was nothing there.
Lang ub was using his local knowledge of the habitat, he saw the first track which was fresh and heading in the direction of the valley and he knew that the pig would be going to feed on the cassava.
There in lies the mystic secret of tracking, detailed knowledge of the subject and the terrain, this year I was fortunate enough to go to Namibia with Bushcraft expeditions and spend time with professional trackers learning from them the techniques they employ, I learnt a great deal and the more I learnt the more I understood what I had witnessed. I learnt that tracking has less to do with the actual track than I had thought and more to do with the big picture.
This article written by Woody (our instructor whilst in Namibia) will illustrate this better than my amateurish observations what is tracking? (http://www.bushcraftuk.com/content/articles.php?action=show&showarticle=98)
This is not to say that pressure releases are nonsense if it works for you, then it works for you, but I personally do not believe that it is a necessary part of becoming a proficient tracker.
Could I recommend the book, 'The art of tracking, the origin of science' by Louis Liebenberg
Could I recommend the book, 'The art of tracking, the origin of science' by Louis Liebenberg
You can, but not at this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0864862938/qid=1127747735/sr=8-12/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i12_xgl/202-2823221-9436614) price!
:eek:
Could I recommend the book, 'The art of tracking, the origin of science' by Louis Liebenberg
It looks like this
http://img343.imageshack.us/img343/5166/tracking3cb.jpg
Very good book and well spotted Stuart on the Namibia trip.
You can, but not at this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0864862938/qid=1127747735/sr=8-12/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i12_xgl/202-2823221-9436614) price!
:eek:
It cost 137.00 Rand (about £13) in the airport in Jo'burgh, so if you know anyone who is going there, get them to mail a copy of it back to you it's well worth a read:)
damh_bard
27-09-2005, 09:28
Hi Stuart,
That sounds like a wonderful trip!
This is not to say that pressure releases are nonsense if it works for you, then it works for you, but I personally do not believe that it is a necessary part of becoming a proficient tracker.
Absolutely! I haven't said that it was necessary to study them to be a proficient tracker - but I do find them fascinating, and a good addition to the tracker's tools. And I agree that awareness is also an incredibly important tool/state of mind - being able to see what is out of place, and to know your environment is all part of tracking. I simply wondered if anyone else here used them :)
Peace
Damh
You can, but not at this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0864862938/qid=1127747735/sr=8-12/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i12_xgl/202-2823221-9436614) price!
:eek:
That's odd! W H Smiths will supply it for £14.99 The Art of Tracking (http://www.whsmith.co.uk/whs/go.asp?isbn=0864861311&db=220&shop=23299)
Hawkeye The Noo
27-09-2005, 10:20
Pressure releases have been out there for a long time, long before Tom Brown, I have also heard of them described as action indicators. Are they important to me? It depends on the age of the spoor. If it is old there is use in taking time to study as much as you can learn from any track by whatever method. If it is hot, very recent, I would be interested only in the action indicators such as those that give direction at a glance to help me to close the time distance gap. I would only spend more time if it was a part of lost spoor procedure but a tracking stick is of much help here. Remember at the end of a string of spoor is the quarry, spend to much time on an individual spoor and you break your tracking rhythm and will not see the animal you are tracking.
In summary they have their place but to me time distance gap has a bigger priority.
Hawkeye The Noo
Ian "max" Maxwell
27-09-2005, 17:42
The source of the term "pressure releases" is unknown.I have worked with operational apache scouts and they were not aware of this term or function.
The dutch in about 500ad until1200ad used terms which could be likened to pressure releases. Het Neusje -the nose up and het draadje-the thread. Dont get too dragged into the pressure releases, after-all that only describes a physical reaction to pressure by the foot on the ground,the foot exerts pressure and the substrate gets squashed and has to go somewhere. They also rely upon flat surfaces that are not influenced by angle which completly flaws the the pressure release theory. A far more useful technique when dealing with physical tracking is action indicators,this draws on more complex issues than the pressure releases and is not landscape influenced.
However, when I am tracking operationally or for fun, the tracks are only the manifestation of the physical passage, the more advanced tracking techniques use a thousand techniques x 10,a very complex computation of awareness,shape shiffting,the landscape,your own auro( concentric circles),understanding of just about everything that walks,flys,sqauks or squeeks,what inter-reaction everything has within and without your vision:the eye that hears and the ears that see.I used these techniques and they have given great dividends in saving my skin and finding others,the animals usually help out. I use them in training search and rescue teams,police and wildlife rangers around the world. It is enjoyable on a hot summers day to spend hours on one or two tracks,but ive gotta say after tracking for more than 40 years they are self limiting.Think outside the pressure release box and you will find a lot more.Tracking is a little more than following footprints,,and studying pressure releases , its the answer and question to much more.Action Indicators are a far more complex issue, describing them verbally or written in the bland medium of the English language is impossible,( I teach this stuff and try to write about it) and find it an impossible task.Tracking is the only thing that teaches tracking and I would suggest learning all about pressure releases and then look at action indicators and see what you think.
Hawkeye The Noo
27-09-2005, 18:42
I never thought about the angle of assent or descent in relation to tracking boxes. I have found mine to be a mixed blessing. At 20 x 3+1/2 feet it is hard to cover and tends to be a magnet for local cats. i could honestly without exagerating call myself an expert on cat latrine habits on the substrate of weathered builders sand lol
Hawkeye The Noo
Isn't the fact that every time you track, you judge the track in some way? Direciton of travel, speed, etc. And pressure releases are just one attempt to explain and catalogue that judgementprocess. It helps to have a common language when describing a complicated process, especially one that is based on judgement and guessing based on experience.
You can use pressure releases in tracks to determine where the next track is. Ie. by examining the one track, you can determine the speed and direction the track is going, thus you will have a good estimate where the next track should be. If it's not there or in the vicinity, backtrack and go more slowly, if its there, repeat.
But if you are hunting (with camera or with gun :) and go examining every single track in minute detail, the trail will be cold, frozen, buried and eroded by the time you get close to the goal.
Pressure releases does contain a lot of information.. IF you want it. But that goes for all kinds of tracks. Scat droppings for example can fast give you an estimate of how recent the track is by how eroded the scat is. But it can also give you an estimate of the diet and even the health of the animal. This however isn't really useful information if you are just pursuing an animal. Same goes for middens or scrapes aswell.
So, don't be discouraged if an experienced tracker don't know what you are talking about when you mention pressure releases. He probably uses them without knowing the "scientifical" term for it :P When tracking for a long time (or to put it like Brown does, with a lot of "dirt time") the ability to judge a track becomes an instinct.
In the beginning however, its useful to get down in the dirt (or snow Abbe ;) just to see how it all works.
bloodline
25-02-2006, 23:00
ummmmmmmmmm
ummmmmmmmmm
Yes? Do you have a question? Do you not agree? what? =)
Tracking that post isn't easy :lmao:
I'm by no means experienced in tracking, but after reading Tom Brown's book, I did get the impression that there was nothing particulary complex about pressure releases (in their theory at least). Although he does explain them very well, he also keeps saying that there are thousands upon thousands of them to learn, when in reality the vast majority vary by matters of degree to others, and as has been said here already the degree must still be judged subjectively.
Like Stuart, I was originally sceptical but they do make sense, although the book still gets a bit 'out there' in later chapters (at least in my opinion).
Pappa
I would reckon the best thing you can do is go on a course with shadowhawks I did two courses with max last year. After doing these courses the only think I found help full about tom browns book was using it to light fires. Strong words maybe but max made it all very simple.
bambodoggy
27-02-2006, 21:51
I would reckon the best thing you can do is go on a course with shadowhawks I did two courses with max last year. After doing these courses the only think I found help full about tom browns book was using it to light fires. Strong words maybe but max made it all very simple.
Have you been on any other tracking courses? Or been taught by anyone other than Max?
I know that Max is very highly thought of and I am certainly not suggesting otherwise but it's a bit much slatting something you have only had one point of view over and when you have only been shown one way. The mind is like a parachute......it works best when it's open ;) and there are other ways than the way you have been shown :)
Pappa is right that there's nothing really that complicated about it and that although there are lots of them they are often only seperated by a fraction or so. Tom Brown invented the name "Prussure Release" but certainly makes no claim to have discovered them himself or know anybody else before him who calls them as such...therefore it's no great suprise that other Trackers haven't heard the term.
Hope that makes sence to you guys,
Bam. :D
I see where you are coming from and may be i should have given my reasons before slatting Tom Brown. Firstly I read Tom Browns book on tracking along time before i did a tracking course with max and could have given you the same view on his book before max's course.I think if you were to spend your time looking at the thousands of pressure release Tom Brown claims there are, then what ever you were tracking would have died of old age by the time you court up with your target. I think you can learn a great deal from tracking boxes but how often do you see clear tracks in a oak woodland in winter' or grass in summer or even snow. I just cannot believe that anyone tracking to get there next meal would be bothered with pressure release. However each to their own it's just not for me. I'm going tracking in sweden this year with the sammi I let you know if the prove me wrong.
Abbe Osram
01-03-2006, 19:53
May I ask your where you are here in sweden are doing the tracking?
Is it private or a company?
thanks
Abbe
I see where you are coming from and may be i should have given my reasons before slatting Tom Brown. Firstly I read Tom Browns book on tracking along time before i did a tracking course with max and could have given you the same view on his book before max's course.I think if you were to spend your time looking at the thousands of pressure release Tom Brown claims there are, then what ever you were tracking would have died of old age by the time you court up with your target. I think you can learn a great deal from tracking boxes but how often do you see clear tracks in a oak woodland in winter' or grass in summer or even snow. I just cannot believe that anyone tracking to get there next meal would be bothered with pressure release. However each to their own it's just not for me. I'm going tracking in sweden this year with the sammi I let you know if the prove me wrong.
No i totally agree with you here m8. If you are going to START by studying all the pressurereleases that are mapped, it will most likely not make you a effective tracker.
But as i see it, Tom Browns books is an attempt to map it all into a common language. The intent is not that everyone should learn thousands of pressurepoints before starting to track but rather to act as a base, making it more accessable and a first step towards a science, rather than a skill.
The difference of course being that a skill you must be able to apply directly, a science is trying to explain.
When i track (which i might add is at a very very very very basic level) i don't go down and examine every single ridge, and pressure release. I quickly try to judge age, direction of movement and speed and then im off. My goal is to track the animal down and get a good photo.. not map whatever the animal has been doing the last hour.
Well thats my opinion at least =)
pierre girard
02-03-2006, 02:01
Greetings!
Over the years I've found the 'pressure releases' taught by Tom Brown jr to be of immense value. A wonderful way to get inside the mind of the animal. I find they make tracking more than just following tracks and provide a deeper understanding of the creature you are tracking. They make reading the tracks more like reading a book.
Might be a silly question but does anyone else here use them? I've not seen them mentioned yet.
Peace
Damh
My grandfather was very good at this. Any trip with him was a series of admonitions to "Learn to think like a deer (fish, bear. mink, etc.)."
He seemed able to project into the mind of the animal we were tracking or hunting, to the point of telling me where the animal was ("he's circling on us now, to try and come up behind us" or "Be still, he's up on that bluff now, trying to get a look at us.").
My own skills have never developed to near that point, but then I've never really gone seriously hungry if I didn't hunt well.
We used to go a on a week long starvation trek once a year. Amazing how sharp your senses become when you only get to eat what you can catch or gather.
PG
I truly believe that as a tracker one of your most useful senses is your sixth sense or intuition. If you have a basic idea of animal behaviour and a sharp sixth sense you'll find it much easier to predict where an animal has gone or what it is doing when you lose the tracks. If you are tracking for your next meal or a good photo then this skill will be more useful than knowing the pressure releases as it allows you to track quickly and skip ahead to link up with the trail again. Was this how your grandfather tracked or was he stopping to study the tracks in great depth? You can sharpen your intuition by spending time sitting in the woods watching and listening to what is happening around you. You'd be surprised at how 'in tune' with nature you can get, a skill that is much forgotten when you live in towns and cities. Sorry off the subject a bit there! :rolleyes:
pierre girard
06-03-2006, 03:55
... If you are tracking for your next meal or a good photo then this skill will be more useful than knowing the pressure releases as it allows you to track quickly and skip ahead to link up with the trail again. Was this how your grandfather tracked or was he stopping to study the tracks in great depth? :
He'd do both - depending on what he needed to know, and how tough a tracking problem it was. Seemed like he could tell an awful lot of things - getting a good idea of the size, weight, sex, and health (of deer and moose) from one good print. I'd imagine a lot of it was intuition, born of experience, but it seemed like magic to watch.
PG
I bet it was, you are so lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from a young age with someone close to you!