An Interview With A Remarkable Master
Steven Knopp - Part 2
August 10, 2007 by Louise SaintOnge for MastersConnection© All Rights Reserved.
Transcribed by Bertha Rainen
CONTINUED FROM PART 1:
MC: You used the discipline of the mind and obviously the skills of survival. Is that true?
STEVEN: Absolutely. I could tell you stories for the next month.
MC: Would you tell me one?
STEVEN: I’ll tell you one. I would like to tell one story that is particularly important to me because it’s all of these things, and I absolutely wouldn’t be here telling you this story if I hadn’t done it. Two years ago I had left a Blue College event. It was right on the edge of the change of seasons when winter and fall were competing for dominance by the hour. I had to drive to Olympia. I was driving a van at the time. When I left here it was freezing rain. Halfway down the road it was turning to ice. By the time I hit Rainier it was turning into snow. By the time I was going through Ft. Lewis where it goes over the hills to Olympia, it was turning into very large snowflakes that were beginning to accumulate on the ground.
As I was driving through the forest there, I hit a curve, the biggest curve on that road, and my van did not make the curve, and began heading straight off the road in the curve at forty-five miles an hour, heading for a very, very large maple tree. As the van left the road, the brakes were useless. I hit the brakes. I tried everything. I could not stop the vehicle. It actually accelerated when I tried to do that and I began to watch the tree coming at me.
Suddenly everything went into that analogical slow motion. I’ve had many experiences where this has happened to me. Everything goes into slow motion and you watch it as if it
were freeze-frames in a movie. It’s not like the movie is going by fast. I saw every moment like a freeze-frame. And I am watching the tree come close to me in slow motion. I am heading right for the tree. I cannot stop it. And this is the only place in the world where there is a steep embankment. If I would have hit the tree, the van would have rolled down the embankment. It would have been really ugly.
At the last moment, as I braced for what looked like the inevitable, I focused with everything
I had and yelled, “No!” As soon as I did that, as my van left the road, my tires immediately dug into the soft mud and the gravel on that shoulder of the road and instantly stopped the van … maybe three feet, three-four feet from hitting the tree at forty-five miles an hour.
MC: Wow!
STEVEN: It gets better. As I stood there grabbing the wheel looking through the windshield watching what had just happened, it was as if someone was holding the remote view on a television, and it went click-click, and I literally watched the scene instantly change in front of my eyes. And I knew what had happened, and I remembered at the event, we were promised a runner of a near-death experience, and if we could stay focused in that moment we could change the outcome, or reverse the outcome. And I suddenly realized I had done that and I think I began to laugh, actually. I began to laugh. But it gets even better.
When I calmed down and composed myself I got out and hitchhiked into town to call a friend who had a very large four-wheel drive pickup truck, because I was sure the van was buried in the mud off the shoulder of the road. It didn’t roll over but I couldn’t get it out. So I got my friend with his four-wheel drive truck. We hooked up chains. We had to dig and pull and dig and pull and dig and pull. It was very difficult to get the vehicle out from the mud and the gravel, which literally saved the situation. This is what stopped the van. So we took about forty-five minutes to dig and haul this thing out and I got all the mud off of it and then I drove home.
Well, of course I couldn’t forget this amazing experience. I contemplated it all the rest of the day and all night, and the next day I wanted to go back to scene of this experience. I had to go back and see it again and go through exactly what had happened because, of course, I was very happy that I was alive and had no injury and I didn’t have this accident, you know, I had accepted this runner. I knew I had said “so be it” to this runner and I got it, and on the very same day that I came out of the event.
MC: Amazing!
STEVEN: But an even more extraordinary thing was when I went back the very next day. There were no ruts; there were no tire marks. There was no evidence at all at the exact same location. I knew the tree. I recognized the tree. Here was the curve. Everything — there was no evidence whatsoever of what had happened. I realized I really had shifted a time line, shifted the event, shifted the potential outcome to myself.
MC: Steven, that’s amazing. That’s such incredible feedback and so powerful.
STEVEN: I’ve had many experiences like that and I am very grateful for all the things I have learned in the school, and all the things I have learned in martial arts, and all the survival situations I have experienced in nature — and I have been in many that I didn’t think I was going to, you know, get out. But I did, and this stuff really works.
MC: That’s a beautiful example, very inspiring.
MC: We learn this fabulous archery discipline at the school and we learn about focusing the mind on the target. We are blindfolded. We don’t really deal with the mechanics of it. The technique is not the point. Yet in history there is an incredible technique that goes with archery. And blindfolded archery is also part of that technique.
I’d like you to talk about that a little bit, and then perhaps what your opinion is about having an understanding of the technique and finding that in your body, learning it so it’s in your body. Will that assist us in our blindfolded archery?
STEVEN: The blindfold archery discipline, and all the other aspects of archery are totally separate worlds, and totally separate disciplines, and a totally different intent and practice. They are two completely different worlds.
MC: You mean blindfolded archery as we are presented with it as a discipline or the blindfolded archery that has existed as a discipline, outside of the school?
STEVEN: Either way. The blindfolded archery discipline is a separate world, and the way it is done and the reason for which it is done is a completely separate discipline. Now, I think, obviously, in the blindfold discipline everybody should do it exactly the way our teacher has taught us and how it was demonstrated, and that is the way that discipline works, and should be done to its highest development. Obviously, the more you do that, the more you will develop the way to do that discipline versus the other.
MC: Okay.
STEVEN: Okay, now obviously people who have never done archery before, who have never had any training or experience in the so-called mechanics or techniques of the other archery, can step right up and in a focused moment achieve ultimate things in this discipline. That’s the beauty of it. In some ways, the other kind of training, the other mechanics and the other practices can be a little bit of a detriment because you have to leave that behind to a degree. You have to leave that behind to do analogical archery as we do in the school. It is a different methodology of doing and you can’t be in the past of how you learned to do that …
MC: That’s a really good point.
STEVEN:… because you are in the past.
MC: So then in other words, to learn the mechanics isn’t necessarily going to help you in the discipline of the school.
STEVEN: Not necessarily.
MC: Because we stand there and we fumble. I remember the first time that I picked up that bow and I was blindfolded and I could not get the arrow in there. You feel like an absolute fool. You have to deal with looking at yourself and wishing, “Well, I wish I knew how to do this.” But that’s the personality, isn’t it, trying to make excuses for not being able to do something, when it’s the mind that needs to focus?
STEVEN: It can really go either way. Yes, what you just said is true, because obviously if you are fumbling, but that is part of the process of analogical archery as we do it at school, going through all of that and putting all that aside, too. Now, if you have experienced shooting the bow and arrow and you are not distracted by the mechanics of loading the arrow and lifting the bow and doing all that, it can be helpful to a degree, because you are not struggling with that. But then you still have to do all of the rest of the focus, the mind. All of that has to come together in the now moment and overcome anything to do with technique in the past.
So in one way, and I want to be very clear about this, in one way it can be helpful because you are not distracted by your confusion or your clumsiness on what to do, but on the other hand if you stay in that other world it can be a limitation.
MC: Beautiful, yes. I can see that.
STEVEN: It can be a limitation. It all depends on lining up in the moment and transcending all of that because the analogical blindfold archery discipline is transcending everything you have done in the past, because every single shot is a new moment, every single time. It is not about what you have done in the past, you know. Whether you have a lot of experience with technique in archery or you have none, you have to transcend it either way.
So that is what I would say about that. It can have some degree of helpfulness but it could also be a limitation if you try to go back and do it like you did. I know many people who were competitive target archers and did serious competitive archery, you know, tournament archery stuff. In the beginning they are not necessarily more successful than people who have never done it at all.
MC: But have a pure mind.
STEVEN: Beautiful little old ladies who never picked up a bow in their life got bull’s-eyes, okay? The blindfold archery discipline is my greatest passion in terms of archery right now. I am really serious about mastering that. I am not there yet, but I am getting better and better all the time, and I love it. I do it every day. But there is a distinct difference. In the beginning it was difficult for me to overcome all the things I had learned.
MC: Yes, I would think so. The martial arts, that was in your body. The neuronets were there.
STEVEN: It was, and I had no difficulty shooting the bow but it didn’t necessarily go where I thought it was going to go because I had trained my brain and my eyes and everything to do it that way. When you take that out of the equation, everybody is in the same place, you see.
So they are different skills. They are different disciplines.
MC: I wanted to say that when I did your bowmaking workshop-
I just love this relationship with wood. My son and his friend were
with me and we had the most amazing weekend. These young
boys were totally focused the whole time. It was never a concern about where they were or what they were doing, and if they was getting bored. There was something very wonderful about this,
and each of us walking away with our own bows after two long
days of working with a piece of wood. That evening I just sat
there with this bow that I had made, so proud, so moved.
STEVEN: (laughs)
MC: It was smooth. It was beautiful. It was an expression from me, through the wood, and it’s a great gift. Everyone should do it, on so many levels. Whether they use the bow again or not, it really doesn’t matter. It’s the fact that you have created something. This is what the Ram talks about, too. You have got to create things. It is a very deep experience and requires great focus and patience.
I’m sure you have many people who have had their experiences.
Share a little bit about that.
STEVEN: It is a truly wonderful class and it is a wonderful exploration of self through the process of craftsmanship, and learning new skills and working with a simple, natural material, and creating a very useful thing that you can put food on the table with, or do your spiritual disciplines with, but you created it from point A. You have explored wood and natural materials and hand tools and craftsmanship and all of those things in one wonderful two-day process, but then it opens the doorway to all of these other kinds of experiences in preparedness, into nature, into hunting. You can take it any number of directions.
The way I do this class, it’s designed to be a complete, condensed preparedness class, because it opens the door to many different skills, many different processes with tools, and
all of these tools and all of these skill sets and all of this knowledge can be applied in every aspect of self-sufficiency, preparedness, survival, hunting, disciplines, craftsmanship,
or pure art.
It’s designed to be all of that condensed in one with a little bit about metallurgy and archery history and hand-tool craftsmanship, because the tools we use in bow-making class are the same tools you can use to build a piece of furniture, to build a boat, to build a house, to build a cart that a horse can carry things if you didn’t have other transportation, on and on and on and on. They can be used for any material and in any aspect of craftsmanship.
I have watched this class dramatically change people and watch it open doors into all of these different expressions and watch them discover things about themselves. Craftsmanship and art will dramatically reflect where you are at in the moment in your consciousness, just like the archery discipline does.
MC: I see why.
STEVEN: But I have never seen people come away more joyful and happy as they do when they’ve made their own bow, whether it is little boys or grown men or women who have never done things like that. To walk away with this thing, this simple, wonderful tool that is so elegant and yet so sophisticated, is a remarkable thing. I love to do it for that reason. Again, it’s a door in to all these other territories, you know.
MC: You continue to offer this weekend bowmaking workshop from time to time. I want everyone to know that this is such a significant “life event” for those who take it. Your next one is coming up this month.
STEVEN: Yes. September 29th and 30th here in Yelm, the Bald Hills area.
MC: Wonderful. My son and I would like to learn how to make our own arrows and quiver.
That’ll be next!
Steven's next bowmaking workshop is September 29th and 30th.
He can be reached at 360-458-6777 x228 and by Email Here
Note from Louise: My interview with Steven went further into his experiences as a wilderness guide, a teacher of primitive technologies skills, and as a preparedness consultant. Fascinating information, most worthy of publishing. I’ve included the rest
of the interview in my new Preparedness Blog,
which is in its infancy stages.
Come visit, and help make the Blog a dynamic resource for many to benefit from. CLICK HERE FOR THE PREPAREDNESS BLOG
