The Origin Story Of The Primitive Cooking Workshop & Its Lessons

I started the PhyreDojo in the Fall of 2010. I was staring at the clear, starry night sky looking at the Big Dipper and other constellations at 4:30am after getting home from my usual 12 hour night shift in the ER from 4p-4a. I was thinking that I wanted to do something else with the skills that I have. At the time I was a newly Nationally Certified Asthma Educator, but I was also thinking I needed to take my skill of Friction FireMaking even farther. I felt I knew a good part of it, but something inside was telling me I really only had a glimpse of what the world of it really could be.

At that moment, a shooting star brightly burnt out in the atmosphere above where I was looking coincidentally. I actually lost my night vision for a half minute. I became a Nationally Certified Asthma Educator because I wanted to know almost everything we know right now (in 2010) about my disease, asthma, so that I could gain control of it. Most of my life, I gave it control over me. My experience in healthcare demonstrated that people with asthma are very resistant to understanding their disease process, even when they are in the throes of an attack. This included my own childhood and young adult history. I used to be one of those people. Sometimes people don’t/won’t change until they hit rock bottom. I decided that I was going to move forward with learning all I can about Friction FireMaking and maybe pass on what I know. At this time I was five years past being a wilderness survival instructor and had been focusing entirely on ER Nursing and my new family. I already had an idea as to how it would be created and how it would run. I really had no idea how long it was going to take….

What does all this have to do with the origin of the Primitive Cooking Workshop? OK, here we go. – Back in May of 1996, I was hired by the Tracker School to become their latest Instructor. I had been attending Tracker since I had just turned 17 years old and on August 5th, 1985, I took my Standard Class in Hackettstown, NJ. I became one of the “class collectors” back then and had taken every class available up until then. At the time, Tom was with Debbie and they had just had River who was an infant and Coty was a toddler running around. Richard Cleveland was Head Instructor and the Instructors were Seth, Hilary, and Bryan. I was the newest and last guy on the totem pole. All of us equally shared the duties and logistics. It was my dream come true. I couldn’t believe it.

So, how this worked (which was fair) was as a matter of seniority, you got the available “lectures” you wanted first. Honestly, at the time I was ADDICTED to Stone ToolMaking, so I was hoping for that. I used to joke that I needed a 12 step program to stop… but, that was Richard’s and he was never going to give that up. What that meant was, I got all the “lectures” that nobody wanted…. One of the LEAST WANTED ONES was the Primitive Cooking Lecture (because it WASN’T a Workshop). So, having received everyones’ notes and advice on the lecture before I was going to give it during the Standard Class, I was about to EXPERIENCE WHY NO ONE WANTED IT.

Back then, the Primitive Cooking LECTURE was supposed to be 45 minutes long as one of the lectures given at night, after dinner, inside the barn, with everyone seated on the benches with their notebooks... So, how this went was I presented the subjects of Cooking on Coals, Spit Cooking, Cooking on Hot Rocks, Steam Pit, etc., etc., as DRAWINGS ON THE MARKERBOARD WITH EXPLANATIONS. I quickly realized that most of the class wasn’t COMPREHENDING the information attempted to be transmitted to them. There were SO MANY QUESTIONS that I had to answer that so much time was being spent on that I couldn’t move on to another cooking subject. What was thought to be 45 mins turned into 2 hours. When it was over, I felt I had been “through the wringer” and questioned whether most of the class came away with some sort of understanding. This REALLY BOTHERED me that I needed a solution to this problem before the next Standard Class! And if you’re wondering, it’s not that I didn’t have teaching experience… I was already a senior instructor at my Sensei’s Dojo in New Jersey. I wasn’t afraid or incapable of explaining something I experienced. I had legitimate teaching experience already. So, HOW TO FIX THIS…. Since it was practically yesterday that I was one of those people sitting on those benches, I asked myself, “What would I have NEEDED if I was sitting there?” “What would be the best but practical thing to do to fix this?” I realized the solution. I had to GET THE STUDENTS TO EXPERIENCE IT FOR THEMSELVES!

So, I created the 2 hour interactive live demonstration Primitive Cooking Workshop outside of the barn with all the bells and whistles and real fires and real food cooking and everyone got it and there were NO QUESTIONS and we all lived happily ever after… NO.

It started off with small incremental experiments added to each and every subsequent Standard Class. So, over MANY Standard Classes it had to EVOLVE. The next Standard Class after my first disappointing Primitive Cooking Lecture, I through a few small rocks into the outdoor hot water heater fire before the Lecture. Then, during the Lecture I had asked one of the volunteers to bring me the hot rocks into the barn where we were. I had a clear coffee carafe half full of water with a bowl of water next to me. With tongs, I grabbed the first small hot rock and washed and rinsed it off the bowl of water getting rid of the ash sticking to it. Then, I carefully dropped it into the clear coffee carafe and you could hear the rock trying to heat up the water – or the water cooling down the rock… Then, I repeated the process with another rock. And then another, until I couldn’t fit anymore rocks and then the water started boiling in front of everyone on the table on the stage. While I was doing it, everyone stopped being restless and you could hear a pin drop while I was physically demonstrating and everyone was highly focused on the process. I then asked the question to the class that I was dreading to ask, “Any questions?” NOT A SINGLE QUESTION. Everyone just looked at the water boiling by itself in the coffee carafe. I thought I heard angels singing….

For the next Standard Class after that one, I did the hot rock coffee carafe again PLUS one more experiment: Clay Baked Fish. I got a large fish at the supermarket and some clean, non-toxic clay. I covered the cleaned fish in the clay and baked it on a cookie sheet in the oven that was in our communal house on the farm at the time. After doing the hot rocks again for this class, I had a volunteer grab the fish from the oven and bring it to me for the class. I showed it everyone and then proceeded to break it up with a mallet and then… allowed people to come up and take pieces of fish! I asked if there were any questions…. NONE! (Side note: The hot rock coffee carafe demo (whose purpose was to explain how to boil a stew with all the food one has hunted and gathered) also had a ripple effect into the Water Purification and gathering Lecture. People didn’t have questions on rock boiling their water to biologically purify it.

Following these Standard Class experiments and having the PROOF & EVIDENCE that this was a better path to transmitting the knowledge, at the next instructor meetings I brought up that maybe we could re-arrange the schedules of some of the lectures and that I wanted to have a full on outdoor Workshop for Primitive Cooking. If you had to agree that this way was better, one couldn’t exactly say no to making changes for the better for the students. After all, it’s having the best learning experience for the students that matters right?! (Obviously safety is #1.) And then started the Primitive Cooking Workshop which was taught up until I gave the Workshop to later instructors. I built the outdoor structures of a large ring of firepits which would include all the well known, practical, and worth discussing and demonstrating methods. I had a food shopping budget and there was an exhausting ton of prepwork involved in order for ALL METHODS and ALL FOODS to come out choreographed and scheduled on time during the allotted 2 hours period because respectfully the other lectures had to run on time for everyone. It was like one of those live food network shows in front of an audience. And guess what? Hardly any questions at all… AND, as a treat for the class that had been eating oatmeal and Tracker Stew every day that week up until that Thursday mid-morning, LUNCH that day would also be made up all of the foods made during the Workshop. I had the volunteers place all the prepared food on a table and it was fairly served as possible.

I have to say, I owe A LOT of this creativity from my martial arts teaching and training background. Specifically from my sensei, Capt. Jack Hoban. I started learning Bujinkan Buyu Budo with him the same year of 1985, but a few months earlier when I was still 16 years old. I remember my mother had to drive me there down to the Asbury Park YMCA and she continued to do so until I got my driver’s license later that year. Our training culture over the years was physical transmission. Don’t understand the technique? Well, here’s how it feels when it’s applied to you… All “six” senses are involved…

(The Sixth Sense (beyond Aristotle)

Balance / Body Position (Vestibular Sense & Proprioception) Vestibular sense: Located in the inner ear (semicircular canals and vestibule). Keeps track of balance, spatial orientation, and movement. Proprioception: Awareness of body position (knowing where your limbs are without looking). These are often grouped together as the “sixth sense.”

🔹 Sometimes Recognized as Additional Senses

Temperature (Thermoception) – Hot/cold sensation.
Pain (Nociception) – Specialized sense of tissue damage or threat.
Internal State (Interoception) – Awareness of internal organs (hunger, thirst, heartbeat, need to breathe).)

I couldn’t exactly put into words how the relationship of my martial arts training and the formation of the Primitive Cooking Workshop was created. But, a few years ago, I was watching some science and ethics videos on YouTube (as I still do today), and I came across this one by Daniel Dennett.

(Daniel Dennett (1942 – 2024) was an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist, best known for his influential work on the philosophy of mind, consciousness, free will, and evolutionary theory.)

This was the video if you wish to see it for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cesVHCzw22E

Dennett on Hume's Strange Inversion, given at: Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies

Dennett mentions this thing in “Inversion Thinking” called “Competence To Comprehension.” My TLDR explanation: In school you are told things and “taught” things so that you can hopefully gain Comprehension so that you can hopefully gain Competence. In DOJO TRAINING: By achieving Competence you automatically gain Comprehension. By doing, you understand. And that’s why the Primitive Cooking Workshop is so highly functional to transmit knowledge. But yes, IT’S A LOT OF WORK ON THE PART OF THE TEACHER. When we were training in the Dojo, my sensei would demonstrate the technique we would be working on MULTIPLE TIMES. And then, we would train in that technique until minutes later we moved on to the next one. EACH TIME, the teacher fully demonstrating the technique multiple times before we began training. And, importantly, when it was OUR TURN to teach a technique, WE WERE EXPECTED TO DEMONSTRATE IT MULTIPLE TIMES as proof and evidence, and then everyone would train in the technique.

So, something related to this subject is what I call: “To Know VS To Know Of.” Simply put, there can be a confusion that because you went through a talk and explanation, that you “know” it. Here, semantics and definitions matter. Here’s my metaphor: Think of a celebrity or someone famous you admire, that you’ve never met in person. Now, think of a really good or best friend that you’ve had since you were young or for many, many years. Here lies the difference between “To Know VS To Know Of.” You “Know Of” the celebrity or famous person that you’ve never met, even though emotionally you feel like you really “know” them. You seen their movies and TV shows or internet videos for years and years. Some Asian cultures go as far as to call these “parasocial relationships.” An idol will receive mail (both good and bad) from fans and people that are written as if they were “besties” and family… But still, in reality, you only “Know Of” them. You don’t “Know” them. These are the notes you have in your notebook that you haven’t practiced and have no real experience with.

My real life example is I know a world famous comic book artist. He’s the father of 2 brothers I grew up with since I was in 8th grade. When I visit I hang with the brothers, I walk over to see what their father is working on lately, we talk, we eat, I sit on the couch, we talk about things we’re working on, we talk about life, movies, world events, people they’ve seen lately, what comic cons are coming up. We would go out to eat together. Their father was a sponsor of our wedding back in 2000. The brothers were in the wedding party. I would help them solve serious problems they were having. And when I leave, they ask when I’ll be visit again. I’ve taken them to doctors appointments. We’ve been to funerals together. So, I don’t “Know Of” them. I “Know” them.

What is your relationship with your skills? Do you “Know Of” them, or do you “Know” them. Proof and evidence.

(The inspiration for this article stems from the many responses back to folks’ written questions surrounding Phryction PhyreKeeping. Someone would write a question to me about what they might be doing wrong, and I can’t really answer because I cannot experience or sense what they are doing as to what is happening. I respond to them that I need photos, or better yet, video, of what it is exactly as to what and how you’re practicing and what you’re practicing with, and then I usually immediately see how to correct any issues and imbalances in their training.)

GAMBARIMASHO YO. Let’s Keep Going!

May everyone around you feel and be safer because you are there.

Joe Lau, RN

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