(From Joe Lau – FULL DISCLOSURE – I first met Marcel Lefebvre when Genevieve Lavoie came to pick me up at the Quebec Airport and we had a 2hr drive to the venue where the Workshop was to take place. It was quick to determine in our conversations during that drive (and the drive back) that Marcel was one of those who aspire to be the best Human you can. Marcel has also been training in martial arts and wilderness survival for a while and has a sincere passion to transmit the teachings as well.
The night before the Quebec Workshop, I asked if Marcel wanted to try out some (HD) Hand Drills. He immediately had 5 Coals with 5 different new materials he never tried before. He then went on to not only do more (HD) Hand Drills during the 2 Day Workshop, HE HELPED OTHERS in the Workshop get their Phyres going too! It was clear and plainly apparent to me that Marcel is a true teacher in the sense he has the “calling.”)
“I met Joe Lau Sensei at a workshop in Quebec in January 2020. With freezing rain pouring outside, he introduced us to Phryction PhyreKeeping and the Phyre Dojo. I was really impressed by his synthesis of the traditional friction fire methods from all over the world, his approach to analyze them and most of all his encouragement to experiment.
He had amazing insights from his martial arts training, his life experience as a world-renowned survival instructor and his training and career as a nurse. The Phyre Dojo is the culmination of all his knowledge. He has done an amazing job at creating a learning curriculum for all friction fire methods, giving tools to analyze every existing method, explaining how he came up with new innovative methods and presenting a pathway to make up your own.
As an instructor at Les Primitifs’ survival school, I have been training in friction fire methods for years. At first, I wasn’t really good at it and I needed continuous experimentation and failures to get to a point where I could use primitive friction fire methods effectively, and most importantly transmit them so they don’t get lost. I was really impressed and inspired to see the wide variety of documented experiments Sensei used as learning opportunities to master his craft, and his dedication to learning and teaching these skills is truly amazing.
A coal or a fire can be a very fragile thing, and if you approach fire making as the life preserving technology that it is, you have to be able to quickly assess what is wrong with what you’re doing, and recognize the parameters that enable you to get a success in every situation possible. Those parameters were clearly presented during the workshop, and under the guidance of Joe Lau Sensei, I was able to get coals with new methods and several woods and plants I hadn’t tried before. Our Tribe even started a fire with one of the hardest woods on the planet!
After getting the chance to meet him in person I signed up for his online class without hesitation. He has inspired me to try and push myself farther than I thought possible, and his knowledge and passion are truly incredible.
Thank you for all the hard work Sensei!”
