My name is Joshua Cocker. I am Tongan on my Dad’s side and Kiowa on my mom’s side. I was born in New Zealand and raised until I was fifteen in Oklahoma, where my mother’s people are now. After that, I returned to New Zealand and the Pacific for the next decade studying and working in Adventure tourism as a guide and instructor.
While studying outdoor adventure in Wellington, New Zealand, I had an idea of wanting to run a program specifically for indigenous peoples built around a fusion of original ways of caring for the land and contemporary ways. This led to the genesis of what you see today. I began to buy gear and instruct for free, volunteering time and knowledge to introduce others to the origin of our wisdoms. This desire naturally led to sharing friction fire, my favorite surf spots, and breathtaking views with many friends along the way. Each time our little groups would talk afterward about how beautiful and powerful the experience was. This, of course, was not in a mystified distant way of understanding. What we kept returning to was the teachings of our own respective communities being personified in the world around us, along with that a new, familiar, and personal interpretation of how the world spoke to us as individuals. It also seemed like the longer we were out there, the better we became at listening and understanding these life lessons in real-time. My desire grew and would then include sharing these things with as many people as possible. That desire led me to work in cave systems in New Zealand. With aboriginal peoples in Australia, for a wilderness therapy company here in the US, and then on to focus my efforts to work almost exclusively with indigenous peoples here in the US. I used my time and resources during this season of my life to refine and expand my scope and ability. I can safely guide people physically and offer insight to inspire them to build their interdependent relationships, with our first mother being the land. It is this relationship that safeguarded, built up, and healed our peoples before. I believe it will be this relationship that will keep our communities in the future as well. An invitation, add your experience to ours and understand for yourself. Please, join us.