Preparing To Train With A Former Georgian Special Forces Sniper In The Mountains Of Tbilisi (Part 1)

When I decided to apply to 21 SAS Reserve, I wanted to find out what I was getting myself into. I'd run ultramarathons and fought Muay Thai in Rio, but I had no military experience. I asked my friend Zurab in Georgia whether he knew somebody who could put me through ten days of private military-style training. Zurab had known me for seven years. His first question was essentially: why on earth would I want to do that? But he knew people with military backgrounds, and after several conversations he introduced me to Davit, a man described to me as a former Georgian special-forces sniper. The trip was something I arranged privately, not part of my British Army application or a recognised course. We were connected through Facebook and Skype. Davit's profile gave very little away. Here I was — somebody who talked freely about his life online — preparing to travel to another country to train with someone I'd never met. He knew much more about me than I knew about him. Zurab was asked whether I was serious and physically ready. On paper, I could point to long-distance running and fighting. None of that quite answered the more obvious question: what was I hoping to learn? I was enthusiastic, probably naive, and determined to find out. The conversations grew into a plan. Davit began suggesting books and equipment, and I found myself doing the thing I always do when I'm out of my depth: reading obsessively. Looking back, it would have made more sense to establish exactly what the British Army expected before buying survival manuals. But at the time, it felt like preparation. He immediately sent me a US Army Survival Manual, which was scary within itself - and this is how our conversation began. After I’d passed the initial interview phase with Zurab (as he needed to vouch for me); and then with Davit (as he needed to be sure I was worth/the right man to train), preparations started. With Zurab, we had already agreed, after some discussion, that a 10-day training programme whilst I was holed up alone in Tbilisi was ideal. Davit would decide the particulars of the programme itself after doing some reading up on the 22 application process alongside his own extensive military experience. He was preparing me for hell. And in parallel, I was going to do my best to prepare myself. As I had with many of my previous endeavours, I turned to what I knew best when it came to preparing for something I’d never done before - I started reading. This comprised a manual that Davit wanted me to read: I immediately bought it of course: This was a 623-page monster that contained densely packed information about surviving in different environments. In hindsight, it would have been better if I’d read up more extensively on the entire application process and had been clearer with Davit about what I actually needed. The book above was better for someone well into their training rather than someone who hadn’t even gotten his feet wet. But hey - you don’t know what you don’t know. So, alongside the practical endeavours, there were also other documents I prepared that might help Davit understand what I needed to do: I sent this document to Davit, which was a 4-page fluff piece that I thought constituted great insights that he should know. Understanding my mental strength was something that was critically important to Davit and as I would later find out...what I thought made me ready in no way made me ready at all. In hindsight, everything that could be a liability with this type of preparation was playing out underneath our noses. We’d never met each other; he hadn’t had any UK military experience; he had more familiarity with US preparation, and we had never had longer than a 15-minute Skype chat. On my side, I’d acted emotionally rather than logically and spoke to my friend who’d naturally contacted Georgian army personnel. It made 1000% more sense to find a British ex-special forces person located in the UK who could take me out to the Brecon Beacons for swims, runs and other similar training. But again. Hindsight is a funny thing. And so the preparations continued, and I bought a couple more books (as above) to help school me some more: I got through all of them over several weeks. In parallel with this, I began assembling a kit list to prepare for these 10 days of hell: All of this would be shared and exchanged with Davit via Facebook Messenger chat as I began to buy pieces of kit from Amazon and several other places. Davit would advise me as he thought of things or as I bought things: At the same time, I was (if you recall) going through my 4 marathons in 4 weeks journey and keeping Davit up to date with all that I was working on. As time passed and we got closer to the day I was going to be flying out, my nerves only increased. And the questions began to get stranger: I thought Ah ok. it’s because I need to keep my energy levels at a peak, and being single,e this wasn’t a problem, so I did as I was told. The whole thing was such a strange experience for me - preparing for a 10-day private military training programme in July 2015 that I could not in any way really prepare for. I knew no one from a military background, so I had absolutely zero points of reference. But soon enough, the day loomed, and our conversations went something a little like this: By the time I boarded the flight, I'd read the books, packed the kit and talked myself into believing I was ready. I was going to discover quite how little I understood. Part 2 begins when I land in Tbilisi.