Things that impress me: Making fire with sticks

Let's be honest. I have few practical skills. I can write a philosophy paper or develop a business strategy for an insurance company, but when it comes to doing something like making fire with sticks, I'm severely lacking.

Enter my good friend from India. Recently while at 12,000 feet elevation in freezing temperatures, he made a fire using only sticks, his knife, and a string. Am I alone here, or did anyone else think that only MacGyver could do that? If you ever find yourself up a cold creek without any matches, here's his 5 point plan for building a fire:

1. Find sticks that will produce good ash. Ideally, ash should be like powder, not like "weirdly shaped cylinders", which are indicative of damp wood.
2. Gear up a bow, a base stick, a clamp stick, and friction stick. Carve them with the knife you have handy. (I mean, who doesn't carry a knife at all times?)
3. Cut a notch in the base stick so that a coal can form.
4. Move the bow back and forth so that the friction stick creates ash with the base stick.
5. After a smoking coal has formed from the ash, drop it in some tinder. Blow on it.

But if you're like me, better not try at all. The calories you'd burn failing would be better used raising your core body temperature.