Questions to help you analyze your orienteering.

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I translated a set of questions designed to help you analyze your orienteering. The questions are from IK Hakarpspojkanra (a Swedish O' club). They were put together as part of a program to help the club's juniors improve. Take a look and post any thoughts or comments here on the OK discussion page.

http://www.geocities.com/okansas.geo/homework.html

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), May 28, 2000

Answers

First thing I would do is reorganize the questions. But I'm still working on the concept of the inner game of orienteering, which involves more of an intuitive aspect. In Gallwey's inner game of tennis he tries to eliminate the unhelpful critical voice of 'self one', the mental self, by giving it some menial task (such as noting when the ball bounces or hits), while trusting 'self two', the kinesthetic self, to get the job done. The problem with orienteering is the increased mental activity. Yet, I've found, after sharing my thought processes with Mike and others, simplification remains my priority. On top of this, I've found that if I orienteer a number of days in a row (say a five days), I make a quantum improvement -- no matter what kind of explicit analysis I do during those five days.

So while it's very good to be asking 'what does a good orienteer think during his run' (and don't get me started on how we orient people to the sport with a quick intro and you're off on your own), for me the question is more one of finding the intuitive side and being able to quiet down the 'racing thoughts.'

-- Fritz (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), May 31, 2000.


How very Freudian of you Fritz!

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), May 31, 2000.


On top of this, I've found that if I orienteer a number of days in a row (say a five days), I make a quantum improvement -- no matter what kind of explicit analysis I do during those five days.

I noticed something similar this year when I really focussed my training on O' technique. I decided to count controls (i.e. keep track of how many controls I found during races or practices) and try to find as many controls as I could in the months leading up to the relay champs. After I'd found about 100 controls (over a period of maybe three weeks), I noticed that my orienteering was much better. I think big improvements in O' can come from doing a lot of practice in a relatively short time period.

I wonder how long O' improvements that come from lots of practice last? Does the "quantum improvement" last for a week or a few weeks or a month or...?

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), May 31, 2000.


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