Losing time in the control circle
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Losing time in the control circle
I seem to lose precious time within the control circle. Long legs and route choice don't seemto be much of an issue but once I get to the control circle I waste time scouting around for the flag. Has anyone any tips or anything to help me visualise the control site more clearly?
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Miner - white
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:33 pm
- Location: In the pits
Re: Losing time in the control circle
Miner,
Are you using positive attack points no more than 150-175m from control site?
Or is it just a visualization issue? I.e. you don't have a picture of the sighht and control location in your head?
Do you have your route from the attack point and your exit from the control planned before you get to the circle?
Do you traffic light?
M
Are you using positive attack points no more than 150-175m from control site?
Or is it just a visualization issue? I.e. you don't have a picture of the sighht and control location in your head?
Do you have your route from the attack point and your exit from the control planned before you get to the circle?
Do you traffic light?
M
hop fat boy, hop!
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madmike - guru
- Posts: 1703
- Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 7:36 pm
- Location: Retired in North Yorks
Re: Losing time in the control circle
I do use attack points close to the control circle - what makes them "positive"?
Traffic lighting? Yes.
Route from AP to control? Yes.
Exit route from control? Aarghh - too distracted looking for the kite, or all the competent people who just flow in and out of the control!
I dont really have a clear picture of the control site - just hope it's a very big pit/depression/tree etc. that I will fall/bump into.
Traffic lighting? Yes.
Route from AP to control? Yes.
Exit route from control? Aarghh - too distracted looking for the kite, or all the competent people who just flow in and out of the control!
I dont really have a clear picture of the control site - just hope it's a very big pit/depression/tree etc. that I will fall/bump into.
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Miner - white
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:33 pm
- Location: In the pits
Re: Losing time in the control circle
by positive attackpoints I mean - do you select your attackpoint, plan your route to the attackpoint and then slow down to find the feature and the control from the attackpoint.
So it seems like it visualizing the feature and control is where you are looking to improve. what I have suggested to people in the past is to go to a local/unimportant event and take the time during your run to memorise what each control site looks like to start to build up a mental library of what a typical site will look like i.e. rentrant, top of spur, foot of spur, vegetation boundary, pit in shallow reentrant......
You can then use (and subsequently add to) your mental library to help visualise controls before you get there - you'll still get surprised but it may help. If you go out and do a training run consider taking an old map with you and try and imagine what each control site would look like if you were attacking it for real. i have done this on a running machine in a gym before now and got some strange looks.
hope this helps
So it seems like it visualizing the feature and control is where you are looking to improve. what I have suggested to people in the past is to go to a local/unimportant event and take the time during your run to memorise what each control site looks like to start to build up a mental library of what a typical site will look like i.e. rentrant, top of spur, foot of spur, vegetation boundary, pit in shallow reentrant......
You can then use (and subsequently add to) your mental library to help visualise controls before you get there - you'll still get surprised but it may help. If you go out and do a training run consider taking an old map with you and try and imagine what each control site would look like if you were attacking it for real. i have done this on a running machine in a gym before now and got some strange looks.
hope this helps
hop fat boy, hop!
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madmike - guru
- Posts: 1703
- Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 7:36 pm
- Location: Retired in North Yorks
Re: Losing time in the control circle
I am assuming you have no problem visualising what an individual depression/pit/tree might look like. What matters is visualising the control site in the context of what is around it. There might be other features to lead you into the control. These might be no easier to spot than your control site, so you shouldn’t necessarily be looking for them, but if you do spot them they help. What really gives the context is the underlying contours – whereabouts on a slope/re-entrant/spur, how far up/down you need to be. Even the lack of any contours gives context – it’s on the flat bit, in which case how far away from the slope is it.
Of course the control might have no other features around it and the entire forest might be flat, in which case visualisation (other than knowing what a depression is) is not going to help much. You just have to rely then on accurate compass and distance judgment. Do you pace from your attack point? I don’t – I rely on guessing and it mostly works for me, but if you are consistently falling short or overshooting then the discipline of pacing might help you.
On the subject of context, my Mum once told me that although she understood all the individual symbols within the control circle she struggled to see them as a complete picture – all she saw was individual symbols. She compared it to a child at the first stage of learning to read – they could read all the individual words in a sentence but by the time they got to the end they had no idea what the sentence meant. (She was once a primary school teacher). I’ve been orienteering since I was very young and at some point I must have overcome this issue without being aware of it. Or maybe my mum just wasn’t very good at orienteering. (She’s still alive by the way – I refer to her in the past tense because she doesn’t go orienteering any more).
Next time you go to an event don’t just look for the control site but look for the whole group of features around the control. Stop to have a look how they fit together on the map and how they fit together on the ground and how they fit in relation to the contours. (eg it’s not just a boulder, it’s a boulder 3 contours up a slope, the slope runs in a particular direction, there is a little re-entrant which is just beyond the boulder and a knoll a bit higher up and a ditch running along the base of the slope). Once in a while features way outside the control circle might help – in a race last year I used a forest road junction 200m way on the other side of a valley to judge my position on a slope.
But then again try not to overdo it – as I said before you don’t want to start looking for features that are harder to spot than your control site.
Of course the control might have no other features around it and the entire forest might be flat, in which case visualisation (other than knowing what a depression is) is not going to help much. You just have to rely then on accurate compass and distance judgment. Do you pace from your attack point? I don’t – I rely on guessing and it mostly works for me, but if you are consistently falling short or overshooting then the discipline of pacing might help you.
On the subject of context, my Mum once told me that although she understood all the individual symbols within the control circle she struggled to see them as a complete picture – all she saw was individual symbols. She compared it to a child at the first stage of learning to read – they could read all the individual words in a sentence but by the time they got to the end they had no idea what the sentence meant. (She was once a primary school teacher). I’ve been orienteering since I was very young and at some point I must have overcome this issue without being aware of it. Or maybe my mum just wasn’t very good at orienteering. (She’s still alive by the way – I refer to her in the past tense because she doesn’t go orienteering any more).
Next time you go to an event don’t just look for the control site but look for the whole group of features around the control. Stop to have a look how they fit together on the map and how they fit together on the ground and how they fit in relation to the contours. (eg it’s not just a boulder, it’s a boulder 3 contours up a slope, the slope runs in a particular direction, there is a little re-entrant which is just beyond the boulder and a knoll a bit higher up and a ditch running along the base of the slope). Once in a while features way outside the control circle might help – in a race last year I used a forest road junction 200m way on the other side of a valley to judge my position on a slope.
But then again try not to overdo it – as I said before you don’t want to start looking for features that are harder to spot than your control site.
- Neil M40
- orange
- Posts: 134
- Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2008 12:45 pm
- Location: Leeds
Re: Losing time in the control circle
Thanks for all the advice. I will try to apply it at some smaller events and while out training (thankfully not in a gym).
Finding controls on slopes has never been a strong point - I always end up too high or too low. I can do compass bearings and pacing - usually spot on - but it slows me down a lot, and I sometimes have a bearing already set for leaving the control if there are no obvious features and it's a short leg to the next control.
Finding controls on slopes has never been a strong point - I always end up too high or too low. I can do compass bearings and pacing - usually spot on - but it slows me down a lot, and I sometimes have a bearing already set for leaving the control if there are no obvious features and it's a short leg to the next control.
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Miner - white
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:33 pm
- Location: In the pits
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