Training and / or Coaching

OTHER WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR ORIENTEERING (FROM THE 2013 TRAINING AT LOGAN PARK)

• Analyse courses! You can ask all those questions like - Why did I got that way? Why didn't I see that much better route? How could I have thought that I was in the right place? It's amazing what you see in retrospect.
• Ask yourself these questions on each leg: Where Am I? Where Am I Going? What Will I See Along The Way? How Will I Know When I've Gone Too Far?
• Look at maps, all sorts of different types. Ask someone in the club for a set of maps that show you White through to Red courses, and see how the progressively harder courses change - and what type of line features, handrails, attack points and catching features each sort of course uses.
• PARENTS: talk to your kids about stuff on maps, compare legends and the scales of different maps. You can have races on the kitchen table with a map (be the first to find 3 knolls, 2 square buildings), once you've talked through the scale and legend, use a ruler and compass to move around the map (go 200 metres North West of the building, what do you get to?)
• Join the Club committee! You can come to the pub with us after a meeting and look at some courses with us there!
• Ask for someone to shadow you around a course the next difficulty up (plan this ahead, so we can arrange a shadow for you at the next event)
• Anyone who regularly attends OY events can take up the offer of being paired with a more experienced "mentor", who can talk you through why and how you did your OY courses. This is a key way of learning from your mistakes and improving as an orienteer. Talk to Jeni (jenipelvin@gmail.com) if you would like to have a "coach" organised for you.
• Read Jean Cory-Wright's Little Book of O Techniques (ask for a copy)

COACHING SESSION BY JENI & HELPERS FOR WHITE, YELLOW AND ORANGE ORIENTEERS, LOGAN PARK SUNDAY 30 JUNE 2013

At least 25 plus people of all sorts of ages and abilities turned up on a lovely sunny winter afternoon.

Firstly, people with less experience went out with a person shadowing them, on a score event type course where the controls had no numbers. They had to orient the map, fold the map, try holding a map and compass in the same hand, look around them, match the features, work out where they were, be confident they knew which control they were at, punch a clipcard, work out how to get around 10 controls, get back, and self-check their punch marks to make sure they got them all correct. Orienteering is the ultimate example of multi-tasking!

Then we looked at creating stepping stones to controls, using handrails and attack points, and having a catching feature.

We also had 100 metres marked out along a field, through rough vegetation, and on a rough track, so people could know visually how far 100 metres is, and work out how many paces they took to cover the distance on differing terrains.

For the more experienced orienteers, we had a Star Memory event of 14 controls. You had to memorise as many controls as possible and visit them - without a map. The more you remember at once, the less often you need to come back to the start to check the master map again - so the quicker you are.

Thanks to Jean Cory-Wright for permission to refer to her "Little Book of O Techniques".

SUNDAY SPRINT SESSIONS DURING DECEMBER 2012

These were held every Sunday morning in December to fine tune those who were going to Oceania, or for those who needed to work off some pre-Xmas excess...

ORIENTEERING TECHNIQUE TRAINING IN WINTER 2012

Several technique and training sessions took place on the Sunday prior to OY events. Each session focused on a different skill. The sessions were led by experienced orienteers Jeni Pelvin and Antonia Wood. They were open to all orienteers, junior to elite, who had attended events and were looking to improve their orienteering skills. Complete beginners were advised to start at an ordinary club event first, as the technique training assumed you were at least Yellow standard.

A session at Logan Park covered simplification techniques using map memory, attack points and catching features, the Chingford Park session covered control flow-through and traffic lighting, and the Town Belt South session covered route choice, and specific skills relevant for relay or sprint events.