Coaching

Coaching at Washington Common

This weekend’s coaching session at Washington Common looked at the importance of using a process for orienteering. This method leads to a consistent approach to tackling each leg and more predictable and positive outcomes. During the session the athletes came up with a simple process which was to always fold the map, select an attack point and then tick off (or ‘collect’) features on the way to the attack point. In this video of a really hard leg in Sweden, this exact same process is used.

Coaching at Inholmes Wood

This morning’s training session analysed video from this summer’s World Cup in Davos, Switzerland. Participants noted that Emil Svensk wasn’t running too fast, and was focused on navigation. His map was neatly folded and his thumb compass was used to ‘thumb the map’ to maintain map contact. In most of the video, Emil is either looking at his map or looking around the terrain. He spends very little time just running without actively navigating. Today’s training exercises encouraged participants to look closely at the map for large features and then match these to the terrain as they make progress towards each control.

March Club Coaching

Will Heap, one of our Club Coaches ran a fantastic coaching session in the sunshine at Cowdray Forest near Crawley. Participants included children from the age of 11 upwards and adults of all ages who take part in orange to black courses. Everyone had a great day and learnt so much from the different exercises.

We started off with a gentle warm up, led by Scarlet and then split off into three groups.

Juniors learn about contours at Washington Common

At Washington Common on 22^nd January, we held our third training session of the season for our younger juniors and some new adults. We had a great turnout and had four large groups taking part. Our main focus for this session was understanding the brown features on the map. Washington Common is a good venue for this as there are lots of steeper features.

We started by looking at contours on the map and comparing them to a 3D model to help picture the ground. Can you see how the model relates to the map below? You may need to rotate it slightly!

Junior Development Camp 1-3 November 2019

A weekend orienteering camp for juniors took place in the New Forest during Nov 1-3^rd. It was aimed at club juniors aged 11-13 years at Orange standard (TD3) or Yellow level (TD2) aiming to improve to Orange.

Juniors close 2nd at Yvette Baker

Well done to our junior team who came a close second to Guildford Orienteers in the Yvette Baker SE round at Worth Lodge on Sunday 13th May.

We're always looking for juniors to join our teams, so if you're interested please speak to either the Junior Team Manager, Junior Coach or Club Captain - contacts here. If you can complete at least a yellow on your own then we'd be keen to give you the opportunity to join in and be part of the team.

Coaching

We currently aim to run monthly coaching sessions. If you are brand new to orienteering then these sessions can be a great way to get started and meet other people. We also provide excellent coaching for juniors and adults looking to improve their skills on any level of course. Karen Ashworth provides training for primary school aged children and Rob Lines and Will Heap provide training for anyone of secondary school age or adults, who can run at least run an orange on their own.

We also offer one to one mentoring and shadowing for older children and adults on an ad hoc basis. Please contact Tim Hulley if you would like to enquire about this. If you are brand new to orienteering then this can really help.

Skills

To enjoy orienteering you only need to be able to recognise a few map symbols and be able to orientate the map to north. This will allow you to get around a Yellow standard course. The real fun of orienteering begins when you start to tackle the more challenging courses of Orange, Green and Blue. To be successful on these courses you will need to practise some of the following skills.

Coaching

We currently aim to run monthly coaching sessions which are aimed at juniors of all abilities. Look out for those events with "and coaching" in the title. If you are brand new to orienteering then these sessions can be a great way to get started and meet other juniors and parents. We also provide excellent coaching for juniors and adults looking to improve their skills on any level of course. Karen Ashworth provides training for primary school aged children and Rob Lines and Will Heap provides training for anyone of secondary school age or above, who can run at least run an orange on their own.

New to Orienteering?

Orienteering is an outdoor adventure sport that combines map reading and running. The aim is to navigate between checkpoints marked on a map and decide the best route to complete the course in the quickest time.

It's a fantastic sport for all ages and levels of fitness and for anyone who loves being in the great outdoors.

Awards

Badges, certificates, medals and trophies are awarded throughout the year for club and regional competitions and major events like the British Championships.