Discussion: Good input!

Thanks for good input for my head cam articles - I am just working on the third one now, and your comments here are very nice for getting my thoughts flowing. A few comments:

- My thoughts are quite in line with yours in that for your own analysis, the headcam is just another tool - it won't do magic if you haven't got a method already for improving your technique. The headcam can be another tool in your process. I also like your description of the process of improving your orienteering, and how you see 'o' - very much in line with my thoughts that also.

- For a trainer, however, the headcam can be more like "magic" - as the trainer will have the possibility to see things which is not possible by just looking at route choice and discussing with the runner.

- Regarding map reading frequency, I think the important aspects in that regard are:

* comparing your map reading frequency with yourself, i.e. how does your mapreading frequency and/or characteristics vary through a course / when you get tired. And does this relate to your mistakes?
* map reading characteristics. Analyze why you read the map for the different mapreading events, and use this to find out if your mapreading technique is good. For example, mapreading time may be significantly longer for mapreading event when reading the map retrospectively than when being ahead in the map reading.
* Compare your mapreading with others for the same course, and try to understand the difference in map reading characteristics between you and somebody else to see if there is possibility for improvement in what you are doing.

For mapreading analysis, I am not sure head cam is the right tool, though, although it is one possible tool. You should rather use some accelerometer logger on your map reading hand to log your map reading - with the head cam it is simply too much work.

PS! The book you link to looks very nice - my Finnish is not up to it, though. And Google Translate doesn't work so well on a written book.

Some random thoughts on the fly:

I have map and (kind of thumb) compass in right hand. I may have exceptional style (I guess), I look just compass needle very often, about as often as map. It might be fun to run compass in the other hand and have accelerometer logger in both hands and see how they compare in different places with good bad low visibility and so on. But I don't know would that lead to anything useful. To analyze you would have to find out / remember what you were thinking and try fixing the habit behind that behavior. Your map reading characteristics is based on your thinking at that moment, and even if you could spot bad thinking behavior by analyzing map hand waving characteristics you would have to remember what you were thinking at given moment to fix it. So I'd say you could skip the hand waving part and analyze your thinking directly.

Map hand would start waving the right way if you begin to think right, so no need to worry about those characteristics too much (if you have got the thumbing right and your vision is fine, of course).

So it is thinking process after all, and remember/knowing what I was thinking at given point would give the best info. Looking at head cam video might help to memorize what was going on in the head, and thinking out loud to microphone would do the trick nicely?

Head cam would be nice tool to polish the performance, seeing how you miss best micro route choices or slow down to read map for no good reason (maybe I have the same map reading characteristics part here?), do unnecessary micro zigzagging for not looking up/ahead and so on. Also physical things, like how you run/walk/jump in difficult places. Not tool for erasing mistakes, but tool for making clean runs faster. It might work best if somebody runs behind you with the camera I guess, just as Nordberg does. So, the best setup is a friend with head cam following you and you have (at least) voice recorder and you yell out loud what you are thinking?

Interesting. I have both compass and map in the left hand, and I never (at least very close to never) look at the compass without looking at the map. On the other hand I look at the compass nearly every time I look at the map. I guess my technique fits well the terrain in Bergen, but doesn't fit as well in Finland where you'd probably more often look at the compass only. In some respects I think I'd put map reading and compass reading together - but in others not. Guess I'll have to think a bit more about that one. BTW: I'm not a big fan of talking aloud - takes you too far away from your routine.

About thinking process: Yes - it is everything about helping you (and your coach) to remember how the situation actually was - and to understand what happened at important points in the course. Map reading detection accelerometer, head cam, GPS-route etc. All is about remembering + understanding. Accelerometer is good because it can give you statistical data which can give you more information than just the point-data you remember. The same with GPS-data. And headcam is good because you can replay things which might look different than what you remember.

(PS! Sorry if my thoughts are also quite random - well after midnight here)

Right, using tools to remember and find out what was going on what athlete was thinking and doing, trying to do and why. What it comes to coaching, I believe most important thing for the coach is teaching how systematic skill developing and analysis can be done, so athlete will soon be able to do it on his/her own. When it comes to fine tuning these things no-one else than athlete himself can do it in the end. This is one reason why I always keep thinking it all as developing myself, that's the way the athlete will see it too.

My old school analysis tool favorite is drawing course and map on white blank paper, athlete will be able to draw the things he used for navigation and will not be able to remember/draw those he did not notice or use. And then comparing that drawing to map and those distinct features athlete should have used for navigation. Maybe head cam could be used to support this approach. Like taking a look if those distinct features he should have used were as distinct as coach thinks. If athlete sees from the video afterward how he ignores something big and very visible might get the point faster.

The place I was born and learned O has lots of low visibility terrains and I still like running such races (because others are often in deep trouble :). My constant compass use comes from there. But I don't think my technique is really that far from typical main stream thumb compass one. I never take bearing, but I always look from the map how the angle between my planned running line and north line looks like. Then while running and waiting the next distinct feature to pop up ahead I take peek at compass' needle (needle only) and see what is the angle between my running direction and needles direction. It's easy to do even in full speed in rough terrain, no need to slow down like I would have to do see something from the map. This habit gives me opportunity to use targets further away even in low visibility areas and effectively reduces risk to run in slightly wrong direction -> parallel mistake. With good visibility areas is scales down nicely, If I see the target and I have once checked the direction is right I don't have need to check the needle. You know, I don't look at the compass just to look at the compass, I have idea of the right running direction in my mind and when that feels inaccurate I peek at the needle. Also, I am getting old, my vision is pretty good but may not be for long and maps aren't easy to read these days, so the strategy is reading map well and carefully but not that often, memorize and use compass and memory to avoid slowing down in between, just some map peeks to make sure or fine tune line to next memorized target.

I can see your point, talking aloud may change things too much. But it also depends on technique. For me it wouldn't be a big deal. Talking to myself is what I already do to stay focused. I always try keeping these simple things in my mind: 1. what is the next target "marsh on left, hill with big cliff on right, I'll shoot in between", 2. direction (needle based) " slightly left from directly east", 3. tool&accuracy to hit the target "check compass but no need for extra accuracy here", 4.how far it is "~200m, almost there, will pop up very very soon" and 5. what I do when I see/reach my target "pick next target, somewhere behind the hill". To not forget what I am doing I literally repeat these simple things as words over and over again in my head. If I don't do it, I often forget what I am doing and may do something stupid, like slowing down to see is a stone on my map, loose direction, start thinking how slow and out of shape i am or something. And also if I can't repeat these things it means I don't know where I am going and so on, so that's also red alarm. So taking out loud wouldn't change things much for me. But someone who's technique isn't that simple and straight forward - uses small details he sees around, targets not that far away or reads map retrospectively - might get disturbed for having to talk aloud.

this training I planned some time ago may visualize a bit the way I try to navigate:
http://omaps.worldofo.com/index.php?id=15257
see, picking up targets, skipping over areas without even trying to read anything, counting on I will hit the target, lots of waiting time while running over empty areas (that's where talking in my head comes handy to stay focused).

I am not saying this is the best way to navigate (or good), but works pretty well for me, scales down nicely ("skipping sections"/waiting times just go away) and may be really good way to do it if ones visions is not the best or map print quality is bad and makes constant map reading difficult. So, not something anyone should copy, but maybe someone could get nice pointers for developing one's own technique to some direction.

Random thoughts - maybe better, pretty heavy stuff, makes it lighter....

from the limited (2-3x so far) use of the head cam I can tell you that from a coaching perspective the head cam is a very, very useful and valuable tool. I would even argue it is a revolutionary coaching tool when linked to GPS for developing younger orienteers. Because my daughter learned to read a map playing catching features she is similarly learning how to read a map even better using head-cam replays of training/racing. I really enjoyed the first two parts of your articles Jan. Looking forward to part 3.