This blog is in recess. New contributions will still appear from time to time and new contributors are welcome. Check out orienteering.org.nz and the facebook o scene for your regular online orienteering fix.

Thursday 17 May 2007

Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

In planning for the upcoming Hawkes Bay training weekend I have been thinking about what I want to achieve as squad coach. As well as creating a good squad bond and helping people find opportunities to maximise their physical potential a big focus has to be assisting squad athletes to develop bulletproof technique. There are rough edges out there and we need to grind them down! Comment 1: Perfect Practice Makes Perfect. Everytime we orienteer whether we are training or racing we are practising for future races. The decision making processes we adopt at crucial times on a course become habit. Notice that experience doesn't necessarily = good technique, it would be easy to name the head cases out there with bad habits. Reflecting on orienteering training I have done I see a theme, sporadic, high quantity, low quality training, often on poor maps. When you train make sure that there is a specific purpose, make sure that you are physically and mentally prepared and ensure that the map is sufficent for the purpose. It is surely better to hit 15 controls bang on, with control than wobble through 25 controls. We will talk more about this at the HB training weekend and look at the principles wider integration into your training. Hope a few of you can make it. All comments welcome, any ideas?

1 comment:

Brent said...

when is the training camp?