Orienteering-Why It Is An Adventure Sport For All Ages

Orienteering is an adventure sport for all ages and types of people. The aim of orienteering is to navigate between control points which have been marked on a unique orienteering map. Good orienteers will plan the best route so that they can finish the course in the fastest time. It is a fun outdoor sport which uses both body and mind.

When doing an orienteering course you can run, walk, or jog it as you please. Although fitness can be an asset knowing how to cooly and calmly plot a course is extremely important.

Orienteering takes place in lots of different terrains. The most challenging orienteering courses are done in demanding terrain where there are a small amount of paths. Courses can be in parks, forests, school playgrounds and the country side.

A Brief History Of Orienteering

In the military orienteering was used as a training exercise but we cannot say for exactly how long.

It was in 1886 that orienteering was used for the first time to describe crossing land with the aid of a map and a compass. By 1897 the first public orienteering event was to take place.

Major Ernst Killander was known as the Father of Orienteering. He was a Swedish youth and scout leader.

Below is a time line of the progression of orienteering:

In 1918 the first large scale orienteering meeting happened close to Stockholm, this was attended by 220 athletes. In 1925 the first women's orienteering competition was held in Göteborg, Sweden. In 1925 the first women's orienteering race was held in Hungary. In the 1930s the progress of more reliable compasses helped orienteering to grow in popularity. In 1932 the first international orienteering competition took place. It was between teams from Norway and Sweden.

By 1934, orienteering had spread to Finland, Switzerland, the Soviet Union and Hungary. In 1936 the first national orienteering society was founded which was the Swedish national orienteering society, Svenska Orienteringförbundet. During the Second World War growth slowed down. During a break in the war NORD, a Nordic body for co-operation was set up and Swedes and Norwegians and they started to produce multi-coloured maps for orienteering.

In 1959 an international conference was held in Sweden with delegations visiting from 12 different countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, DDR (East Germany), Hungary, Switzerland, West Germany, Yugoslavia and the four Nordic countries. By May 1961 the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) was founded at a meeting in Denmark.

By 1969, the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) was made up of 16 countries, including the first two non-European member societies Japan and Canada.

From 1967 to 2003 orienteering competitions were held bi-annually.

These meetings are now held annually.

Tips To Be Good At Orienteering

Teach Yourself Good Map Reading Skills-When orienteering reading a map is central to the process. Apart from familiarising yourself with the colour meanings, the idea here is to glean as much information as possible when you look at the map. You should be keeping contact about once every 10 seconds or so with your map. You will be using your compass at the same time.

Train Yourself To Look Around And Recognise Land Features-Imagine yourself without a compass and train yourself to focus on land features so that you can recognise them. Even though you have a compass and a map this will make you far more fluent when orienteering.

Take It Slowly-Don't be overly concerned with speed especially when you are new to orienteering. As you learn other skills like recognising land features and working fluidly with your map and compass speed will come. It is much better to make wise decisions slowly than bad decisions quickly.

Do An Analysis After The Race-There is a lot you can learn from post race analysis. Think back over where you did well and where you could have been better, this is an important part of the learning process in orienteering.