I'm a new member to this wonderful forum. I have always been into planning ahead and being prepared but started to take this much more seriously about 4-5 years ago. I like to call it 'increasing resilience' and finding ways to make myself more resilient to different eventualities that could occur. Would love to learn and share with others.
One of my main weaknesses is that my spatial awareness, map reading, direction skills are very poor and I find it difficult to learn these skills. I can't find my way out of a telephone box! Does anyone have ideas how to develop these skills when they really don't come naturally?
hanhan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:45 pm
I'm a new member to this wonderful forum. I have always been into planning ahead and being prepared but started to take this much more seriously about 4-5 years ago. I like to call it 'increasing resilience' and finding ways to make myself more resilient to different eventualities that could occur. Would love to learn and share with others.
Hi And welcome. I'm with you on the concept of increasing resilience. We don't know what's around the corner, so we prep in ways that can cover many eventualities. Full pantry: A few heat and light sources: And most of all attitude. Please share your own insights and thoughts. We can all add something.
One of my main weaknesses is that my spatial awareness
Hi Jenny. Thanks for your response. Good point about the bugging out specific weakness. Let's hope it doesn't become necessary to do so. I am going to do a bushcraft course which I hope will help a little. I have done an orienteering course but I discovered just how poor I was through the course. I may give it another go and see if there is some improvement.
Welcome to the forum you're spot on, resilience is crucial.
As to the skills you know you lack around spatial awareness etc - yep, a bugging in/ out problem as Jenny mentions, but might also be necessary skills if you're away at work and need to get home under your own steam - or even on holiday or on a day out. To learn those specific skills you mention, hobby groups might be a good answer - The Ramblers, or geo-caching if they're going again. You tube videos? I'm very lucky that I had some map-reading skills dinned into me at school and in voluntary groups etc, but I still have no concept of scale.
NB I input "map reading" into amazon, and came up with not only maps, but a few books about map reading. But the only way to get the skill is to practise. I feel your pain
Thanks very much for sharing your ideas. The Geocaching is a great idea, hadn't thought of it but will definitely look into if anything like that is happening in the local area. May be a fun way to learn too. I had thought of the possibility of being stranded and needing to get home. It did happen once that I was coming home from work and the roads were flooded, it took several different routes to find a way around the flooding. So these things definitely do happen. Thanks for sharing your ideas!
hanhan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:45 pm
One of my main weaknesses is that my spatial awareness, map reading, direction skills are very poor and I find it difficult to learn these skills. I can't find my way out of a telephone box!
Hurray, I thought it was just me that struggles with this. Apparently there is something called directional dyslexia. I am slightly better on foot, awful when driving and road closed and diversion signs send me into a panic. I know 3 routes from home to work but my brain cant compute how they all get me to the same place and yes I have tried looking at a map. I have to do the same journey many, many times before it sticks in my head and need "landmarks" and I really hate sat navs.
Maybe it is that then. What you have described sounds just like the way I am with directions. I do rely on a satnav quite a bit although still manage to still take wrong turns sometimes even with that! I know what you mean about having to repeat a journey several times before it sticks. Completely relate to that.
If you would like some help in basic navigation techniques, and some practice in the field, I'm in North Derbyshire and on the edge of the Peak District.
hanhan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:45 pm
One of my main weaknesses is that my spatial awareness, map reading, direction skills are very poor and I find it difficult to learn these skills. I can't find my way out of a telephone box! Does anyone have ideas how to develop these skills when they really don't come naturally?
Buy a local map of where you live. 1:25 000 scale and 1:50 000 scale.
From that find your house and or street. orientate the map on the ground so the map faces the same as the real street.
You now have a 2 dimensional representation of the 3D world.
Fold the map so your very local area is shown. Take it out and follow footpaths/roads/rivers that you know by heart and stop every 50 feet and look at the map and surroundings.
HTH.
Two is one and one is none, but three is even better.
Joe Bloggs wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 12:38 pm
If you would like some help in basic navigation techniques, and some practice in the field, I'm in North Derbyshire and on the edge of the Peak District.
If you could please post an introduction in this section , that would be good thanks
In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: It goes on.
Robert Frost.
Covid 19: After that level of weirdness ,any situation is certainly possible.
Does anyone have ideas how to develop these skills when they really don't come naturally?
you're spot on, resilience is crucial.
