After the final stage of Orienteering World Cup 2019 in China, someone mentioned online that several places in the sprint map do not follow the minimum requirement of spaces between building (0.4 mm on map). This is 1.6 m in the actual world for 1:4,000 scale, a standard scale for sprint orienteering map. This minimum requirement is important because below this distance, the orienteering competitors will find difficult to see the difference between a space and a line, thus affecting their decisions of route choices. This issue happens in many Chinese village orienteering maps because there are many narrow pathways in these villages.
Orienteering World Cup 2019 in China -- Sprint Map. Many places have pathways less than 0.4mm on map, shown through the white circles (Source: Facebook Group - Orienteering Mappers Int.)
The following is the drawing standard for building according to International Standards for Sprint Orienteering Map (ISSprOM) 2019:
So, what if there exists pathways that are less than 1.6 m wide in actual world? One possible solution is to exaggerate the width of these pathways to 0.4 mm on map. The figure below shows pathways that are about 0.3 m to 0.6 m wide, which is difficult to run through. Yet, if these very narrow pathways are enlarged, should other wider pathways be enlarged, too? Sometimes, the width of the pathways gives hints on where one runner is. Moreover, these very narrow pathways may not be a good route choice because competitors cannot run inside.
Source: Facebook Group - Orienteering Mappers Int.
Then, we have this type. For the top photo, the width is between 1 m and 1.6 m. The pathway can be run through easily, but the width is below the 0.4 mm on map requirement. (Actually, I don't think the bottom photo has any problem. The path is over 1.6 m wide, and that little gate may just be shown as a canopy on map with a bit of exaggeration, or not adding the canopy at all)
Source: Facebook Group - Orienteering Mappers Int.
In that post, some comments that these kind of special terrain should not avoided in orienteering events, which I do not think it is helpful. IOF decided to put a world-level orienteering event in China because IOF wants to spread out orienteering to the world, and not just European countries. The international mapping standard should be applicable to everywhere in the world, so that the sport of orienteering can be promoted. Chinese villages have many narrow pathways that are below the mapping standard distance, but are easy to run. These kind of villages can give a lot of technical challenges to the orienteering competitors. Avoiding these places for organizing orienteering seems to limit the possible terrains for orienteering.
The Proposal
For these narrow pathways, I proposed the following:
1) Still exaggerate pathways if the width is between 0.8 m - 1.6 m, and they are just drawn as 0.4 mm width on map. If these pathways cannot be passed, still give olive green (impassable area) as usual.
2) For pathways below 0.8 m, introduce lines between buildings. These lines mean narrow pathways that are too narrow to have thickness, but they have the potential for passing. Something like this:
These lines are shown to signal the competitors that: there is a pathway that is too narrow. It is not worth passing through it. Pass at your own risk.
To show that the path cannot be passed, add short purple lines on both ends to show they cannot be passed. Now there is a flexibility for the mapper to indicate whether a narrow pathway can be passed or not.
If using this method, two buildings that are joined by walls should be shown as one building, with no lines in between. These lines between buildings should only be used to show there is a narrow pathway in between buildings.
More than a year ago when I was in the US, I shared the following sprint orienteering map in China with the orienteers in Chicago:
My friend said, "how special is that? It is just navigation around buildings."
My reply, "see how similar each building is in the video, and you need to sprint within these forest of buildings."
That was the course that made me amazed on how fun sprint orienteering can be in China.
Today, I signed up a sprint orienteering in China that surpassed the difficulty of the above course. Before starting, I already wanted to say that today's course is not about pure speed, but about who can balance the speed and map reading accuracy. When reading the control description sheet (clue sheet) and seeing so many symbols for buildings, I feel excited that there will be a fun course today. In a sprint orienteering course in China with village terrain, building corners will give a lot of navigational challenges.
The surrounding areas at the start hinted that today's sprint orienteering course will be in a village terrain, which can be a lot of fun in terms of navigational challenges when running with speed.
In the end, I read a course that needs mental focus almost everywhere, which is my expectation. This course is probably harder than the one that I showed above, since 1) building pattern is not a simple grid in this map, 2) the pattern is rotated in this map, 3) there are many dead ends.
Field conditions:
To tackle this kind of courses with speed, it is important to apply several orienteering techniques, so that I can simplify the map, and run fast and locate myself accurately:
1) Thumbing and Map Folding:
You do not want to lose track of which alley you are in, and you do not want to make parallel mistakes (two features that are close to each other and look similar, and one confuses one feature with another).
2) 3S - Slow, Set map, Select
a) Slow: when to slow down, how slow (or even complete stop)
b) Set map: needs to do it automatically every time, using the building grid system
c) Select: go forward? move back? turn left? turn right?
3) Decide to do Coarse or Fine Orienteering
a) Coarse orienteering: Control 5-6 -- Go back to the main road (handrail) and run
b) Fine orienteering: Control 6-7 -- Slow down while moving within the alleys, counting intersections and collecting obvious features (e.g. open lands, permanently closed areas, wide paved areas) along the way. These features may also be attack points to the control.
4) Catching Features
A wider alley or road or even a fence at an intersection can be your catching feature to signal that you go too far.
5) Traffic Light
E.g. Control 9 -10
a) Green: run back to the road, turn left, keep running until the road starts to narrow, then turn right, run straight until seeing a wide area
b) Yellow: turn left to go in one row, then turn right
c) Red: look carefully for the control, almost arrive
6) Route choice
Like any sprint courses, which route is shorter? Which route needs many 180-degree turns, which makes you slow down? Which route needs more fine orienteering, which makes you slow down? There are many route choices along this course.
7) Aiming off
E.g. Control 9 - 10
When running on the road, I do not turn right to the correct alley and do not know when the control will pop up (due to so many alleys to count, see figure above, blue line). I turn right one alley earlier, so that I can use the open land to know when I get close to the alley that contains the control, and I know I need to turn left for one block first, and then turn right, since I went one alley earlier.
8) Recovery Technique
At one level, it means when I know I make a mistake of navigation, where I am at. At another level, it is about intentionally not exactly know where I am to gain speed in running, and then find out where I am when I get to a large path or road.
E.g. Control 20 - 21
I may select running back to the wide road to gain speed in running. I can also choose to ignore most features within the village alleys and gain speed by running inside through a more direct route. Then, at obvious feature (e.g. end of T-junction), where I most likely am. I may judge by the length of the blockage (the length of wall between two alleys, or by obvious features around. I find out where I am, and know that when I run to cross the main road, which intersection I am at.
Window training course is the kind of recovery technique that I am thinking. There are "black boxes" between the controls.
I don't quite care what is inside in the white area. I do need to know where I am when I get to the main road
Below is my Go Pro video of running the whole course:
My biggest mistake is probably Control 1. When waiting to start, while I saw most people running straight, I saw a few ME runners turned left to an alley. I would like to see why, and I did not mind challenging navigation in the beginning, so I tried, and found that this route choice really did not have any advantages. It was too late to change, so I navigate slowly for this control.
There were several areas in the map that can look clearer. Some alleys should be exaggerated a bit to meet to minimum width requirement in orienteering map, so that some important information (e.g., a wall blocking the alley) can be shown. The purple lines for the course should also try to avoid covering the alleys, since it is hard to tell whether the alley can be passable. There are several controls in the later part of the course where straight line route is impossible due to walls and buildings (e.g. Controls 13, 16, 19, 22, and 23).
I did not expect a second place today. I think the true elites can finish 4 minutes faster than me.
After the race, there were lunch around round tables:
I look forward to another village sprint orienteering in China! It is a great place to train orienteering techniques so that one's physical ability to run can be used fully in a sprint orienteering course.
Back in the days in the US, my first several orienteering experiences were done by first renting a car, and then drove 2-3 hours to the orienteering events. Then, I got a used car to do these orienteering road trips.
Those old days were lived again now in China. We drove 2-3 hours from Hong Kong to Foshan to attend the World Orienteering Day event in China. World Orienteering Day lasts for a week from Wednesday in May, and now it was the fourth year having this day.
It was a hot and humid day. In the morning there was a 5km long sprint orienteering, where orienteering happened in a park next to a river.
The long sprint was not too hard, but there were quite a lot of yellow-green areas (forbidden areas) to check while running. It was quite easy to pick a route that was tempting to cross the yellow-green areas.
Some areas were quite open, and we can call those legs "Foshan No Shadow Leg".
There were also several legs where choosing the right route will save a lot of time:
Yet, the great competition today was the maze orienteering battle. The organizer set up two mazes that were mirrored, and placed controls that were mirrored. Then, two people ran the mirrored courses in the maze.
Moreover, this was a team of 3 competition, where order of team members is decided by the team in each round of competition. Each team had at least two opportunities to play: the bracket has winner and loser sides. If a team lost for the first time, the team will be moved to the loser side. If the team lost again in the loser side, the team is eliminated. It was important to decide the order of battles carefully, since the member assignment cannot be repeated for 3 rounds.
I heard that my battle in the first round was very close, and I lost by 1 second.
Then, Gilbert lost again, leaving Kin no opportunity to play.
After the final round, we were allowed to try the maze courses. Kin and I battled against each other for one course.
After orienteering, we had a good dinner in Shunde.
Then, we drove the rental car back to Shenzhen. The rental car kept overheating during the drive. Luckily, we found some ways to keep the rental car from overheating.
Count Basie
Duke Ellington
Ella Fitzgerald
Chick Webb
Lionel Hampton
Cab Calloway
Fats Waller
Benny Goodman
Artie Shaw
Tommy Dorsey
Harry James
Glenn Miller
When the registration for the marathon was opened, I just had a new job, and was concerned whether I had free time to practice before the marathon. However, I succumbed to the peer pressure and signed up for the full. I felt that I should run the full marathon in Hong Kong at least once. I knew about how boring the route was, but I should at least try it.
As expected, I could not even find time to run due to work and dance. My first half-marathon run was only a week before the race, which I could complete. Yet, it was just like my last full marathon -- well under-trained.
Then, I started coughing since Monday, and did not stop even on the race day. I got some Chinese herbal medicine, and it only soothed my coughing at times. I was really not sure whether I could even complete the race this time.
The day before the race, I bought 2 packs of power gel. I also had a lot of noodles in that evening to stock up a lot of carbohydrates. The weather forecast showed some conditions that were favorable to the runners, and some were not. The good things were that it was going to be cloudy with a few patches of rain, and stayed at around 19C, making the weather a bit cooler. Also, it was a bit windy, which may cool down people, although energy may be spent to withstand the wind. The bad things were that it was humid (RH 85%-95%).
During the race
Hong Kong marathon is notorious to be tough. The following shows the height profile of Chicago Marathon, one of the six Marathon Majors in the world. The height difference between the max and the min is only 10 m.
Near my school in Illinois, I ran the Illinois Marathon, which is also flat (height difference between the max and the min is 26 m.
In Hong Kong, the height difference between the max and the min is 120 m. This already makes Hong Kong a bad place to do PB (personal best) or PR (personal record).
Being sick while being under-trained, and tackling a hilly marathon course was something that did not happen to me before. I thought I would be conservative with my pacing. Yet, in the first half, I was running fast while controlled (at <5 min/km). This included the time when I climbed the ramps of the bridges.
I think I also did the following:
- I ate one gel at 10k mark and another one at 20k mark.
- I went to the portable toilet once, at about 25k mark. This wasted me in about 1.5 minutes.
- I only drank sport drinks at supply station, and only drank it when I felt dry on my mouth.
In the end, I finished it with a time that I was satisfied (3:43:34). Certainly not my PB (it was the last Illinois Marathon, 3:34:XX), but at least I could manage to finish it. I did "hit the wall" near 30k mark, and my muscles almost cramped in the last 2k.
Besides a finisher medal, I think what I could get after the race was little. There was only a banana, a bar of chocolate, and a bottle of distilled water. This was opposite to the other 2 marathons that I did in the US, where unlimited pizza and pasta were provided, and some might even provide locally-brewed beers.
Even though my legs were sore after the race, I could still dance in the afternoon. The structure of my body must be really strange!
In the end, I still think that the Hong Kong marathon course has too long motorway sections, so the cheering people could not be seen in my of the places. Adding that the course is steep and food is provided only at later points of the course, I don't think I will do a full marathon in Hong Kong again. After all, I don't think I will have time to train for marathon anymore, so I could not think about running a marathon in the near future.
That amazing Europe trip was over. I had to go back to the reality. Fortunately, I found a job at this time, but it also means that I needed to learn new things about this job.
I knew about the Crossover 1.0, the one that I would like to join but I was mostly in Europe during that session. Now the Crossover 2.0 began, and I would really like to see how a final product of a performance was made in the end. The organizers, Y and J, emphasized that this is not a class but an experiment. The format may be interesting, so I would really like to join. After all, swing dance performance is unfamiliar to me before this class.
Seeing that T and L also had a performance class, and I got some peer pressure in joining this class, I thought why not just do an experiment -- do both, use Tom and Lou's class as a control (since that class is just traditional routine teaching), and compare on both sides. So I did. Watching both sides as if there is a competition is fun.
Time commitment
In the very beginning of Crossover 2.0, I was already asked for the schedule of the next 4 months, the acknowledgement that I should not be absent more than one weekly session in a month, and the commitment into this session. It was fair. I felt that having a whole group to perform a routine takes about this amount of time, based on my experience in the US.
On the T and L side, the performance class was only 5 week long. I wondered if the whole routine could be learned in 5 weeks. In the 4th week, it seemed to me that only 70% of the routine was taught. It turned out that there were a lot of practice sessions after this class, and Thursday class becomes Tuesday practices. I wondered if anyone could no longer come for the performance because the practice day was moved.
From this, I learned that for the beginner/ intermediate dancers, a 2-3 minute long dance routine takes at least 4 months to learn, refine, and master.
From parts to whole
In Crossover 2.0, learning is not just traditional feeding -- instructors teach a routine, and students follow. It is more aligned with the value of jazz and swing -- the improvisation, or the creativity. It was promised that the final performance routine was created by everyone in the Crossover 2.0 group. In this way, the organizers were more like mentors than instructors.
Yet, how do participants, with just beginner or intermediate swing background, create the whole performance?
In the first few sessions, the organizers talked about different solo jazz steps and learned about them. The learning was not only about how to execute the steps, but also the characteristics of these steps -- do the steps move us sideways, in place, or rotating? What are their counting? The key point here was to understand the basic building blocks of a swing dance routine.
Then, there were sessions on piecing several solo jazz moves together to form a phrase in a song. Participants could experiment which combinations worked and which did not, and whether they fit into the music.
As it progressed, the phrases were being joined into the whole performance. There were times to study the position of each participant in the performance. There were times to look at the transitions between phrases. Doing these also mean refining the steps to fit the flow of the whole performance.
Overall, the Crossover experiment took a step-by-step and bottom-up approach in making the whole dance routine. Since participants experimented the steps, they all had contributed to the whole routine.
Role playing
In Crossover 2.0, participants were not always students. Each person had a chance to learn a solo jazz move, and tried to teach to other people. As an additional challenge, there was one occasion where no speaking was allowed for teaching, which was probably one of my favorite parts of the Crossover 2.0.
Somehow, I felt that this fits with jazz and swing again -- to improvise is to create, and we cannot always follow someone's steps in doing things in order to create. We were already used to spoon-feeding at school when we were young, and we are old enough to learn how to use what we learned to pass down to new people. Thus, besides the traditional passive learning mode of the steps and routines, the Crossover 2.0 also tried to give the idea that everyone could be an active leader in a swing scene at some point. You feel that you are just a beginner in dancing? Well, there are always first-timers that you know more than them. Thus, we all should learn how to teach.
Another role play moment was to be the stage coordinator. You sat at the center of the stage, facing the group of people that you know, who would present part of the performance to you. Could you give one feedback on what did well, and one feedback on what could be improved? It is rare for the participants to see the performance as a whole because we are so focused on doing our own steps right.
This is quite rare to see in a dance class -- about teaching how we can teach the others.
Team building
In Crossover 2.0, the participants were in a wide range of dance levels. Some were beginners. For this group, as long as the participants could commit to come every week, anyone could join at the beginning of the session.
Perhaps there were more small group exercises; perhaps the dance routine resulted in interacting with different participants at different parts; perhaps people know more to each other before joining; perhaps we committed to the schedule of the sessions; it seems to me that the participants in this group are closer to each other. After the performance, someone said they felt empty on not having this Crossover 2.0 anymore.
While there are friendship on the other side also, it seems to me that the relationships are more to the individual pairs, rather than as a whole group.
Conclusion
The Crossover 2.0 just gave one performance to the public and no more, while the other already gave three and might have one more. I was also not sure which dance routine looked better. Yet, I am sure that Crossover 2.0 is more fun to be in. The main point is the processes that lead to the final product, and not the final product itself. If there is a Crossover 3.0, I am in. I would also recommend other beginners to join.
