Walking in Circles

[Greg]

A friend of mine who is into Open Water Swimming said
"It’s the same with open water swimming, if you have nothing to sight off, you tend veer off course.."

 

[Greg]

Just wondering, did the studies test the same subjects multiple times? Wondering if a person will always circle the same way - if so it could be good to know which way I circle!

Looking at the map..each person walked in multiple circles..and I could be wrong..but by the look of the GPS tracking they did veer off the same way each time.

 

[TLM]

I read that there are a few aboriginal tribes in Oz that have no words for left or right, in front of or behind. They use absolute compass directions for relations between objects. If I remember correctly children new their bearings almost unerringly at about 5 y.

I would imagine that would develop a very good sense of direction.

Does somebody from upside down know more?

 

[Fadcode]

Looking at this on a mechanical basis, unless each leg was the exact same length, then each stride would be of a different length, therefore you naturally would go in a circle, there are so many variables, hip joint, muscle strength, swagger etc, that I think in reality without obvious markers to keep you straight it would be near impossible to stay on a straight course.
Just another thought on this , why are all races, Horse, Athlete, Dog etc run anti-clockwise?

 

[Robson Valley]

Human anatomy is not very left-right symmetrical at all. Take two pictures, cut them down the middles. Join the two right halves, join the to left halves and you will see two very different-looking people. My legs and feet have always been slightly different in most dimensions.

I lived in Melbourne for nearly 4 years PhD at LaTrobe Uni. Quite a number of Bio field trips out back and recreation up on the Bogong High Plains in winter. It was very hard to get used to the fact that the sun is in the northern sky when compared with Canada. Hurrah for a global compass!
Having said that, have you noticed that many topo maps published in the northern hemisphere shadow the higher elevations as though the sun is in the northern sky?

 

[Tengu]

I get unhappy when I cannot see the sun.

 

[billycoen]

I'm sure i read something about if you were right or left footed..and you therefore wandered off on the prefered side..

 

[oldtimer]

I was brought up on the south coast of England. South was where the sea was so North was the direction you were looking when you had your back to the sea. It was the same when I lived on South Beach New Providence. I now spend most summers in the South of where I look out to sea and imagine Africa over the horizon. Wrong. My compass tells me that i am looking North towards the Golf du Lion and the map confirms this, but after 25 years i still can't get my head round it.I

Away from the sea, the sun reminds me where South is. It must be that my childhood orientation transcends both logic and common sense.

 

[Kav]

Toddy, Since the majority of people are right handed the right foot also dominates and is the first push off the starting line and a counterclockwise ( or widershins in old Saxon) turn easier. We also keep track left to right keeping snd noting times and positions. Right hand drive descended from the ‘Whip’ or driver of horse and oxen drawn vehicles . This involves ready access to a signal whip without interfering with the reins in the left hand AND sidearms against highwaymen.
I drove English Hackney ponies and Morgan horses in fine harness and several RHD vintage cars. Clockwise counterclockwise
My right foot did heel and toe duty on non synchro gearboxes and scared actor David Carradine
In a yellow Ferrari on a left handed curve!

 

[bearbait]

Talking about nav. with map and compass, some years ago I set off hiking somewhere in Canada (Mount Washington on Vancouver Island I think it was). I took a photograph of the trail map at the trailhead and set off. Obviously, as it was new terrain to me, I kept a close look at map and compass in the early stages of the hike. But the terrain, covered in snow at the time so no obvious trail to follow, really didn't match the map and compass, and got worse. I checked and double checked. Eventually I zoomed in on the map photo only to find out that the map had not been oriented North-up on the noticeboard at the trailhead. Duh! Problem solved! Back on "track" in just a few minutes...

 

[TLM]

so no obvious trail to follow

What is this "trail" you are speaking about all the time? When in the north the reindeer "trails" last for some hundreds of meters and then disappear. So you actually have to pick up your own way from the map and the terrain.

There are in some places marked trails but who would want to walk in someone else's footsteps?

 

[Kav]

GAMETRAILS can be in permanent tracks and suppressed vegetation followed by hunters or ancient tracks used by generations of specific species. Trails are established over time because climbing over glacier moraines and down ravines takes all the fun out of it. There are still stone rest stops made by Oetzi’s culture for the flint trade. That’s why many animals use old lumber roads. Even the Norse sagas referenced ‘The Whale Road’
Of known migration routes.
“ The Road Goes On Forever And The Party Never Ends” Robert Earl Keene

 

[Robson Valley]

Buy a good compass and learn to use it. Play with it, carry it with you all the time. Might just save your butt in a fog some day.

When I bought this house 22 years ago, I imagined that the streets ran E/W and the avenues N/S. Fooling with my Brunton compass one day, I learn that the avenues are all set up with the railroad track as the primary parallel reference. That meant that the whole village is twisted west about 20 degrees. This has been really hard to get used to.

The deal is here that you can't easily walk in a circle, the mountain valleys are so steep and deep that there's only one road, no spurs. GPS is useless, but a compass still works as designed!

 

[SaraR]

Talking about nav. with map and compass, some years ago I set off hiking somewhere in Canada (Mount Washington on Vancouver Island I think it was). I took a photograph of the trail map at the trailhead and set off. Obviously, as it was new terrain to me, I kept a close look at map and compass in the early stages of the hike. But the terrain, covered in snow at the time so no obvious trail to follow, really didn't match the map and compass, and got worse. I checked and double checked. Eventually I zoomed in on the map photo only to find out that the map had not been oriented North-up on the noticeboard at the trailhead. Duh! Problem solved! Back on "track" in just a few minutes...

I had the same experience in Montreal, I think it was. The city’s ”you are here” maps (like the ones you find dotted around London) were all tilted quite badly and it took me a while to realise why thing didn’t make any sense in relation to what I could clearly see from the position of the sun and where I knew my B&B was.

 

[bearbait]

I find cities slightly disorienting too: I use a compass in cities to help when emerging from one or other exit from the underground or subway, or equivalent, to ensure I'm heading in the right direction down the road...

 

[Ystranc]

I’m blessed with a fairly good sense of direction and once I’ve been somewhere I can find it again. I have always had this skill but I have also worked on it to sharpen my skills. I would recommend a series of books on natural navigation by Tristan Gooley. Take the book out into the countryside, find a good vantage point, look around and apply what you’re reading to the landscape that you’re in. They just make absolute sense. Most of what is in the book is already there in the back of your mind but the book helps you to put it all together and apply it.

 

[Robson Valley]

It's hard to describe how heavy and how fast a mountain snow storm can come in. No more orientation by the peak shapes!
It can be 20 yards in just a minute.

We only got maybe 6" a couple of nights ago, up another 1,000m or more must have been quite a blast.

That's an advantage to walking the same area many times: little things on the forest floor become landmarks under foot. Best if they stick up to be seen out of the snow.

My Brunton compass on its lanyard always lives in the upper left pocket of my forest cruiser vest (bright red work vest that I always wear in the forest.) I have no reason to unload it when I'm home, soaked with snow melt or not.

 

[bigbear]

I think there are two different issues.
1 walking in a straight line. This can be practised and trained, not easy but achievable.
2 An instinct that says North, I suspect this is more innate. In evolutionary terms more useful to males who would tend to be pathfinders ? ??

 

[Erbswurst]

A woman just has to find back to the cave if foraging food. A man would get lost if hunting in wider areas without modern navigation. That's simply a different level and who was unable died out.

The inherited ability doesn't help you though if you come from a small town and drive your car with a navigation system.
I had younger colleagues that were unable to navigate in a mid sized town with a city map. Would they enter deep forests they would give a fine meal for the boar.

 

[nigelp]

Wow. Some very wild gender assumptions there!