Articles by Peter Amram
Do you have content for NEOC.org? Send it to the-
Smarter is Faster
by Peter Amram
Originally appeared in theNEOC Times, Volume 36, No. 1, Dec/Jan, 2005/2006The best way to improve time on the O-course is to reduce the frequency and magnitude of mistakes.
If you could have trimmed 10 minutes worth of errors off that last 67-minute run on
... -
Running the Numbers
by Peter Amram
Originally appeared in the NEOC Times, Volume 35, No. 6 , Oct/Nov, 2005Because each orienteering course is unique, and because terrain varies, absolute time spent on a course is rarely significant. Competitive runners care most about their ranking compared to others, while recreational folk are concerned with attaining a feeling of
... -
A Flow Chart
by Peter Amram
Originally appeared in the NEOC Times, Volume 35, No. 5, Aug/Sep, 2005A truism about orienteering is that the sport is 50% physical and 50% mental. There is, however, a third component, which might be termed "administration." Administration refers to procedures which relate specifically neither to foot speed nor navigational skill but which
... -
Levels of the Game
by Peter Amram
Originally appeared in the NEOC Times, Volume 35, No. 4 , June/July, 2005Choice is at the heart of orienteering.
You decide for yourself which course you want for the day, whether to go alone or in a group, what pace you want, and which routes you prefer. The first and most important choice is which course to select. At each NEOC event a
... -
The First Control
by Peter Amram
Originally appeared in the NEOC Times, Volume 35, No. 3, April/May, 2005The most important control on any orienteering course is the first one. Experience has shown that problems on #1 often presage difficulties throughout the course, or at least until the orienteer has had time to "settle down" sufficiently to see the map and its scale clearly
... -
Advice for Children
by Peter Amram
Originally appeared in the NEOC Times, Volume 35, No. 2, Feb/Mar, 2005Hold the map properly. If you hold the map properly, it will show you where to go.
Hold the map with your "weak" hand, that is, with your left hand if you are right-handed, and with your right hand if you are left-handed. That way your "strong" hand is free for other
... -
Advice to Adults Working with Children
by Peter Amram
Continually remind the child to hold the map properly: flat; in the "weak" hand; thumb on present position; and oriented correctly. This is the most important technique for any beginner to master. Cheerfully, ceaselessly, insist that the map be held properly.
Encourage an interest in the contour lines even if it means interrupting progress on a leg to notice a nearby hilltop or spur or
... -
A Village Too Far
by Peter Amram
Historical note:
Grigory Potemkin, an 18th-century marshal in the Russian Army, aspired to the confidence of the Empress, Catherine. To demonstrate his diligence on Russia’s behalf, Potemkin ordered facades of fake prosperous villages erected along routes that Catherine traveled. Catherine proved a gullible czarina: much impressed, she granted Potemkin influence in her
... -
Literary Orienteering
In which we periodically examine how art imitates life and life imitates orienteering.
by Peter Amram
Literary Orienteering, or Lit-O, is not sterile cogitation by professors at Ivory Tower U. English departments but rather a search in books similar to that quest in the woods for little triangular box kites with a code and a recording device
... -
Literary Orienteering #2
In which we periodically examine how art imitates life and life imitates orienteering.
by Peter Amram
The hero of Kim, Rudyard Kipling's classic of adventure and intrigue in India in the late 19th century, is a young Irish orphan, Kimball O'Hara. Kim enters a school specializing in geography and cartography. His covert sponsor for
... -
Literary Orienteering #3
In which we periodically examine how art imitates life and life imitates orienteering.
by Peter Amram
Jim Crawford of NEOC alerted me to yet another instance of Lit-O, in which the written page yields a union of life, art, and orienteering.It was a very high-profile race, featuring a unique chase start,... -
Literary Orienteering #4
In which we periodically examine how art imitates life and life imitates orienteering.
by Peter Amram
In Sermons in Stone, a cheery rumination on that staple of off-trail orienteering in the northeast, the stone wall, the author, Susan Allport, declares:
Taken together, the states of New England and New York
-
iPhone Orienteering
by Peter Amram
My wife’s new iPhone comes with a diminutive booklet of instructions printed in type so small that my O-loupe with 2.75x mag is needed just to bring the letters into focus. (The center of the Pawtuckaway map is pellucid by comparison.) The legal department at Apple seems to have urged more than usual lawyerly elusiveness on whoever wrote the booklet, for it contains no page... -
But cartocontroversy isn't even in my spell check!
by Peter Amram
Mark Monmonier, a professor at Syracuse University, is the author of the 1994 Drawing the Line, tales of maps and cartocontroversy. Prominent among the cartocontroveries are the Vinland Map, a fraud which purports to show pre-Columbian discoveries in the New World,
... -
Caveat Numerator
by Peter Amram
Although Norman Maclean is best known for his 1976 collection of fiction, A River Runs Through It, his posthumously published Young Men and Fire (Chicago, 1992)
... -
An Orienteering Clinic at 221b Baker Street
by Peter Amram
Doctor John Watson, sidekick and chronicler of Sherlock Holmes, had been orienteering poorly for some time. The dialogue below is exerpted from A Scandal in Bohemia, a tale which appears to concern an indiscretion by some petty German king but is in reality crisp O-advice from Holmes, who is invariably first in his class (M155+ as of this year). -
Your Attention, Please!
by Peter Amram
Ever wonder why you missed that strong trail coming in from the left, even though you had a good pace count going? Perplexed about running right by the 2-meter boulder because you were sure it was the nearer one, and you kept going, and going? Just didn’t notice passing over the ruined stone wall that was to have been a collecting feature?
Alex Stone, who
... -
Literary Orienteering #5
In which we periodically examine how art imitates life and life imitates orienteering.
by Peter Amram
The Map Thief, by Michael Blanding (2014), relates the perplexing story of E. Forbes Smiley, III, who made a smooth transition from respected antique map dealer to prolific thief of those same objects.
Smiley, who had access to
... -
Literary Orienteering #6 - Triwizard-O
In which we periodically examine how art imitates life and life imitates orienteering.
by Peter Amram
NEOCer Barbara Lamay has suggested that the travails of a resourceful, if imaginary, lad navigating a perplexing maze might interest orienteers. I was hesitant to engage, because mostly all that I knew about the Harry Potter phenomenon was that Emma
...