Every course above yellow standard will have pictorial control descriptions to give more information about the control. Some of these are really easy to work out, but there are some more awkward looking ones. For example, most people will be able to guess this one:
On the other hand, how many people will guess this one?
Reading control descriptions is essential to help your orienteering get better – if you don’t read them, you can end up on the wrong side of a building or a wall very easily, just because you forgot to look, and it can take a lot of time to get round again. (By the way, the first one above is a distinctive tree, the harder one is an anthill)
Before a big event, I always make sure to go over all the control descriptions, because there are some that come up so rarely I wouldn’t recognise them. Click the link here and print it out, and learn the descriptions well – it helps a lot if you know them.
At national events like the JIRCs, JHIs and JK, you will be given your sheet of control descriptions only a couple of minutes before the start, so there isn’t any time to discuss them with a friend – make sure you recognise them all.
Paul Pruzina 15/4/2013