Tracking and Gaming

Sometimes to de-stress I do a little bit of gaming on my Xbox 360 and today I was thinking of an overlap of gaming tracking and natural navigation. In the types of games that I play you generaly have an option of how you view the world. You can play through the first person view also called remote person view; this is where you view events or pilot a craft from the pilots views. You look left you see what is left and vice versa. This is like our everyday life where we see what we look at or listen to. Here is an example from hunting a wolf with a bow in Skyrim:

In tracking there are two perspective views the Zone in and the Zone out. First, I am going to address the Zone out. The zone out is much like the Virtual camera system in gaming where it plots the character on the landscape. This is called third person perspective. Here below is a picture of an archer as a part of the landscape:

If I were to zoom out further the person would be smaller and you would see more of the landscape. this is where gaming can be used as a metaphor for yourself as an example to help you picture what I am writing about. You would be able to see yourself in relation to other people and animals on the same landscape. If you had studied natural navigation you would know why the landscape is shaped the way it is, what has influenced it and where you are within the landscape without having to look at the compass or revert to the map. The compass and map are useful and often necessary tools however being able to plot yourself on the landscape in an instinctual way will make your tracking much more fluid and faster. You can also plot the animal or person that you are tracking and what natural influence will become boundaries, fencing them in and helping you to know where to plot them on the landscape.

The Zone in is much harder to explain using gaming as a metaphor. So to recap, your everyday view is like first person perspective, the Zone out is a bit like a zoomed out third person perspective so what perspective is the Zone in like?

To me it is a bit like what I call the sub surface perspective or what others have called the split screen where the components separate. It is easier to show than to explain:

In this screen you are seeing in and through all of the graphics and under streets. In Tracking the Zone in is where you really slow down your senses in order to speed them up. It is when your awareness is heightened and you are observing a lot more. A better example or metaphor than computer graphics that I use to explain the Zone in is changing from one speed zone to another in driving; especially if the contrast is stark; for example driving at 70ish on the motorway and then having to drop to a 30 mph zone. For a little while you seem to be aware of so much as your senses is observing at high speed while your brain is being challenged at a lower rate. To do this in tracking you need to adjust yourself away from normal life to being in a tracking frame of mind. To start off with it is better to sit down  for a while and detox your mind of all your hastles and start to truelly observe the sights, smells, sounds, textures and tastes that suround you. After some practice you can make this transition in a faster more fluid way and detox your mind and senses from all the junk that clogs them up. I guess this is why I love tracking and natural navigation so much. Both help me to see the world in much more detail, both use awareness as the anvil upon which the twin hammers of tracking and natural navigation pound against. I would go so far as to say that a good tracker should make a good natural navigator and vice versa as both are highly versed in utilising awareness and perspective.

Look back to the first picture and imagine that you could push a button and change the perspective from that of the hunter to that of the wolf. One minute you are looking through the hunters eyes and the next you are looking through the wolves eyes. This is a visualising perspective where the more you know about the animal and its habits the more accurately you can put yourself it its paws or shoes and know where to look for tracks

Buying a couple of new axes.

Well, I am going to have very limited tracking and camping this year as I have ended up with a very painful rotator cuff tear in my left shoulder. It is so painful that my driving is limited to 20 minutes at a time. This is curtailing a lot of my plans for 2012 and I am having to rethink them while I heal up. I have my annual budget that I usually spend on these activities but am now going to focus on getting a few new bits of gear that I have had my eye on but have not bought as I would rather spend the money on transport to track or camp in a different place.

Over the last few years I have had the opportunity to carve a few spoons and am planning on continuing with that and progressing onto kuksa cups, bowls and canoe paddles. I have been looking at getting a new axe to use when carving and am struggling to make my final decision as to which I will get. I have a little choice in that as it s my 40th birtday this year I am going to spash out and buy two new axes.

At the moment I am looking at a Roselli as seen in this pic below. I came across this in this blog:

http://spooncarvingfirststeps.blogspot.com/

I have been following spoon carving first steps for a wee while now and find it quite inspiring. Thank you Jon Mac.

The other axe that I am seriously considering is the Gransfor Bruk Swedish Carving Axe.

I have used one of these axes and enjoyed using it. The one that I had the opportunity to try out had a single bevel and was designed for a right handed user. It did feel strange and tended to dig in a bit. Gransfor also do them with the standard two sided bevel. This is where my quandry lies. Do I get the single sided bevel or the one with the bevel on both sides? Or are there better axes out there for carving with that I have not heard of ????

http://greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/search/label/axes This link belongs to Robin Wood who is another blogger that I follow. In this he would tend to go for the bevel on both sides as it can then be used as a more allround bushcraft axe. I see some strong logic in this.

The other tools that I am planning on buying are a couple of mocotaugans or crooked knives. As far as carving canoe paddles I hape to get to the stage of making them with only the axe and crooked knife. I suppose all of this gear shopping is to motivate myself for getting healed up from this injury. I have another 4 weeks of physio then it is onto steroid injections. I just hope that with resting that it does not have to go to surgery.

While it is healing I am limited to reading about what I normally prefer to do. Really hope this retail therapy helps with the cabin fever that is starting to settle in.