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Tracking Challenge - the easier one

18/12/2011

4 Comments

 
Picture
Recognising this pair of tracks will be fairly to easy to many people. 

But ask yourself - would you still be able to pick the species if you had only seen the track on the right-hand side of the photo?

How about from a distance?

While walking?

It's good to pay attention to the easier tracks - the ones we know we can see, as opposed to the ones we are pretty sure we can see. 

The more clear print tracks we pay attention to, the clearer the search image we build in our minds. And having a clear, strong search image is a huge part of being able to track effectively.

Think about something you know really well. The face of a family member, for instance, or your favourite song. Because you have a such a clear brain pattern linked to that face, or that melody, you can still recognise it instantly even when you only have a partial match. 

For example, it only takes the first few notes of that song for you to recognise it, and you can spot a family member out of the corner of your eye in a crowded room.

Of course to get a really clear search image for tracking animals, we really need to examine the animal itself. And not just once, but may times. It's partly why you often see people in indigenous cultures paying rapt attention to a newly killed animal - touching it, stroking it, moving its feet and limbs and really focusing their attention. 

There is gratitude and reverence in their actions, and there is also the ever ravenous, ever questioning, curiosity of the tracker.

And by the way - if you were sure you recognised those tracks, how can you tell which species it is?

Not to mention the myriad other questions we could ask;

How fast was it moving?
When were those tracks left?
How old? How healthy? What gender? and on and on and on..

And, initially, we ask those questions not so as to answer every one of them but to open our minds, our awareness to absorb more and more of the track. 

We ask, seeking to make our search image as rich, as subtle, as complex, as real as the thing we are tracking.

a tracker is a scholar of that which is real

Hmm. Maybe there's no such thing as an easy track after all...
4 Comments
Marcos
25/12/2011 09:34:07 pm

- How fast was it moving?
I would say it stop for a bit there, because there are many ridges pointing to many places, then it took off, probably to the right?
- When were those tracks left?
Very fresh, maybe less than an hour before you took the picture?
How old? How healthy? What gender?
I would go with young lad, there is a livehood in the track that only young guys have, but how can you tell the gender Lee?

Reply
Lee
26/12/2011 01:04:15 pm

Good tracking, and good questions, Marcos.
Have a look at those ridges again - are they pressure releases? A lot of them look to me like the scaly texture of the skin, rather than energy released. Does that change your assessment?

And the way it looks deeper on the left, as though it jumped to the right... What if that were a 'landscape-imposed distortion'? ie the ground was softer on the left.

I agree, less than an hour. I'd even say less than 15min.

As for gender, that's the realm of macro and micro pressure releases. Beth and I are working towards holding a workshop on those, later in the year. Be great to see you there!

Happy Holidays, Marcos.

Reply
Marcos
4/3/2012 09:57:22 am

Sorry for taken so long, questions that can arise from a single track can be infinite ;)
It definitely change my assessment. You are right, what I took for lateral ridges are most likely simply the natural baseline of that muddy surface... I would say it didn't stop at all, but I still think it did went to right of the picture, not only because the left print has more energy on it, it might be from the soil there being softer, but also because the right print is a little ahead and with a pitch to the right... the only way to be sure is finding the next track, which I'm sure you found it... am I right?
Oh yeah, I hope to be there for that workshop!

Erlanger escorts link
21/9/2012 07:35:51 am

First time here at your blog and wanted to say hi.

Reply



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