Discussion Am I the only one?

I can distinguish it since when I was young, the "draw a line from left to right" thing for Chinese got pounded in my head and since then... easy peasy lol

 

East and west... That's a whole new level of madness

 

Do you not know which side of your body is the dominant side? Are you a righty or a lefty? Which hand do you write with? Which leg do you kick with? Once you've established this, then you have a natural reference.

 

T

That's how i did it, although I still got confused at times

 

I still can't determine east or west just like that...

I've tried to memorize but in the nick of the moment I draw blank

 

not that I actually distinguish left vs right, but...

Right Hand-kun?

 

Oh my god same! I usually have to do the L thing or remember which hand I write with. It's so embarrassing and everyone in my family sorta makes fun of me for it -_- and I definitely could never figure out what to do if someone told me to go east or west...

 

NEWS or Never Eat Soggy Waffles.

My grandpa taught me how to use compasses but for some reason mf never taught me how to read maps.

Deadass "I know which direction we can walk to but I have no fucking clue where we are though so do with that information as you will"

 

You write with your right hand, that is a memonic that I use to remember. As for East and West, it's unreliable since you don't have a fixed orientation to where you are facing. Those that can answer instantly are either familiar with the area i.e that big mountain/church/landmark is in the North so East should be to the right, or they are paying attention to their surroundings that they are correcting for the movement in their heads to find out the direction. It can be trained. It's called "Dead Reckoning" or "Deduced Reckoning" when you navigate with it.

Or just look at the time. If it is in the morning, the direction the sun is would be the East while evening, it would be the West, errors of orbital inclination not withstanding. Afternoon? Prop a stick into the ground straight up. Mark the shadow. Wait an hour. Take another reading. The direction the 1st and 2nd reading is pointing to is the East.

All these can be learned and trained. 20 years in Recon. You learn things like that.

 

I can distinguish left and right using my hands as reference because I'm right-handed but it still confuses me sometimes. Distinguishing which one's west or east is difficult for me unless it's sunrise.