Another analogy I’ve been playing around with* is “having an impact isn’t a sprint or a marathon—it’s an endurance hunt.” Things I like about this include:
You’re not competing against other people—you’re trying to succeed at something that (a) is much less structured and (b) may or may not actually be possible
Probably the best strategy isn’t to run a constant, steady pace—depending on how the hunt is going at any given moment, it may suddenly be really valuable to run flat out for a stretch, or it may be fine to maintain a steady jog, walk, or even stop
There isn’t a clear, pre-defined route you should be following—instead, you have to constantly be making the tradeoff between going hard in the direction you think is correct, vs. reorienting yourself and deciding to make a small or large course correction (e.g. based on stopping to read tracks or something)
It’s also not clear how far or how fast you’ll need to go over the course of the hunt, so you need to budget your energy with that uncertainty in mind (which could include consciously making the choice to risk going too hard for a chance at an amazing yield)
If you do go too hard and exhaust or injure yourself, you’re not only hurting your own ability to finish the hunt and participate in future hunts, you’re also likely causing teammates to have to abandon the hunt to help you
I think your analogy about breathing carries over too—just like on a hike, if you’re hunting in a group then no one is helped by you pretending you have more stamina than you do.
Two flaws with this analogy are 1) it’s not the friendliest for vegetarians, lol and 2) there seems to be some controversy over whether persistence hunting is even a thing? Hiking is much better on both of those points!
*Read: started drafting a post, then let it languish for months
FWIW this article has a direct account of persistence hunting among the Tarahumara. It also cites other accounts of persistence hunting among the Kalahari and Saami.
I like this! Thanks for sharing it.
Another analogy I’ve been playing around with* is “having an impact isn’t a sprint or a marathon—it’s an endurance hunt.” Things I like about this include:
You’re not competing against other people—you’re trying to succeed at something that (a) is much less structured and (b) may or may not actually be possible
Probably the best strategy isn’t to run a constant, steady pace—depending on how the hunt is going at any given moment, it may suddenly be really valuable to run flat out for a stretch, or it may be fine to maintain a steady jog, walk, or even stop
There isn’t a clear, pre-defined route you should be following—instead, you have to constantly be making the tradeoff between going hard in the direction you think is correct, vs. reorienting yourself and deciding to make a small or large course correction (e.g. based on stopping to read tracks or something)
It’s also not clear how far or how fast you’ll need to go over the course of the hunt, so you need to budget your energy with that uncertainty in mind (which could include consciously making the choice to risk going too hard for a chance at an amazing yield)
If you do go too hard and exhaust or injure yourself, you’re not only hurting your own ability to finish the hunt and participate in future hunts, you’re also likely causing teammates to have to abandon the hunt to help you
I think your analogy about breathing carries over too—just like on a hike, if you’re hunting in a group then no one is helped by you pretending you have more stamina than you do.
Two flaws with this analogy are 1) it’s not the friendliest for vegetarians, lol and 2) there seems to be some controversy over whether persistence hunting is even a thing? Hiking is much better on both of those points!
*Read: started drafting a post, then let it languish for months
FWIW this article has a direct account of persistence hunting among the Tarahumara. It also cites other accounts of persistence hunting among the Kalahari and Saami.