Navigation training for selection
Navigation is the skill applicants leave until last and then discover under pressure, tired, in bad weather, in the dark. Practise it from the start, on your own, on real ground, and deliberately in conditions you would rather avoid — competence here saves hours that fitness cannot buy back.
Why it decides days
Getting lost costs distance and, worse, it costs confidence and time. Two equally fit people can finish a long day hours apart purely on route choice and accuracy.
Practise tired and in the dark
Navigating fresh in daylight is a different skill from navigating at the end of a long day with a headtorch and rain on the map. Build the second one deliberately: put the navigation at the end of the session, not the start.
Do it alone
Practising with someone competent means you are watching, not navigating. Go by yourself, make your own mistakes and correct them — that is the only way it sticks.
Pair it with the load
Combine navigation with your weekly loaded hill day. It is the closest honest rehearsal of the real thing, and it stops navigation from being a separate hobby you never get round to.
A note on accuracy
Entry criteria, standards and selection dates are set by the Army and change over time. Take anything current from the Army's own UK Special Forces Reserve pages; take everything below as one applicant's experience.
Get my 21 SAS reserve selection prep guide
What the stages are, what I was training to before I applied, and how I'd build the twelve weeks before a selection weekend. Written from my own application, free, no pitch.