Scott Barrett has told me numerous times that the glider will find the core of the lift by itself. I asked him again today to explain himself. First, as you no doubt have experienced, there is an inflow of air (air moving horizontally) toward the core of the thermal. Sometimes this flow is quite strong and you can really feel it. If you are not at the top of the thermal (where it would be flowing outward), the inflowing air would be drawing you toward the core.

If you are in a turn and you hit some lift your nose naturally rises up if you are not holding on hard to the base tube. The high performance gliders are for the most part tuned to wrap in when you push out or increase your angle of attack. The glider will automatically turn more in the direction that you are turning already (wrap up) as its nose is pushed up by rising air. It turns when it encounters lift.

These effects and perhaps others (the differential up and down movements of the under surfaces) may be the explanations for the phenomena of high performance gliders auto coring in the strongest lift if the pilot has a light touch. This is not so much the case on single surface and intermediate gliders.

Oleg Bondarchuk told Kevin Carter, just let the glider find the core.

Of course, you have to be in a thermal and near stronger lift in order for the glider to be able to perform this magic. One of the ways that you can get there is to let the glider do the gliding also. Have a light touch on the base tube and let the glider feel the lift as you glide along looking for lift.