A very talented beginner

[altius]

http://youtu.be/sc3GZS-D6P4

This clip of Maddie Griffiths was taken from film captured by pvstudent in the past couple of weeks. She was 13 in April and jumped 9'9" in our national under 14 championships as a 12 year old in March. She is obviously very talented physically and is a State level basketball player in her age group - she also has a fantastic attitude and is a joy to work with. She demonstrates our philosophy here, which is to try to build the Petrov/Bubka model from the very beginning - in that way we are laying the foundations for continual development without the continual relearning needed to eliminate faults generated by poor initial instruction. See the reference from Wetter and Bartonietz on page149 of BTB.

So even the first step is taken over the heel of the left foot a la Bubka - the carry and plant are not quite right but getting there - I am very pleased with the take off with its emphasis on moving the pole - the fast swing of the left leg to the chord of the pole (where it arrives still straight) and then on into a position from which she can learn to drive the shoulders under the hips to keep them moving up.

However note that not all of the young athletes who come out to try the vault in Adelaide pick things up an quickly as Maddie has! But the fact that we have a simple, easy to teach, model of vaulting makes an enormous difference.

[altius]

Well come on folks - what must we improve and how do we go about it?????? This is a girl who US coaches will be chasing in two years time - and for a couple of years afterwards - IF she improves critical aspects of her technique.

Do I need to give her a lecture on the way the pole rotates in the box - or is it something simpler than this? Come on you 'experts' -give us the benefit of your wisdom. Now Kirk let other folk have a go first - I don't want them getting all the answers from you!

[cdmilton]

Alan, I'm looking forward to having you in Minneapolis again this summer.

Here is a video of a first year 16 year old girl I have been working with for the past 3 months. She jumped 10'1" two weeks ago in the following video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfWnkz3fE2c

We have been working really hard on her run and takeoff. She is not a naturally good runner and really struggles with her pole drop and in turn the jump off the ground. She is getting much better since then off the runway as shown in the following video and now we are trying to move it over to the pit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGwdfTTv5BQ

[grandevaulter]

Very athletic gal that does a lot on her own. I was once told to be patient with results and get the critical elements grooved by repetition of drills. That was sound advice.

When the young kids hear pole drop, they typically do that, hence causes problems synchronizing the end of the approach and plant stage ( they rely too much on gravity). A controlled pole lowering, plant drills and certain ques that we can give them on the approach does iron these problems out.

We can adhere strictly to the teachings of BTB2 or collect dribs and drabs of information, use internet or old mythical slang terms. Either may work, my program will stick to the terms of the book.

[altius]

"or collect dribs and drabs of information, use internet or old mythical slang terms. Either may work,"

But the first approach will not work as well as the well thought through logical approach based on the advanced technical model used by Bubka = an approach that has been used with great success for many years.