Verticle?! What is the secret?

[HowellVaulter]

I'm a sophomore as of this year and my season is just about to start. I'm jumping 10'5" easily but I want that extra foot. Will going verticle get me it? What are the secrets, if any?

[Robert schmitt]

It is always difficult to answer any question w/o seeing some one vault. From your post I'm assuming you are a male. SO if you are a male jumping 10'5", what I would have you work on is your take off position. If you have a sub par take off position even if you do swing to verticle the pole is not going to release it's energy into you effectivly, you become very inconistent as to where your apex of you vault is and stall out frequently. Most frequently in high schoolers you see this when they are focused on getting up side down at the expense of keeping the pole moving which starts with a good take off postion.
As for as learning what it feels like to swing to verticle some things that will help are pop-ups, high bar work like bubkas, the "sky-pully", rope drills, and pop-ups off a elevated surface (like a table) onto the mat (with supervision).
I'm sure if you were at EB you learned alot of what I mentioned, maybe called by a different name. Keep working an these drills and try not to focus on getting inverted at the expense of the rest of your technique.

[OAKPV2004]

Bend bottom arm in later part of vault. Swing with the shoulders as an Axis of rotation.

[Carolina21]

Its all in your plant. You have to hit an open plant, meaning you can't block the pole and your swing. Lots of people try to bend the pole incorrectly, by reaching in with their arms, stabbing at the box, and pulling on the pole. Reach up above your head with both arms, like you are jumping up to grab a high bar, if you can hit this position getting upside down will be a piece of cake. Of course hitting a plant like that takes some practice. Also strength is big. Even if you can't hit that perfect plant having lots of upper body strength and especially mid-section (ie abdominals and lower back) will help you muscle through your not so stellar plants, and get vertical. Nobody hits it perfect all the time so having the strength there when you need it is important.

[HowellVaulter]

Thankyou, that was all very good advise. I will take all of it into consideration and won't get ahead of myself