The TAP at the top of the swing

[PVDaddy]

I guess you read my post yesterday?

Postby PVDaddy » Sun Sep 29, 2013 11:23 pm

That being said, may I please make amends for some words I have used in some of my previous post incorrectly. When referring to the downswing (reverse-C) position,I called that a "hollow" position when in fact gymnast call that an Arch and the upswing Hollow. I apologize for my misuse of these terms.

[PVstudent]

I thought I would share this with PVP readers!

The comments are by a Nobel Prize Winner no less!

“You will from time to time meet a patient who shares a disturbing tale of multiple mistakes in his previous treatment. He has seen several clinicians, and all failed him. This patient can lucidly describe how his therapists misunderstood him, but he has quickly perceived that you are different. You share the same feeling, are convinced you understand him, and will be able to help.”

At this point my teacher raised his voice as he said “Do not even think of taking on this patient! Throw him out of the office! He is most likely a psychopath and you will not be able to help him.”

Quote from:
Daniel Kahneman (2011) Thinking Fast and Slow. (pages; 27 – 28) Penguin Books.
ISBN: 9780141033570

Wise words I think.

[PVDaddy]

The pole vault presents two excellent "Tapping action" opportunities for the vaulter to generate additional active energy to the swing and inversion while in the coiled positions of Reverse-C and Inverted-C. Pulling during the downswing destroys the TAP. Pulling during the upswing, as your feet pass the chord, assist it. This tapping action is a full body action while going through and out of the coil and is the same action that gymnast perform on the high bar during the downswing, upswing and dismount. I am convinced Bubka learned these actions very early on in his gymnastic training years and carried them forward to the vault and are of paramount importance to the vaulter for generating maximum energy of the swing, inversion and fly-away. It is of no importance what term you chose to describe this beneficial action, but, only that you perfect it, and exploit it, to full advantage.

[PVDaddy]

So you see a tap is merely a way of generating energy into the swing from a arched or hollow position of the body (coil) whether swinging forward or backward and has evolved as a way to quickly accelerate the speed and power of the swing especially into release moves and dismounts! : You can generate energy into the swing while going into the coil or coming out of it. Believe it or not, the spine has the capacity to coil or uncoil in either direction. It can also generate great energy in either direction during this uncoiling process through the use of the abdomen, back and shoulder muscles. When Bubka is in the Inverse-C position at the top of his swing prior to flyaway, is he not effectively in a coiled arched position? Could not the way Bubks comes out of his Inverse-C considered a form of a tapping motion? Here is what I had to say about it under my Agenda 21 thread under additional ways to add energy to the vault:

After Bubka breaks at the hips and his whip foot shin comes to the top of the pole and he is maintaining pressure on the poles fulcrum (Top hand. Just as he always does from Inverse-C through active-I through L to rock back to invert-I. If he did not the pole would uncoil faster) in that leaned back position (Spine bent) he has additional opportunities to add additional vertical energy to the flyaway and fully exploits them by doing the following:

1) He makes sure his head and shoulders drop back together behind the top arm (ephasis) (The chord of the pole) to serve as a counterweight to help bring the hips and legs up. see saw effect. This also improves his inverted position.

2) As the whip leg meets meets the drive knee from this rocked back position (Spine bent) he forcefully extends the drive leg (Straightens it out) heal skyward along with the whip heal through the hip (powerful muscle group). This adds great inertia to the upward propulsion of the hips and legs.

3) At the same time he forcefully extends the hips (Spine bent) upward by straightening out his spine through the use of his abdomen and back muscles (Also powerful muscle groups) and extends the hip ALL the way to the top arm (It can go no further and he makes FULL use of that range of motion!).

4) Finally he makes full use of the muscles around both shoulders (The last axis of rotation) to straighten the body up along the pole and to bring the hip to his top arm elbow.

ALL 4 OF THESE ACTIONS ALL ADD ADDITIONAL VERTICAL ENERGY TO ONE INTEGRATED SYSTEM AND MUST NOT BE OVERLOOKED!

check it out for yourself (Frames: 10-12) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-UwBaf8f98

[PVDaddy]

This is what Petrov had to say about the ability of the vaulter to create accelerated vertical energy at the top of the swing and how at this point it is maximized! I am convinced that this is what Lavellenie has tapped into so well with his double legged thrust or Tap as well.

Petrov:

When the vaulter is unbending, the pole also has the highest speed of uncoiling
upwards, therefore, the combination of the pole's carrying capacity and the athlete's
unbending movement generates an accelerated thrust upwards, and by the end of the
unbending movement the centroidal axis reaches the maximum vertical speed
(Bubka's speed reached up to 6 m/s). An active turn over onto the shoulders should
end when arms come in use in order to stretch the body along the pole. By this
movement the vaulter maintains the speed of the body's thrust upwards.

[PVstudent]

This is what Petrov had to say about the ability of the vaulter to create accelerated vertical energy at the top of the swing and how at this point it is maximized! I am convinced that this is what Lavellenie has tapped into so well with his double legged thrust or Tap as well.

I note that Petrov does not mention anything remotely resembling a "gymnastics" type tap to describe the "active turn over onto the shoulders". You are barking up the wrong tree with your explanation as to the technique mechanism being applied in the way Petrov describes.

By the way Petrov is an excellent and experienced coach of gymnastics applied to the training of pole vaulters. Neither he or his Italian gymnastics advisor, Canali, have described this mechanism as a "tap".

Why not?

Because the technical demand on the vaulter at this point in the vault, leaves the vaulter is no position literally and metaphorically able to perform this type of action!

Please desist from reinterpreting what Petrov has already clearly stated to suit your own distorted view on what happens in the second phase of pole support and the technique being employed by either Lavillenie or Bubka.

You are out in left field and have a very idiosyncratic view of what is actually being done by these vaulters in particular.

[PVDaddy]

PVstudent take your sophisticated Jargon, charts and otherwise useless crap and distarctions somewhere else! I was delighted to see that Petrovs writing support the very point that I have been making right along that THERE IS A TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY TO ADD ENERGY AT THE TOP OF YOUR SWING AS YOU UNBEND WHILE EXITING INTO FLYAWAY! RECOGNIZING, TRAINING FOR AND EXECUTING THIS ACTION IS WHAT MATTERS AND WHO GIVES A HOOT WHAT YOU CALL IT!


Petrov:
When the vaulter is unbending, the pole also has the highest speed of uncoiling
upwards, therefore, the combination of the pole's carrying capacity and the athlete's
unbending movement generates an accelerated thrust upwards, and by the end of the
unbending movement the centroidal axis reaches the maximum vertical speed
(Bubka's speed reached up to 6 m/s). An active turn over onto the shoulders should
end when arms come in use in order to stretch the body along the pole. By this
movement the vaulter maintains the speed of the body's thrust upwards.

[KirkB]

PVstudent take your sophisticated Jargon, charts and otherwise useless crap and distarctions somewhere else!

Honestly, PVDaddy, you need to look in the mirror. YOUR posts are the ones that are all useless crap and distractions!

PVStudent: I'm sure I speak for most all PVP coaches and athletes that read your PVP posts when I say that your scientific insight into the physics of the PV are very much appreciated!

And your charts, still pics, and other images are also great! A picture really is worth a thousand words!

Yes, your posts are long, and yes, they use scientific language that have us scrambling to our dictionaries, but I look at your writing style in the same way that I look at the legalese in bindable contracts - to be absolutely scientifically precise about these topics, you need to use (and you have used) a vernacular that minimizes misinterpretations.

I also recognize the tremendous amount of time, effort, and patience that you've devoted to this, and that is also very much appreciated.

I was delighted to see that Petrovs writing support the very point that I have been making right along that THERE IS A TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY TO ADD ENERGY AT THE TOP OF YOUR SWING AS YOU UNBEND WHILE EXITING INTO FLYAWAY! RECOGNIZING, TRAINING FOR AND EXECUTING THIS ACTION IS WHAT MATTERS ...

Your "very point" is nothing new - Petrov knew this in the 1980s, and I actually even KNEW it and PRACTICED it, and FELT it in the early 1970s - and I have told you so on more than one occasion in the Advanced Technique forum threads - threads that you have no business commenting on, due to your lack of knowledge of the subject matter. So please don't pretend like you're god's gift to man with your "new" revelations about PV technique.

And don't shift your story when you're caught in a lie! Yes, you're lying about your "very point". Your ORIGINAL point was not just exactly what Petrov has already stated. Your ORIGINAL point was that there is a TAP at the top of the vault! A TAP that you claim to have discovered! This is bunk! Admit it!

And if you're now backtracking on THAT, please quote whoever you heard about the existence of your so-called TAP from.

... AND WHO GIVES A HOOT WHAT YOU CALL IT!

Well, apparently you do, thus the title of this thread, WHICH YOU STARTED! You've been promoting your so-called TAP at the top of the vault for months now, and no one has chimed in to your twisted logic. It is NOT a tap, as myself and PVStudent have already told you - time and time again. And NOW - now that you've been proven wrong, NOW you say "who gives a hoot what you call it"???

You are not a sports biomechanic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_biomechanics) nor an elite vaulter, nor an elite coach, so why do you insist on feeding us your hog-wash?

Are you now prepared to accept that your "tap at the top of the vault" is hog-wash? Or must we continue to listen to you rant about it - even though you have no support in the PV coaching or scientific / biomechanical community about it?

Kirk

[PVDaddy]

Hilarious Kirk! Now that you have come to realize that there is great validity in this very powerful concept, a concept that I did in fact arrive at on my own while studying the art of gymnastic dismounts and how they generate energy coming out of a coiled position into dismounts (Imagination, creativity and critical thinking are very powerful tools and I suggest you learn howto put them to work) you suddenly want to claim that you thought of it first? Please provide your previous post about this here on PVP were you get anywhere close to the detail I have provided? In fact I even claimed that you would do this in the future when you finally came around? I also remember when you laughed at the concept of a Tap at the bottom of the swing and now you do only because Clymer and Werner used that term. Just yesterday I came across Petrov's writing (I have not found this described anywhere before this except for my own description) on this subject and all though I may have read it before, it came home to me for the first time and I am sure the reason for that was because I had previously seen it for myself. It is sad that you require an experts stamp on something before you are open to innovative thoughts and concepts. Not only that, but, it is really sad that you place more emphasis on the the title that one chooses to place on the concept then the concept itself! It is the concept and idea that brings improvement to anything not the title. Let me tell you also that what I have described in detail involves much more then just a rotation of the shoulders (And I did address that) as you say and you are once again only seeing a single tree when in fact there is a forest (I already described every tree I could see)! Finally as far as the title (Tap) I chose to describe this very integrated set of motions at the top of the swing I got that from Gymnastics vernacular used to describe how gymnast generate enormous energy going into and out of dismounts. If you have a superior Title for that action please provide it! Furthermore you claim that I am the one who is not constructive but let me direct you to page one illustrating just how rudely you and others treated me.
Here is what I had to say in response:

Let me get this straight. It was only last week that many of you mocking me here were trying to determine what in fact a "Tap" even was? Then after you got that half figured out , you were trying to determine whether there was a "tapping action", similar to what a gymnast does, available in the vault and whether or not Bubka made use of this? Many concluded that there was (Except Kirk, but he's always closed minded,behind the curve (unstudied) and ignorant (To many ways to name) to anything new, especially if he was not the first to point it out. Who cares? Next month he will be sounding like me. ) and that's great! But now, Altius, Kirk and Eric are now all suddenly such apparent experts on the tap, that they are able to tell me what is not a TAP? My question for you newly founded tap experts is, which one? There are so many types of taps in gymnastics , the Soviet, Chinese, Markelov and Yamakawi tap, just to name a few. The Soviet tap starts from the hollow position and goes to the arched position. The Chinese tap starts in the arched position and goes to the Hollow position. The Markelov is a tap motion while swinging backward in an arched position were the vaulter straightens out at the top of the swing to generate power and height for a release move or dismount.The Yamawaki , A high bar release move first done by Japanese gymnast, Kyoji Yamawaki also involves swinging backward and it involves going from an arch to a reverse foot tap and then back to an arch (double arch) for release or dismount. So you see a tap is merely a way of generating energy into the swing from a arched or hollow position of the body (coil) whether swinging forward or backward and has evolved as a way to quickly accelerate the speed and power of the swing especially into release moves and dismounts!

[PVDaddy]

Let me make one final comment on this subject if I may? I implore all you World class coaches to not dismiss the ENORMOUS potential of generating verticle energy at the bottom and top of your swing while coming out of the coiled position! This is true for the Pole vaulter, Gymnast and Golfer alike. We all sat back and wondered for twenty years if we would ever have an Athlete again with Bubka's athletic stature and technique raise the bar? A small Frenchman who was not as tall, fast or strong and who was average for years continued to work his craft. He brought with him many of the explosive techniques he had learned from performing acrobatic feats on horseback. Even though his technique was in many ways inferior to his idol with his double legged swing, he found a way to generate an enormous amount of energy from it while coming out of it! The rest is HISstory!

[KirkB]

... blah blah blah ... Please provide your previous post about this here on PVP were you get anywhere close to the detail I have provided? ... blah blah blah ...

I won't be doing this because you know full well exactly what I said - I don't need to prove it to you. It's here on this forum, yours to find. I can't be bothered to search for it - I have nothing to prove to you. And I didn't need to provide anywhere near the detail you did. Your detail was totally unnecessary, and way off-base. Just like any other elite vaulter in the ENTIRE fiberglass PV era, I FELT the power of extending off the end of the pole - no need to dissect it in meticulous (and erroneous) detail.

Even Charlie - who's been coaching and vaulting for far more years than I've been coaching and vaulting - by a long shot - "gets" the concept of shooting off the top of the pole "like an arrow"! And yes, adding energy to the vaulter/pole system. Charlie implies that it's the pole's energy doing most of the "shooting", but I think he understands that at the same time, the vaulter is adding energy to the system.

Honestly, PVDaddy, it's not a difficult concept to comprehend. It's not much different than a trampolinist bouncing higher on each boucne - merely by EXTENDING his body each time the potential energy of the elasticized mat EXTENDS him skyward. In fact, this analogy is much closer to what's happening on the top half of a vault than any highbar analogy!

The problem with replying to your drivel and hyperbole, PVDaddy, is that you will just carry on with your crap, and you will continue to rant until we all just give up because you prefer to preach your drivel rather than to listen to reason.

Well, I've given up on you and your drivel long ago, but when you make stupid accusations against one of the most renowned PV coaches/biomechanics on the planet (PVStudent, aka John Gormley - yes, the same John Gormley that assisted Alan Lauder in writing BTB2), I feel compelled to bring some sanity to this thread - and to the entire Advanced Technique forum. However, I think most readers see right thru your drivel. There are strict PVP rules against personal attacks (your weapon of choice), but sadly there's apparently no PVP rules against drivel [sigh].

You are in way over your head, and you are worse than just a minor annoyance - you are misleading readers by your drivel and crap. And THEN you have the gall to suggest that PVStudent is the one that's way off base? Huh?

... blah blah blah ... it is really sad that you place more emphasis on the the title that one chooses to place on the concept then the concept itself! ... blah blah blah ... I chose to describe this very integrated set of motions at the top of the swing I got that from Gymnastics vernacular used to describe how gymnast generate enormous energy going into and out of dismounts. ... blah blah blah ...

Huh? You originally claimed that you (supposedly) discovered that Bubka was doing a TAP at the TOP of his vault. Now that you've found Petrov's comment on this technique, you are backpedalling to say that your "tap" is exactly what Bubka was doing (as described by Petrov), and you're just using a different word to describe it? Huh? Gimme a break! You originally claimed that your IDEA was original - not just the name you gave to it.

Note: A TAP is a gymnastic move that has no relation to any vaulting move at the TOP of a vault. NONE! Bubka did NOT do a TAP at the top of his vault. He did exactly what Petrov described - no mention of a TAP, which is a distinctly different action than an EXTENSION. I seriously doubt that you even know what a tap is, let alone personally experiencing it on the highbar.

In fact, you may be confused on the difference between a KIP and a TAP. These are 2 distinctly different gymnastic actions, and I have seen vaulters (mostly tuck-shooters) KIP at the top of their vaults (Bubka wasn't one of them). Since you've never personally done a KIP or a TAP on a highbar, I doubt if you even understand what I'm talking about. I know EXACTLY what a tap is - as do most elite vaulters. You are confusing ACTIONS with NAMES of ACTIONS.

As to whether there's a TAP at the BOTTOM of the vault, I happen to believe that there's not one there either, and if I choose to debate this topic, I will debate it directly with Clymer and Eric - I certainly don't need you as a middle man to facilitate any discussion about this!

... blah blah blah ... There are so many types of taps in gymnastics ... blah blah blah ... a tap is merely a way of generating energy into the swing from a arched or hollow position of the body (coil) whether swinging forward or backward and has evolved as a way to quickly accelerate the speed and power of the swing especially into release moves and dismounts!

There are many, many differences between the VAULTING gymnastic action and the various HIGHBAR gymnastic actions. Just naming the various types of highbar taps doesn't make you an expert on how they apply to the PV - it just shows that you've read some descriptions of various types of highbar taps on the internet (as if being able to enumerate them gives you expertise about them).

I'll bet you that you didn't find ONE - not ONE - description that explained how the EXTENSION action in the PV was like a TAP on the highbar. In fact, that seems to be your claim to fame - that you personally provided this missing link. You're wrong, PVDaddy, there is no such similarity between a highbar tap and a PV EXTENSION!

I'm hoping that this will be my last post on this topic, but if you say something really stupid in reply, I will probably feel compelled to clarify the matter - once again. [sigh]

Like Altius, I wish you would just go away, as you do more harm than good on this forum.

Kirk

[PVstudent]

Just so readers can see what PVdaddy is claiming in regard to his version of "tap". The video clips show the Markelov to which he referred. I have not shown the Yamawaki.

I also include an exercise that Joe Dial used many years ago when still in high school and I believe jumped 18 feet!

Later of course he set a World Record!

The comparisons as to relevance and the mechanical differences between the Markelov and the Joe Dial rope drill I leave to readers to decide. I have already made abundantly clear what I think about this "tap" in pole vault as promoted by PVdaddy.

http://youtu.be/BnlNDsfi_nM