Beginners

[grandevaulter]

http://youtu.be/mI4z4aYZlBg
I was thinking about generating some incredible formula to break the world record and come up with a move by move technical model based upon my own interpretation of some foreign speaking people that I've never talked to. Then I woke up from my dream.

Here is a young gal, 14 years, that I started the BTB2 training with a little over a year ago. She has gone from 6' to 9' in this time. When she is able to break at the hips and keep swinging the feet up, she'll be over 10'. Look for more "REAL WORLD" videos from this kid. Also top ten 1600m and top ten 800m in Michigan MS. Not a sprinter.

[altius]

I think 20/20s would help!

[grandevaulter]

Big day at the State meet. The snow and cold have ceased and I'm now sun burned. One sixth place in the vault and a fourth in the discus. Our boys team, runner up. Great year, I'm ready for the summer fun meets, time to lace up the cleats for this old bald headed, large sized vaulter.

I might try to learn French this summer so I can give RL a call and diasect his technique so I can become an expert.

[altius]

might try to learn French this summer so I can give RL a call and diasect his technique so I can become an expert.

Great minds do think alike! I am hoping to meet up with his coach this summer and find out the origins of his ideas. If he doesn't mention Petrov in the first sentence I will eat my proverbial hat!

[grandevaulter]

I am hoping to meet up with his coach this summer and find out the origins of his ideas.

You my friend, will probably do that. I doubt if he'll take my call, even with my best French Accent.

But I have accepted that in the "Real World" doing the little things extraordinarily well, over a "realistic" period of time, produces great results.

[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 hips 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