Need help with plant very badly.

[ACvault]

I had a meet yesterday and I did ok for myself, nowhere near where I need to be. So one of my teamate vaulters said my major problem is I take to many steps and I need to jump earlier when I plant. So I thought, "Ok, I'll work on jumping earlier when I plant and not take too many steps." So today at pratice I did a couple of pop-ups and got my steps. I did a few vaults trying to jump earlier but I still couldn't do it right. So I set up a shoe barrier at my mark where I need to plant my foot and push off. Most of the time I would bail because of the barrier and the other half if I got the jump off I wouldn't even get onto the pit, I would just bend the pole and stall out in mid air. I know someone is going to say to work plant boxes and I do have a wooden one to use but that's a lot easier to get right that actually doing it with a real box.