Who is qualified to give technical advice on pole vaulting?

[ashcraftpv]

novice vaulters are perfectly capable of giving sound advice, as long as they've been taught properly. coaches can also be capable of giving terrible advice. it all really comes down to the community regulating itself, whether it be an elite level coach correcting someone's advice or a beginning high school vaulter merely asking the question, "is that safe?".

The purpose of these forums is to facilitate discussion and the sharing of ideas. If you see something you don't agree with, there's nothing wrong with questioning it, as long as you do it in a polite manner.

[vault3rb0y]

I agree with both posts above, and sharing of ideas is GREAT. But as i discovered by reading what rainbowgirl and others had to say, i realized that the video analysis probably should be left to the very experienced. If its general questions about the vault, many people can have an answer, but people posting their videos on here (as i realized) arent looking for another high schooler to critique them, they are looking for the elite coaches opinions.

[vault3rb0y]

Simply put in the US we have to many coaches and not enough pure athletes. Honestly one of the worst things I see is at high school meets when everyone is trying to coach a kid. How is this helping them if you have never worked with them before. You know nothing about their training, experience or knowledge. I had a young lady once who jumped 11.5 feet in high school and she was at a meet and cleared a bar and some other guy vaulter came up to her after and started telling her what she was doing wrong. She simply looked at him with a cute smile and said, "Thank you for the advice, but your not my coach, if you want to hit on me thats one thing, but I don't need your advice on the vault." I couldnt' stop laughing.

There is absolutly nothing wrong with becoming a student of your sport, learn as much as you can from as many people as you can, but first and foremost be an athlete. Honestly, if another vaulter really wanted to know what to do they would find someone to work with. If someone asks you go hey man you should talk to this guy or girl they have really helped me. We have a little vaulting group come check us out.

To many simple want the quick answer and won't take the time to learn things the right way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a recreational vaulter. As long as they are safe who cares. Not everyone is going to be good at this sport. A certain percentage is doing it for fun and the less they are coached the better. If they are safe let them be. Others what more and those are the ones that are willing to seek out coaching.

A perfect example would be what would you rather do play a game of pick up basketball or sit alone and practice your layups and free throws.

Those that are willing to be alone and practice will take this sport to the next level. If your in that realm find a coach in your area and use that person as much as they can help you. Then progress till you find someone who can help you acheive the level you want (pick the right college).


Simply put if your #1 goal is you, as an athlete, than you shouldn't coach. Enjoy being an athlete cause you will hit a point when your body won't allow it anymore. Then you can sit back and talk about the good old days.

well said! i like it, and ill take the advice while i can still compete!!

[nitro]

this forum is made to help people and i think if u personally think u are helping the person then you should post but if you are one of those elite coaches or one how really knows wats going on they should step up and say if something is wrong so that the person that needed help really gets it....just of what ive seen and done high schoolers like me give small advice like move back a lil or raise the grip up or down but i remember altius gave the best advice because he knew so much and went threw the details of how to do it in many steps but he left because of people talking about what to do when they were wrong.... so i think anyone should give advice but just admit if your wrong and leave the complicated stuff to the experts

[vault3rb0y]

this forum is made to help people and i think if u personally think u are helping the person then you should post but if you are one of those elite coaches or one how really knows wats going on they should step up and say if something is wrong so that the person that needed help really gets it....just of what ive seen and done high schoolers like me give small advice like move back a lil or raise the grip up or down but i remember altius gave the best advice because he knew so much and went threw the details of how to do it in many steps but he left because of people talking about what to do when they were wrong.... so i think anyone should give advice but just admit if your wrong and leave the complicated stuff to the experts

pretty well said, i'd have to say i agree with that one.

[KYSEAMAN]

this forum is made to help people and i think if u personally think u are helping the person then you should post but if you are one of those elite coaches or one how really knows wats going on they should step up and say if something is wrong so that the person that needed help really gets it....just of what ive seen and done high schoolers like me give small advice like move back a lil or raise the grip up or down but i remember altius gave the best advice because he knew so much and went threw the details of how to do it in many steps but he left because of people talking about what to do when they were wrong.... so i think anyone should give advice but just admit if your wrong and leave the complicated stuff to the experts

agreed

[rainbowgirl28]

I had a young lady once who jumped 11.5 feet in high school and she was at a meet and cleared a bar and some other guy vaulter came up to her after and started telling her what she was doing wrong. She simply looked at him with a cute smile and said, "Thank you for the advice, but your not my coach, if you want to hit on me thats one thing, but I don't need your advice on the vault." I couldnt' stop laughing.

That is GREAT. Tell her I want her to sign up for the board and let me know so I can add her to the Girls Only forum.

[MightyMouse]

How about listing credentials next to your name (like below your location) - so we can have a bit of an idea who is legit?

Because I would have to MOD the board to do that, which I don't have the skills to do, and it causes problems when you upgrade the board.

I used to have a thing that listed age, but it died when I upgraded the board a year or two ago.

I have to keep the board up to date because of security issues.

We could ask people to put it in their signature? Im sure most would.
Im not sure how much help it would be though, now that I think about it?

[master]

We could ask people to put it in their signature? Im sure most would.
Im not sure how much help it would be though, now that I think about it?

I think you may have a good idea. And, I think it can help. There are a lot of people who come on the this board looking for help (usually in hopes of a quick fix) that just simply don't know any better. So they might listen to who ever is willing to write a reply. Until they have been on the board for a month or two and read a lot of posts and responses, they won't have any idea which people's advice they should give the most attention to. Some kind of a common format, simple description of experience might be helpful. It could be in a signature as you suggested (I just wrote a sample below my signature) or it could be posted in a topic just for this info. In that topic would be a place where a reader could check "credentials". There already is something like this in the Coaches forum. It isn't exactly the same, but similar.
http://www.polevaultpower.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9544

- master
HS PR 13'4" - 1964 College PR 14'7" 1968 (7 years vaulting)
Masters vaulter since 2003 - PR 4.0m - 60-64 age group WR at 3.96m
Volunteer HS vault coach since 2004

[smokinvaulter1]

By the way I am 27 and Still vaulting IN fayetteville Arkansas So bring it.

[MightyMouse]

We could ask people to put it in their signature? Im sure most would.
Im not sure how much help it would be though, now that I think about it?

I think you may have a good idea. And, I think it can help. There are a lot of people who come on the this board looking for help (usually in hopes of a quick fix) that just simply don't know any better. So they might listen to who ever is willing to write a reply. Until they have been on the board for a month or two and read a lot of posts and responses, they won't have any idea which people's advice they should give the most attention to. Some kind of a common format, simple description of experience might be helpful. It could be in a signature as you suggested (I just wrote a sample below my signature) or it could be posted in a topic just for this info. In that topic would be a place where a reader could check "credentials". There already is something like this in the Coaches forum. It isn't exactly the same, but similar.
http://www.polevaultpower.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9544

- master
HS PR 13'4" - 1964 College PR 14'7" 1968 (7 years vaulting)
Masters vaulter since 2003 - PR 4.0m - 60-64 age group WR at 3.96m
Volunteer HS vault coach since 2004

Theres mine v not very prestigious but im working on it

[souleman]

I've been watching this and the other thread for a while and thought I'd chime in. I'm a little dissapointed in what I am seeing. I didn't realize that we were as a group as segmented as we are. Personally, I think a youngster is perfectly capable of reading BTB, and watching any number of videos of Bubka and other world classers and understand what they do. Therefore, that being said, I would have no problem getting advise from one of those youngsters if they qualified their coment by simply adding, "what I see is...........and according to BTB you should be...............", Or "my coach Jan Johnson, Kevin Hanson, Alan Launder, Bubba Sparks or (many others),says you should do................. and here's what I do to apply what they've said". I as well, get a tad tired of seeing many of (what seems to be) the same "quick fix" questions come up on the forum. On the other hand, I'm not sitting there with the athlete when he or she is asking the question. So it's not my place to prejudge the athletes' intent. As a coach, I will answer the question again and again and again if need be, and of course if I'm sure I'm correct with my answer I will answer it the same way. You may notice I don't often contribute to the video critique threads much because even though I think I might have a fix on a particular area of technique, I defer to those who know more about vaulting than me most of the time. I do look at the videos and read what people say and then watch the video again and see if I agree. A forum is a place of discussion by all who are involved with a particular activity. When we limit contributors, we limit points of view. I believe all of us here are smart enough to make our own choices as to what will work for us. I do have a solution for the question arising regarding who can contribute to the Technique thread. Simply put a link to Bubkas 611 video on or in the thread. Whenever a technique question comes up, it automatically inserts that link and informs the person asking the question to "watch the video and DO THIS". Problem solved. Later...........Mike