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Because I still can't swing up and am trying to figure out why I wanted to know if I'm "Blocking" with my left arm which could be a cause. So I've got a picture here which should help

There are two things to consider...

1. The positioning of your bottom hand/wrist on the pole. If the wrist is more to the SIDE of the pole, you can't possibly 'block out'. Your arm actually doesn't look too stiff in this picture, but it's easy to imagine that it was an instant before this piece of your vault.

2. The trail-leg. It must stay LONG LONG LONG! That is just as big (if not bigger) a reason for your troulbes with swinging up to 'cover the pole' as blocking is. Do you do any work on the high bar?

Do you have any film of your vaults?

How long is your pole?
How high is your grip?
What's your weight?
How tall are you?
What year in HS are you?
How many years (or months) have you been vaulting?
What's the pole's weight rating?
How high is the bar in this pic?
What's your PR?
How many lefts are you running?

Our advice to you will vary according to the answers to these questions.

BTW, I see that the blue pit has green sections covering the standards, but there's a big gap between them. This is a very dangerous situation ... what if you fell between them?

I know it's not your pit ... you're just jumping in a meet there ... but I think every vaulter ... parent ... and coach has a responsibility to speak up and complain to the PV officials if they see an unsafe vaulting setup. That's why I'm speaking up. It would probably be a simple adjustment to close that gap between the blue and the green sections. Someone just needs to realize that it's unsafe, and then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Safety first!

KIrk

How long is your pole? - 13'6''
How high is your grip? - 12'10''
What's your weight? - 148
How tall are you? - 5'10''
What year in HS are you? - Sophmore
How many years (or months) have you been vaulting? - 1
What's the pole's weight rating? - 155
How high is the bar in this pic? - 10'6''
What's your PR? - 11'6'' (I got mono in the fall and my pr this year is 10'6'')
How many lefts are you running? - 6

I think you should lower your grip and increase your pole weight. You need to learn to swing from your top hand before you start worrying about what to do with your bottom hand. Really, the swinging from the top hand is the most important thing for you to learn at your level. I think you're worrying about trying to bend the pole too much, instead of sticking to "the basics".

I'm not very experienced at coaching vaulters in your PR range, so I'm hoping that someone else can give you more details than this.

Kirk