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How long does it take to learn it?
And how long will it take for me to reap its benefits?
I have this summer, a 4 week winter break, and 3 years left of highschool.

In all honesty, this is kind of a silly question...

powerplant in all honesty, i know you know a good deal about the vault and have been on here a while, but that doesnt give you the right to antagonize and be mean to other people on here. If you have something to say, put it in a nice way and stop being so snooty.

That is not a bad question, Split. Now is the perfect time to take on a petrov-style approach to vaulting, and you can see benefits from a week from now until the day you are done vaulting, because the model gives you the opportunity to keep improving, if you do things right.

Depending on where you live, you might try to find a club or coach to vault with who knows and practices the principles of petrov. If you cannot do that, definitely attend camps like slippery rock's (http://www.polevaultpower.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14388) and learn the technique from guys who have met and worked with petrov personally. You can take a lot away from a camp like that, and it will get you on the right track. But having a technique coach is vital in high school for continued success. As a general rule, learn as MUCH from as MANY coaches as you can.

You wont regret it, because when you start improving with the petrov model, you will be hooked on pole vault for life .

I guess you're right, I shouldn't have been like that... I guess I didn't think through my post...

Split: It all depends. (This is what I was trying to get at before...) It depends on who you're working with, how hard you work, what you work on, how long you work on it, etc., etc., etc... How long will it take for me to learn calculus? You see what I'm saying? If you get access to the best advice out there, get a really good coach, work hard (and just as important, INTELLIGENTLY,) and take advantage of opportunities (like camps/clubs/competitions, then you could definitely get a very good grasp of the Petrov model within maybe 6 months and be vaulting anywhere from 13'-15'. Like I said, (and meant before,) it all depends!

I should have explained this better. I had heard that it took two years. Being the only returning vaulter at my school, and being only a freshman, my coach wants me to learn the Petrov Model. The whole two years thing discouraged me though, because it meant we would be losing a lot of points while I learned how to vault again.

Split wrote:The whole two years thing discouraged me though, because it meant we would be losing a lot of points while I learned how to vault again.

No you won't. Learning the petrov fundamentals competently will take you higher faster than anything else. Unless your vaulting habits are so ingrained and so much in contrast with the petrov model that there is no overlap whatsoever (which would require you having vaulted that way with great frequency over a long period of time) then you would most likely progress faster anyway.

I vaulted with what I can only describe as a pseudo-American decathlete style for 4 years before switching to petrov and PRed by 50cm the first season (in one meet, no less) which was the greatest margin of PRing I'd had to date in a single year since I started, let alone alone just a season or just a meet. And all this was on my own without a petrov-style coach either.

Perhaps it would take two years to gain a good level of mastery of all the elements of the petrov technique, but you can still benefit from bettering some elements or even one element of your technique immediately.

And it's not like you're starting from a blank state anyway. Your old vault isn't going to disappear overnight, you'll have to gradually change elements of it to match the new model. To the extent that an element of your current vault helps you, it probably resembles the Petrov technique already. And to the extent that an element of your technique is dissimilar from the petrov model, it's probably holding you back so removing it won't hurt anyway.

Split wrote:How long does it take to learn it?

A lifetime. Food for thought.

The key is, learning the model properly, will bring results as your learn it. It's not like you won't p.r. with the petrov model untill 2 years later or anything, and to be honest, the petrov model probably won't be completely "learned" by 2 years. However, it will bring better and quicker results than any other model, provided you have proper coaching or you do some reading and try to learn it yourself. If you don't have a coach, try reading Beginner to Bubka. You can find it on the polevaultpower store and at www.neovault.com.

I highly recommend you learn the model, especially before you start to pick up some bad habits.

Let me throw something out there for newcomers to the model and pole vaulting: if you train incorrectly and see major improvements immediately, be prepared to stay at that level and not improve any more. There are certain things, like a tuck and shoot vault (not Tim McMichael's model, not going to get into that because it's already been discussed on here for a century,) or a power vault (like Ockert Britts). I'm just giving a warning: KNOW YOUR STUFF BEFORE YOU GO OUT AND TRAIN, OR HAVE SOMEONE WHO KNOWS THEIR STUFF COACH YOU, OR ELSE YOU COULD INDEFINITELY LIMIT YOUR OWN POTENTIAL!