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Hey everyone, since I've been laid up for a while, I've had the opportunity to develop my walking plant. Of course, I still have plenty of room for improvement, and I will be 'out' for plenty more time! Please help me out!

The pole is a 15' 170. I'm attempting to exaggerate the 'pre' pre-jump by keeping the pole tip higher up than normal (didn't work for some of them).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QLUYi4EEVk

What patterns I see are a downward head, and a tendency to lean back slightly. I'm also slightly late, but I can't exactly pinpoint 'how' (if that makes sense at all).

Thanks!

Keep your head up. Try to focus your eyes forward instead of downward at the plug. I know that you know that will get your upper body taller. You are leaning forward slightly because when doing this drill slowly, you are forced to carry the weight of the pole. If possible, put a bounce into your step and keep your "turnover" the same as it would be during competition. This way you can drop the pole and let it be weightless. Try doing this without a bottom hand even, and you will get a true sense of a weightless pole drop. Then just put your bottom hand back on to stabilize. Do this very controlled at first, but after a few try to do it in "real-time" without thinking, because when you start taking real jumps you wont have time to think about your plant sequence, you want it to be second nature. Also, when you are ready to do these with a little bounce in your step, try to "pop" at your take off just before the pole hits the back. Get used to the feeling of being in the air without the pole on the ground. Focus on control, consistency, and being tall at take off.

You are already doing most of these things, just re-iterating. With as much visualization as you are doing, im sure when you start vaulting again you will see results almost immediately.

Thanks!

I really can't believe how bad my head is... Sometimes I feel it, but I never really try to correct it. It'll end up being impossible to get rid of if I don't stop doing it now!

U'll be just fine. When you do ALL your drills, try not to think too much about what you are doing- let it come natural. Visualize an ACTUAL vault when doing pole runs, ring swings, drops, etc. Then have someone watching you tell you what to change. It's hard to think about both at the same time while making the action second nature.

It's weird... I just feel like for some reason I have to watch the pole tip during those plants! GOTTA fix that.

Visualize an ACTUAL vault when doing pole runs, ring swings, drops, etc. Then have someone watching you tell you what to change.

I should definitely try to make my drills more 'real'. I feel I do that most/best with 'run-swings' on the high bar. However, I really have nobody willing and/or qualified to give me any suggestions on most things within miles!

PP, 3P0's advice to you re the weightlessness of the pole is spot on.

You mentioned that you used a 170# pole for this drill, and I assume that's heavier than your normal pole. I also assume that your rationale for this might be along the lines of learning to plant with a heavy pole, and then when you plant with your normal pole, it will seem that much easier because it's lighter?

If that's your assumption, then may I suggest the opposite tactic?

Practice your walking plants with a LIGHTER pole than usual. That will give you a better feel for how it should work/feel when the pole's "essentially weightless". Once you improve your plant with that pole, then move on to a heavier one. (I'm talking about weeks or months later ... not days.)

There's no problem practicing some plants with as heavy of a pole as possible. But that should be just to try to make it "weightless". And when you do that, consider it more of a "weighlifting drill" than a "technique drill".

The "technique drill" should FIRST be with a pole that makes the motions as easy as possible. If you use a HEAVY pole too early, you will compromise your planting technique due to the weight of the pole.

I hope this helps ... in case you weren't already thinking this way.

Kirk

Yeah I get what you're saying... the smaller pole will feel more like my competition pole does during a regular run while I'm walking. That makes sense... What I use the larger pole for is auto-correction (as well as aiming for the feeling of making other poles seem small). If I don't do something right, I feel it right away! And when I DO do things nearly perfectly, the pole does indeed feel almost weightless. However, I'll definitely try using a small pole too in my next practices... I'll split it about 50/50. I'll focus on increasing cadence slightly as I get closer to the take-off step, and I'll keep my head UP!

powerplant42 wrote:It's weird... I just feel like for some reason I have to watch the pole tip during those plants! GOTTA fix that.

PP, you should not be too surprised at this advice ...

When you're planting the pole, you DON'T have to watch the pole tip. You need to FEEL where it is. You'll find by experience (10,000+ reps or 10,000+ hours) where the pole tip is by FEELING where it is.

As Yoda said to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars:

You must feel the Force around you.

Actually, this is not a perfect analogy ... but Yoda always impressed me ... by the wisdom of his words.

He's not really talking about sensory feedback from nerve endings ... he's talking about a sixth sense ... "the force". But I'm talking about your sensory-feedback system - from your nerve endings. The sense of "touch". Your nerve endings communicate to your brain where your pole tip is. You'll get it into the box 100 times out of 100 ... not because you're WATCHING it, but because you KNOW where it is ... by FEEL.

Trust that this sensory system is MUCH more reliable than your eyes, and it communicates with your brain just as fast as your eyes do.

BTW, this applies not just to the plant where you COULD just watch your pole tip. But as you're running down the runway with a high pole carry, do you look up to see where the tip is? Of course not! And as you're swinging on the pole, what exactly do you LOOK at to know where you're at in relation to the pole? Answer: If you use your sensory-feedback system as your "eyes", then it doesn't matter where your eyes focus!

Same goes for dribbling or shooting a basketball. You don't need to watch the ball to know where it is. Instead, you look at the basket, or at the other players on the court. You KNOW where the the ball is! You FEEL where it is!

Kirk

Same goes for dribbling or shooting a basketball. You don't need to watch the ball to know where it is. Instead, you look at the basket, or at the other players on the court. You KNOW where the the ball is! You FEEL where it is!

YES!

Sometimes though I look at the ground though... I don't think it really has so much to do with worrying about where the pole tip is as to do with something less tangible.

This will be my focus in the upcoming week. Expect some more video then, with heavy AND light poles!

KirkB wrote:Practice your walking plants with a LIGHTER pole than usual. That will give you a better feel for how it should work/feel when the pole's "essentially weightless".

I agree with Kirk's thinking on not using a heavy pole in the way you have. Another way to achieve the same intent is to use your regular pole (or a slightly heavier) one and just hold it down, more toward the middle. By doing this, you will have the feel (diameter and actual weight) of the pole but not have the body balance problem that I think I see in your video. Where you grip will control just how much moment/torque is acting around your hands, dropping the tip. The one thing that you must accommodate using this approach is you have to "eyeball" and feel the correct angle the pole would be at the plant and limit your arm motion to that correct position.

- master

If you don't want to grip down poles, I would recommend instead of walking, try a very slow jog. Something to mimic the correct pole drop, speed and timing, but slow enough so you can get the correct angles and movements, something that helps me a tick when I need to slow things down.

One quick thing that you could do better is make sure both legs/feet are doing the same things. There are different times in these approaches where one leg has a different angle or a higher lift (not a whole lot , but just a tick), one foot is more flexed than the other, or when cycling through, the distance between heal and ham is shorter than the other leg. This only really gets to be a problem when peoples strides turn into a rhythmic striking, long, short, long, short, long....