PoleVaultPower.com

Age: 16
Grade: junior
How long you have been jumping: 1 year total.in this video im coming off a 6month break from vaulting 4th time jumping this year second competion
What pole you are on (length and weight rating): 12'2" 130 spirit
How high you are gripping: unsure probably around 10'
What bar(s) you are attempting in the video: 7'6"

this is probably my worst jump of the night but it is the only one we have video of my pr is 9' almost 9'6"(clipping it on the way down)
Any critic will help because my school does not have a pole vault coach so we learn through trial and error so I read the posts here and watch video.
I am the jumper in the first 10 seconds of the video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAk9uH0X4uo

one thing that will help is think about swinging your shins to meet your hands. when you do this make sure to think about keeping all of the pressure on your top hand. Also try to keep your feet together at the top of the jump then just simply turn over and boom that should make some big height improvements just based on that

Something that will make a huge difference in being able to "swinging your shins to meet your hands" is try to work on getting your step further back, you are under, it will help you get your body into a better position and will help with moving your hand grip up.

Msit...

Couple of things... yes you are under, so work on that. It probably is as simple as quickening the last few steps and getting your posture more up right. At the moment you seem to be leaning your head back as you approach the box. Hard to takeoff with quickness and aggression from this position and it slows you down. Think tall, be quick.

In addition... you look like you are round house planting, meaning your right hand is too far away from your body as you plant, try to bring the plant up in a more direct line, closer to your ear as it passes to directly over your head, pressing UP with the right hand. This rounding of the plant also makes it harder to position yourself behind the pole and you may find yourself helicoptering during some of your jumps (spinning clockwise in your case?). Your legs are spreading apart to compensate for the clockwise rotation caused in large part by your planting action.

Which brings me to my final point... you are pulling down with the top hand. This makes swinging nigh impossible. Think up with the hands, moving the pole to vertical and swinging with a long right arm on the pole. Right now you are trying to pull yourself over the bar... killing the swing and your pole speed. "Job one" for you is moving the pole to vertical with speed.

Remember its a chain of events... Run, Plant, Jump... when you have a problem in the air, it is usually starting on the ground, so fix the run and plant first.

First things first: You need your first step to be with your right foot. You may say I cant do that, I'm not used to that, or it doesn't matter. But yes you can, you will get used to it, and it does matter. Almost all coaches count lefts and adjust your steps based on strides (2 steps), and you will just make life easier for everyone by starting with your right foot first.

Second: What is your height and weight? You said you are on a 12'2 130. I can see that you are gripping fairly low on that so it is stiffer and bending is not really that important right now.

Third: Stick to the basics, for the poles and your current pr you don't need to try and fix everything at once, just get the simple things working. Your swing actually looks pretty quick right now because you are trying to get your feet over the bar before you hit it, even if you are bending your knee. I would recommend pushing those standards back to about 30 inches from now on (it looks to me like they are really close in the video). And work on turning at the top, some people argue turning right now is not that important, but I think the more clean and crisp you can make your vault in the early stages, the better. In the video you get your right food really high in the air which looks good for such a low vault, so now just try and get that left foot up there with it, and once both your legs are up that high, go ahead and do the 180 degree turn to your left by starting with your lower body (you start your turn with your upper body so your feet are getting left behind and your body looks really twisted). Now your gonna be in the perfect position to just come down onto your back onto the mat.

Get all of those basic things down right now and get a smooth looking jump up and then you can go from there.
Vaulting is just like every thing else, you gotta craw before you can walk.

Here is a good video of a fellow pvper for what your Ideal vault should look like right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1UXdEW1mNY

My height is around 5'7.5" and I weigh anywhere from 123-126 at a given time. My standards were set to 50cm. Thanks for all the advice so far.