History of the tap?

[rainbowgirl28]

I've been reviewing some of my old copies of Mechanics of the Pole Vault, and Ganslen was always emphatic that the coach needs to stand a fair distance back from the vault in order to observe it properly.

Why did tapping become so widespread? What is the history of the use of the tap as a training device?

I'm going to dig through some of my other books to see if I can find anything...

[KirkB]

Good question. In my part of the world (Pacific Northwest) tapping was unheard of in the early 1970s. It must have started in the late 70s or in the 1980s. There's quite a few coaches and masters on PVP that must have been around when this all started.

Could it be that over-gripping wild and crazy HS vaulters on soft poles had to be SPOTTED in case they stalled out? By spotting I mean pushing the vaulter into the pit if he's about to land in the box. So could it be that with the coach standing close enough to SPOT the vaulter, this coaching practice morphed into "spotting" on EVERY jump ... and spotting became tapping?

Personally, I would not want to spike any coach that was stupid enough to get underneath me while I was stalling into the box ... but I guess that's just me.

Kirk

[vaultwest]

I don't know much about how tapping started in the US but one small piece of the story that I know goes like this. In the early 1980's I coached at Montana State University and one of my vaultes moved on after graduation to coach at University of Montana and while he was coaching there he participated in a clinic here in Eugene. Andrzei Krzesinski was the vault coach for U of O at the time and also the vault coach for the Elite Nike vaulters that trained at U of O at the time which included, Kory Tarpening, Tim Bright, Scott Davis and a few others. Any way my ex-vaulter Tom learned to use taps at this clinic and once he got back from the clinic he shared this with me, showing me how Andrzei had taught him how to tap his vaulters. I had never heard of such a thing and was skeptical but it was hard to argue with the success of Andrzei and his multiple gold medal athletes. So I think in part at least the tap came from Europe. Food for thought.
Vault On

[rainbowgirl28]

^bump


Anyone else have any insight?