Pole Vault Manifesto

[dj]

ps

ultimately "physics" will determine the out come..

dj

[sooch90]

good evening

You have recanted on your statement on Alan's idea of the take-off being a"foot out" and thats great. But why the hell did you say that in the first place? Of the time I spent with him he never proposed that to me or our camp. What is your idea of a free take-off? As I recall you never responded to my "Free Take-off???" thread either. As I recall during the Bjorn Otto video thread you claim he had a free take-off.

i stated why i "said that in the first place".........

where is the jump that CB posted? the jump at the top of that thread doesn't look like what i commented on.. he is under and flat footed...

as far as "free takeoff" i have always stood by what petrov has written on the takeoff.

vaultman18 you can insult someone else’s intelligents and support anyone you like but unless you know "why" and the "facts' you will not make progress as a coach.

dj

DJ you said in the Bjorn Otto thread he was "free" now your saying he is "under and flat footed". I don't have the power to change the threads so I guess your idea of the free take-off is evolving.

Believe me I know the facts. And I have made much progress as a coach and I thank Alan for that, as well as Roman. I was exposed to something last summer that few coaches are. I listened to Alan and Roman discuss all of this and more in my kitchen for two days.

Alan is my friend and I am tired of you slamming him. But I have never insulted you intelligence. I have never needed to. If you want to continue this I suggest it be over private message.

I think DJ was referring to the video that CB posted in that thread. Maybe in that video Otto Bjorn had a better takeoff?

Sorry, don't mean to intrude in the thread!

[dj]

sooch90

not a problem.. i re-posted why and what i said 9 months ago;

sensationalism and not to state that that jump was a "free takeoff"...

I'm an artist by trade but a scientist by profession.. we have to do the "numbers" in science to verify the science/physics.

vaultman18...Alan's a big boy and he can take care of himself... and he and i can handle our own differences privately..

tit-for-tat "slamming" doesn't really solve anything.. but i guess if it gets more "productiveâ€

[volteur]

Aunt minnie was a wise woman. The only problem now is agapit has been avoiding his own thread because it was hi-jacked. How do we entice him back
?

[dj]

Good morning

I do believe roman is a big boy also and he can speak for himself.. but actually I don’t know that I have ever opposed romans’ description of the vault from the “free takeoffâ€

[volteur]

good morning dj

which desert is it you live in? I feel it was i that drove agapit away but hopfully he is just busy instead. I really like his manifesto, it's one of the best things i've seen for any event. It would be good for him to continue elaborating on some of the points.

DJ, for the runup i see the ability to progressively accelerate as the number one skill to have. What is your number 1?

voltear

[vault3rb0y]

Volteur i am still having trouble understanding your concept a few post back along the lines of "not maximizing one phase of the jump because it will take out of the expense of another phase". I hope you are not refering to the take off and subsequent swing.

The biggest similarity to me between triple jump and pole vault is that it relys on a controlled run. You learn to run full speed and still control your run, and still have the ability to be explosive through ALL phases of the jump. Of course before you get to that point, you need to learn to run controlled regardless of your speed, and slow it down a touch if you have to.

I guess what i am saying is this, in the vault i believe that it is possible to maximize all aspects, and that the maximizing of one aspect can actually HELP another, not hurt it. For example, you can run full speed, and as long as you do not over-stride yourself and actually SHORTEN your stride as DJ has explained into your last 3 strides, you CAN take off controlled. Maximizing your CONTROLLED take off speed subsequently will cause you to hit a stronger take off. Hitting a stronger take off subsequentally puts yoru trail leg behind you and your hands over your head, so that you can again maximize your swing. There is no inverse-relationship between take off force and swing force, the harder you hit your take off, the better position you are in to add more energy with your swing, direct relationship. I think the triple jump is more of an inverse relationship because each step you take of the 3 cannot benefit from the position of the step before it being "maximized". But in the vault, it can, it just works out that a strong take off puts you in the right position for a strong swing.

One other thing, i think its important to go down to a physical level like DJ proposed, and analyze the reasons petrov said what he said. He does not support a free take off because something magic happens when you do it, or because it feels good. I would assume the ultimate goal is the add as much of the horizontal energy of your take off into vertical energy in the pole, and the best way to do this is through a free take off. That means a good angle helps, because you have to fight gravity that much less. But quit thinking the free take off is the end all solution to vaulting, and that anyone would has the pole hit the back of the box a fraction of a second BEFORE they leave the ground is not as good a vaulter, because they can still add nearly all their energy from take off into the pole just like a free-take off vaulter if they understand the overall goal is not a free take off, its the reasoning behind it, and they still apply that to their vault, and someone with a free take off can still lose more energy in their vault than someone without one.

[volteur]

Volteur i am still having trouble understanding your concept a few post back along the lines of "not maximizing one phase of the jump because it will take out of the expense of another phase". I hope you are not refering to the take off and subsequent swing.

hey, i am referring to that! :-)

the optimising versus maximising distinction damn you :-) is a tricky one to understand. If i got it better myself i would be able to explain it better.

Where to begin. I guess i trust Bruce Lee like i trust Petrov and like i trust Arthur Lydiard to name a few. I probably trusted my two main coaches similarly. These people are kind of looking at things 1 or 2 or 3 steps beyond you and I. They are physical geniuses.

So if Bruce says "in one hand you have instinct and in the other hand control. The goal is to combine the two in harmony." then i trust him and i seek a way to apply this. When i look at Bubka i see a master craftsman. I see someone who could reproduce, within a small margin of difference, his vaulting prowess, almost at will. take a look at 97 worlds. He did two comps before them both were 5.60. Then on that final jump where his centre of gravity went somewhere like 6.40, probably the single highest vault in history. Off what? How? Ridiculous except for the fact Bubka is like a ballet dancer. Ask one of them to perform a move and they do it 10 out of 10 times. Sergei is as close to them as any technical athlete (except maybe Sedykh but only then in reproducably, not athletically).

So take instinct, the thing which all of the emotional vaulters use well. Those slightly crazed vaulters who don't hold back at all. Full intensity at every stage. They sometimes pull off the awesome vault, that 1 in a 100, and they are satisfied for that's all they seek, the 'one-off'. The other vaulter is more controlled, more intellectual; there can be a balance going on, although too much control and you don't really advance your pole vault for you are always holding back - the mind is controlling your emotions too much and you need those to empower your will.

For the fact that i believe it is balance that needs be achieved, vaulterboy, is the reason is see it as optimising and not maximising. Mis-conceptualising those two is what leads a 'free-takeoff' to be called a failed 'pre-jump', because there is the mind that something is better than the 'free-takeoff'. If Vitaly says this is the ideal way to take-off, i believe him.

(ps The 'free-takeoff' by it's very nature is looking to optimise. The vaulter is to remain free and since the two things which can take the vaulters freedom away - the ground contact below and the pole contact above, are simply that - below and above - we needs remain in between them without getting stuck by either - free in between)

Maximising a controlled run almost works i think. The run has to retain some element of control and whatever is left can be maximised. Still this just ends up as the same as optimising.

voltair

[volteur]

also you could check out Bubka himself and see that his right arm isn't quite straight and not fully extended as the pole hits. This one shows it well, although he is close:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKfdIDdt ... re=related

but any frame by frame sequence could show it if the right frame is there.

[rainbowgirl28]

Aunt minnie was a wise woman. The only problem now is agapit has been avoiding his own thread because it was hi-jacked. How do we entice him back
?

He comes by about every 6 months.

[altius]

“sometimes things need to be challenged and questioned to be totally understood..â€

[volteur]

Hi Alan, what gave me away in the end?

Ok a few things straight since there is an audience. We first argued on this point in the cafeteria at the AIS when Vitaly was last in Australia. In fact it was more like me screaming some abuse at you after enduring a whole meal of listening to you pontificate on pole vault. Not only was i in disagreeance with you but i guess i was aggravated by the way you spoke with such superiority. Vitaly was at the table and afterwards Efim told me off as Vitaly was shocked at my behaviour. Oops. I apologise to you for that now for the first time as well. Sorry.

The technical disagreement aside i guess it is my ego and your ego both battling for supremacy. We probably would have been an interesting coach/athlete combo. May not have worked. I was barely able to work with Rippon during those three years in Perth for a similar reason. Still at the age of 37 i better be working on this side of myself.

Alan you remember early on i praised you in general terms whilst trying to focus in on this specific technical situation. I was trying to keep the actual thinking/analysis separate from who we are, as i knew if you knew it was me, it would have become personal.

What you say about yourself is true. You also had success in javelin as well as the vault. I can't remember many details as i was young except for Cherry Harvey going to the Commonwealths and your Decathlete with the hearing disorder Dean, who threw over 70 meters.

As for the vault well Tim Foster, Adam Steinhardt and Greg Halliday were the ones i knew as i became a senior. Adam and Greg were at commonwealths in 94 with me and Dean (and of course Jimmy Miller). I roomed with Simon in Atlanta. He massaged his feet twice a day!

So i am not attacking your personal credibility or your coaching in general. I'm just interested in fine tuning my own stance on all of this technical track and field stuff. I wasn't out to discredit you in particular, just that one main technical point i guess.

You may be a bull but i also like to butt heads, I'm a mountain goat Capricornian. You also probably know that i don't like to lose so i compete quite hard as do you. Similar.

peace?

Pete

ps i coach every day, speak to Julian (Shuravetsky) and Demetri (Dionisopoulos) regularly on what we all discover in our daily coaching experiences and ring up Efim when i am really stuck. Looking at Bubka jumping a fair bit as well. Praise youtube! (ps this doesn't say at all that we agree on each others opinions. In fact often the contrary)

Alan, athletics in this country is in trouble as i'm sure you are aware. I asked Brian Roe about it and he said our top end is as good as ever, we just don't have any depth anymore.

When i was emerging as an athlete and paying attention to the athletics world a few things stood out. One was obviously how much success Efim was having with one single squad. Another was the relative dominance of SA athletics across a wide number of events (being a small state and all). I know you were central to that along with some others. It was like your whole athletic community had a buzz about it. I know you energized this situation not only with your coaching knowledge but with your personal enthusiasm. Efim similarly. Steve Rippon also had the combination of a strong energizing personality with some solid coaching technique or methodology underpinning that.

I personally am trying to be such an individual who can not only actually coach someone, but inspire a number of individuals and have that number grow.

I wonder when (if?) our national body will come to the realisation that success in athletics comes from the coaches working with the athletes and not much else?