Hello Everyone, Nice to Meet You!

[AAorris]

Hi there, I've been an active reader around the forums here for a while, and I thought I'd introduce myself and hopefully participate around here soon. My father's side of the family consists strongly of successful vaulters; my father winning overall in Ontario, and my uncle Doug Morris(Kirk, you might recognize us if you were a BC vaulter!) who had the commonwealth record for a time years ago. Despite strong heritage, pole vaulting has fallen from popularity around here and the sport was never brought to my attention until recently, at a track/field meet where I was photographing:

(Breaking the regions longstanding record here with 4.05m I believe, lots of room for improvement around here!)
Only one school competed in our region, because it was the only one with vaulting facilities, but my father recognized the coach from HS football who offered the opportunity for us to vault at their school if we liked. Lucky!
On top of that, I just recently went for my first practice, and it happened that Doug Wood(Current CAD record holder) started coaching there that day, and I got some great 1v1 time with him!
Even more inspiring for me, my father (all well with his shoulder) hopes to take up vaulting again with me, confident he can set some records for his age group.

With all the opportunities, including the PVP community here, I'd love to try and make the best of things! Expect a depth of photo/video footage, and any participation I can offer here as I become more experienced!
I consider myself knowledgeable about vaulting technique and nuances of technical models, and I feel confident in my ability to speak here on the forum now.

Nice to meet everyone! Feel free to introduce yourselves here too!
Aaron

P.S. How do I invert?
P.P.S. Just kidding.

[Pogo Stick]

Welcome. Nice picture, how you did that?
Not too many people from Canada participate here and AFAIK none of them is from Ontario.

[dj]

Good morning

Welcome… ask anyone that is old enough if they remember a “Mall Vault” in Montréal in 1979, the day before the “world champs” meet…

some of your family or Doug Wood may have been there...

And on the technical side .. very good takeoff “position”, left elbow out .. up on the toe, etc.. but … your “under” takeoff causes you to “tuck” the legs… muscle the pole so you can’t extend the arms.. “go elastic” and keeps you from swinging to inversion correctly…

I know this should be in technique… but you gotta throw in those teaching moments when you can..


dj

[AAorris]

Hello DJ, the picture happens to be of a fellow vaulter, but I'll pass on the tips! Hopefully I'll have some media on me soon. I'll talk to them about the mall vault!

Pogo Stick- Thanks for the welcome! The process for a picture like that is: photographed with steady motor drive(many pictures taken in quick succession), having each picture put into photoshop and aligning them so that they fit one on top of another, and manipulating the layers so that the vaulter is exposed onto the bottom layer. I could illustrate the process so you can learn if you're familiar with photoshop, or if you have access to a camera with motor drive and a tripod(or steady hands!), I could create a picture for you!
Vaulting in Ontario is scarce and unknown, besides to a couple of high schools and a handfull of universities. A similar case with my other favorite organized sport, speed skating(less government funding than lawn bowling!).

I'm already excited to start getting into things around here!