altius wrote: ... the fundamental notion that I had introduced - that vaulting on a flexible pole was like vaulting on an infinite series of straight poles (A concept that I do not believe anyone had previously annunciated) - altho I am sure Kirk will correct me.
I think you ARE getting paranoid, Altius. I wasn't thinking this at all. In fact, here's what I posted just 2 days ago in another thread:
KirkB wrote:As you have also read from Altius, a bent pole vault is really just a series of straight pole vaults - one after the other all in the same jump!
We seem to agree with each other even more than you realize! Maybe it's that darn all-timers again.
For the record, I switched from steel to fiber at age 15, and I got completely lost in my technique - thinking that the objective of fiberglass pole vaulting was to bend the pole as much as possible. I actually held onto that belief well into my college career - to my detriment. I'm sure if you were teaching me - and if you had your epiphany a few decades earlier - I could have jumped quite a bit higher in HS.
altius wrote: Once I put that together with the fact that Petrov made it clear that he was greatly influenced by stiff pole vaulters - most notably Warmerdam - it began to dawn on me ... that if that was the case then flexible vaulters should be doing much the same as stiff polers. The latter were forced to accentuate the importance of the whip swing -a point I make much of in BTB2 - and therefore would pull to speed up that swing -there was certainly no point in them pushing the pole away in that phase.
That was my analysis and that was my epiphany.
Yup. No point in pushing. Pushing doesn't help a steel pole vaulter, so why the heck should it help a fiberglass pole vaulter?
I learned this the hard way - after trying to bend the heck out of my pole for almost 3 years. What a waste of time and effort! What a waste of a HS PV career!
Altius, when you say "pull", you mean a full-body pull - with not only the arms, but also with the torso and legs, right? I'm referring to once you're in the stretched C position, you immediately pull with your entire body to turn your C into an I and then an L, right? I've always emphasized the leg whip, and Agapit has always (I think) emphasized the lat arm "pull", but it's both at once, right?
altius wrote: The only addition I have made is to have athletes swing into inversion on a rope and instantly try to get their feet as high up the rope as possible - to do that they must pull - and time the pull correctly.
One minor difference when I did this drill was for my coach to hold the rope at an angle, so that when you jumped up and grabbed on, it would help you to swing up a little earlier. Otherwise, there's too much of a "lull" while the rope swings to an angled position. Our rope hung from a 20 foot ceiling, so it was rather long. A shorter rope (perhaps hanging from a 10 foot ceiling) would have lessened this "lull". So if you have a choice, use a shorter rope.
I much prefer highbar drills though, because rope drills like this cause you to hunch your shoulders when you grab on, whereas highbar drills don't. I'd say that for beginners, rope drills are really good, but as you get more intermediate and advanced, they lose their appeal for the reasons I've just mentioned.
More paranoia ...
altius wrote: Sadly I don't expect this to be accepted as the wisdom of an expert in the field - I am sure all and sundry will attempt to deconstruct it and put their own take on it ...
Not at all. I fully accept your advice here!
My extra advice re the rope is just that - extra advice. There's nothing wrong with your basic advice - it's spot on.
Kirk