Newbie vaulter pole advice

[shorty23]

hey, im kinda new to pole vault. This is my first year doing it, but so far, I love it. my pr so far is only 6'6" (yes, i know, it is pathetic), and im real close to clearing 7ft, but i cant seem to get my hips up quite high enough. im only straight pole-ing for now, cause i definitely cant bend yet... right now im on a 10', 110 Mystic pole, and i weigh 107lbs. so, what im saying here i guess is, im wondering if i should try moving up to the next longest pole which is an 11', 120 skypole. i was thinking about moving to a longer pole because i was thinking that if i was just that little bit higher, it would be easier for me to clear higher heights... i dont know. i hardly know crap about pole vault. so please, anyone, i'll take all the advice i can get. thanks.

~ Carolyn

[frozensteele]

You don't want to move up to a longer pole yet. If you are clearing 8' then you might consider moving up poles. Plus if the next biggest pole is a 120 and you can't bend the 110 yet (which isn't expected of you btw) the 120 would be really stiff and probably harder to work with. Right now you should just get comfortable with rocking back and try not to worry too much about heights. However, I'm not an expert on pole vaulting and stuff. I've only been vaulting for about 2 months and I can only clear 10', 10'6" when I'm lucky!