GVSU Holiday open uggh and a little update from practice

Competed at Grand Valley State University in Allendale Michigan on Friday.  I can say I wasnt too pleased with how it turned out, but I instantly learned what I needed to fix and was able to do so today in practice so all in all it was successful.  I decided to jump from 7 lefts at the meet and can say that most of the things I had been working on all went down the drain.  I was not getting my foot down at the takeoff and therefore was hugging with my left which led to not catching the pole and only jumping 5.15m/16'11".

So after watching videos for a couple of days I went in to practice today working on those two things.  I am still wanting to drift into the takeoff rather than being quick and putting my foot down.  I was able to do that towards the end of practice and it made a lot of difference.  Next was the hugging, after looking at the videos of the meet I saw that since my grip was as wide as it was I was never really able to get any chest penetration in the jump and this led to me hugging the left arm in to swing upside down.  That has never really been taught to me it seems that it just started to happen in the last couple of years and has been something Ive really been trying to change.  Today I thought I would try to narrow my grip, which ended up being just the change I needed, rather than the left being almost in front of my face at takeoff now its up and over my head, allowing the chest to come through and create space in the pole.  I was very happy with a few of the jumps where I was able to do both, foot down at takeoff and chest drive through.  This led to poles being too small, and finishing  my jumps.

While the meet was not so good, I did just want I wanted to and found the things that needed to be fixed and luckily how to work on them and fix them.  Now the challenge is doing it on longer poles from a longer run.  I hope to do this on wednesday which will be my last practice before heading to Amanda's parents house in western New York for the holiday.  



Always Pursuing -Mark-