“Rise of the Knight” Exploring Track Pole Vaulters and Epic Fantasy Genre Part I
Title: “Rise of the Knight” Exploring Track Pole Vaulters and Epic
Fantasy Genre
Part I
At the dawn of track season this year, Autumn (my daughter)
and I were teaching pole vault to varsity and modified students. We begin by teaching them proper handgrip. At first it seems very awkward and often we
have to adjust hands, even if they’ve seen us explain it and watched several
other students grip the pole. It is easy
for a new vaulter to forget this lesson too and for the first few days we
carefully watch novice vaulters for their pole grip. How you hold the pole is vital because you
are about to turn it into a massive lever to shoot yourself in the sky and your
hands make that possible!
The next thing we do is teach you the location of your grip that
you will have at the end of your career.
We only use this for the drill phase but this part can be tricky...
especially if you have a little 4’8” seventh grade boy or girl, holding a
twelve foot pole at the very end! They
look like an old world pikeman or a knight with a large lance! “Your right-hand tucks up like your sliding
it into your back pocket!” we say, like drill instructors walking down a line
of brightly colored poles pointed at the sky.
Most track athletes will not make it as pole vaulters but the desire is
always huge in the beginning. At times
we have to get out every pole in the shed, even the 180 beast, to accommodate
all of them!
We’re still not ready to do anything yet because most of
them are turned sideways. This is a
natural instinct that they have and we have to fight it for the first few days
of their training. We literally have to
have them “square up to the box,” even after the first day of training, while explaining
(or repeating), “You’d never run the hundred yard dash sprinting sideways would
you?” The student shakes their head “no”
but still feels like everything is all wrong as I twist their body to a
straight position. I continue to
explain, “You’re like a soldier ready to march with your weapon at your side.”
“Okay, you are about to do high knees with the pole! Autumn, please demonstrate this!” High knees is a ply drill they learn the
first day of their track and field adventure and since it is an easier ply
compared to some of the others they get it quickly. Still we are asking them to do it holding a
12’pole in their hands... not a simple task.
Next we head back doing “butt kicks” while holding the pole.
Once they have that down we move on to a concept called, “pole drop”. Most of the time the confused novice let’s us manipulate his or her hands as we show them
to put the pole over their left eye (assuming they are right foot dominate). We don’t bother to teach them what part of
the pole they need to hold up... that is too advanced at this point and they
might not be ready for that for a year or two.
We’re thrilled if they get the general concept of pole drop.
We take our rookies over to the runway and teach them how to
get a “mark.” At this point vet vaulters
who are on the runway must be cleared off.
Grudgingly they sacrifice their runway time for the fledgling
vaulters. No one gets pole vaulting
technique naturally because it feels so wrong constantly, so a new vaulter is
very time consuming at the beginning. Within a week or two, however, they are in line
taking their turn with the team vets and heroes. When we finally get through “mark” training,
we often run out of time (that is how long it takes!) I love to get them up in the air the first
day but often I can’t. “Wait!” you
say. “If it is so complicated, how do
you get them up in the air the first day?”
Simple. After we teach them the
right way to do everything we teach them a HUGE short cut! You don’t need a mark, beginning hand grip,
pole drop skills, or even a MARK to get in the air:) Why do we do all of that then? The knight must earn their spurs! Pound for pound proper pole vaulting is the
most complicated event in track and field and requires a massive amount of arm
strength, core strength, and speed to be really good at it! I think the reason we start off teaching so
many concepts is to show them from the beginning how far they have to go. Anyway, on day two we place their hands in
proper drop position over their left eye, and tell them, “Push the pole down
the runway, when it drops into the box, jump and row!” (Yes, I have to do a rowing drill with them
too but I’m not going to explain that here).
They generally outgrow this quickly but if they don’t, I let
them do it even in competition. One time
I had a new vaulter pushing the pole down the runway ready to launch herself
over the bar. A young assistant coach from a different school actually yelled for her to stop (in competition no less!) “What are you doing?” she asked,
flabbergasted. Praise the Lord I
happened to be nearby (a minor miracle in a bigger meet) and I growled, “Leave
her alone! I’ve taught her to do
that!” Still in shock the woman backed
off but she couldn’t believe it. I
didn’t care. There are novice college
vaulters that do that. I noticed the
next year, two league school vaulters doing the same thing, probably emboldened
by watching my vaulter do it! Those
girls don’t have a lot of vaulting instruction in their programs and I was very
happy they were learning the ropes with that little hack! Vaulting is weird that way:) Normally having other schools in events are a
problem with the points and kids are often scared of high skilled sprinters or
distance runners. “Oh, no, Coach! That’s so and so! They are really good! Do I have to be in the fast heat today?” Or “do I have to run the mile against those
two? They are going to kill me!” Vaulters generally get excited to see better
vaulters! One coach told me this winter,
“My pole vaulter was really disappointed she had to miss the invitational
tonight! She really wanted to watch your
daughter pole vault!” Autumn felt the
same way as a little seventh grade vaulter.
She loved watching a girl vaulter from a different school who was really
good!
On Friday one of our modified vaulters, Connor Beard was
waiting for his ride after school. “Hey,
Connor, how did the vaulters do at the mod meet?” Connor said, “I got over seven feet!” Yeah!
“Way to go!” I said, my smile broadening. Then I asked, “How did the girls do?” He replied, “One of them got over 5 feet and
the other over 5’6!!” YES!!!!! Some of the big schools don’t allow pole
vaulting until 9th grade! Yipe! I’m glad our league doesn’t do that! That little seventh grader girl today is
going to be that steely eyed vet or hero of tomorrow, helping me teach rows of
eager students the ways of the pole! I
hope my vaulters will always be a symbol of excellence in the league and
gracious to aspiring vaulters, even on other teams.
In a lot of ways a pole vaulter is like the knights of
old! They sprint down a runway with a
huge lance in their hands. They have to
expertly strike the box (preferably without looking) and their lance bends as
it hits, just like the knights of old hitting their rivals shield. The goal in the old world was to knock the
other knight to the ground and this isn’t too different from pole
vaulting. Vaulters need to keep their
balance as they launch into the blue sky or else they will crash back to the
earth or go flying off target slamming into the bar before hitting the matt
below in failure. I teach the vaulters,
“even if you screw up, stay with it at the lower heights! Many times you can make it work!” Autumn did that this year at indoor track’s
version of a county meet. Autumn’s first
vault at 7’6” was ugly and yet she calmly made it work clearing the bar
easily! Of course what a vaulter
considers a “low height” is relative to their skill level:)
How is this like Epic Fantasy? Well, I’m out of time today but I will hit
that on Tuesday’s blog!!
*** Author Adrian Essigmann has eighteen books in print on
Amazon.com, soon to be nineteen! All of
them are $.99 cents on Kindle, with the exception of “An Assumed Risk” which
will be (Lord willing) an e-book before summer.
All of his books are available in soft cover too! Type Amazon Adrian Essigmann and his author’s
page should come up ***
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