Poor guy. Hopefully, he'll have enough talent to get to a university some
day where a coach can hone his natural abilities under a sound program.

>From: "Real Name" <hoops_genius@...>
>Reply-To: highjump@yahoogroups.com
>To: highjump@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [HJ] Bad Coaching
>Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 14:09:13 -0000
>
>I was at a meet this weekend and ran into one of the more interesting
>coaching jobs I have seen.... and it relates to a couple of the past
>topics that have been discussed here.
>
>The jumper had great leg strength. Very athletic. However, he had
>no lean and had no curve at all. His approach was a four step sprint
>straight ahead, then a 30 degree five step straight sprint to the
>bar. A spectator overheard me comment that he looked like he had
>potential but he really need some help on the approach -- and asked
>me what I meant. That lead to his coach coming over and asking what
>I was talking about. So I shared some of my limited wisdom on the
>approach, the J, and the lean.
>
>His coach said that the jumper had a tendency to turn his plant foot
>out away from the bar which caused him to over rotate. So they
>worked reducing the effect of turning his plant foot away from the
>bar by eliminating the curve of the J -- which had the effect of
>getting his foot aligned by misaligning his body.
>
>In other words, he still turns his plant foot, but now the foot is
>more parallel to the bar because he is facing he bar. I asked why
>they didn't work on his plant and keeping his approach correct rather
>than trying to correct bad technique with worse technique.
>
>Then I got a lecture about how high jump is an individual technique
>sport where adjustments and approaches needed to be designed for each
>jumper.
>
>Oh well -- lesson learned. Keep your mouth shut.
>
>
>
>