New Poles & Discovery

My three new Essx Power Force Carbon poles.

Here is the special materials one. The entire pole is made of this.

I posted these on Facebook but forgot to here.  These are 4.30m / 14' 1" poles - 17.9/165, 17.6/167 and 17.0/169.  The smallest one is the exact equivalent of my biggest 4m / 13' 1" pole.  I'm guessing I am maybe 3-4 weeks from getting to them.  My game plan is to jump one day on these and one day on my 13' 1"s and then jump meets on my 14' 7"s.  This plan will give me TONS of practice jumps where I can work to refine my technique. 

NOTE - I went out and did some low level vaulting today even though I had planned to skip it.  It occurred to me that maybe the soreness under my take off foot was at least partially due to my inserts, which I only wear when I run and jump - which I have not been doing.  I felt under my heel where you normally feel plantar fascitis.  No unusual pain so I thought, "why not?"  I did a minimum but all poles from Wednesday were WAY too small even from 2 and 4 steps.  That was encouraging to say the least.  I'll go do my pole plant drills tomorrow but won't run; I don't think.

I had a friend ask me if my song selection from yesterday, "Woman" meant that I thought women were bitchy.  Kidding of course but fair question.  Wolfmother is from Sydney and they were breaking out big when I was there for the World Masters Games.  I saw their concert on TV, heard their song, "Woman" playing in the Olympic Stadium and then again as I entered the stadium to jump.  So in my warped mind I associated the baby crawling as the journey and that song in the Olympic Stadium as the goal.  Long journey toward the reward.  So no offense intended.

I was pleased to have gotten a little jumping today and felt even better that I already had more control of my technique, even at a low level on a tiny pole.  This is exactly how I refined my technique in the first place -  on a tiny pole and slowly advance it to bigger poles.  The reality is that no practice vaults and only jumping on big poles let me get away with a lot of flaws I fought hard to dump.  So it's HUGE fun to be back to jumping a lot.  Have a great day and thank you for your support.  Bubba