Team Fernandezlopez

Each try shows full speed, then slow mo.

Try 1 & 2: Jumping early, knocked 1 and 3 bars respectively. Ouch! And at 8″!

Try 3: This one is actually quite good. He knocks the last bar, but in slow mo – you can see it is because he’s trying to take the last two as a spread. Susan Salo talks about how this may happen as they gain speed toward the end, and this video shows that quite well.

Try 4: Started out looking better than past reps, but he gets behind as he goes along and knocks a bar.

Try 5: Woohoo! A rep with no bars down! But he is still taking off in the first 25% of the space allowed. We want him closer to that halfway point.

Try 6: Same thing. Taking off too early.

All in all – it just doesn’t seem like he’s ‘getting’ it. However, since I’m posting this quite after the fact, I can tell you that he definately IS getting it at some level. Check out our latest show results for more details!!! (Coming soon)

My battery died during my session on the 16th and I only got 2 reps, so I just tacked them on to the reps for the 17th.

I got a much better vantage point for these videos, so it’s much easier to see what Denver’s doing. And what he’s doing is jumping early!

You can see that he is often jumping that first jump early and high (he needs the height to clear it since he’s on his way down). Once that landing is established, he stuck with an early takeoff for the rest of the grid. Try 3 and 5 (from the 17th) aren’t as bad, but they still look early. I slowed Try 4 down even more to highlight the early peak of that first jump.

I’d better keep this camera angle for a while and see if there’s any improvement. I also think I need to set him up a tad closer to the first jump (but not right up on it).

This past weekend, I went to train with my friend Debby. We set up a Straight-Line Equal-Distance Grid for Denver, and this was his first exposure to it. I realized later (when I rewatched the video) that I had set Denver too close to the first jump.

I really don’t have an eye for this grid work yet – plus the video is (by neccessity) taken from much further away. But Try 1 looks pretty good! I least he doesn’t seem concerned by the grid. He does seem to be taking off from the back third. Same with Try 2. Try 3 it takes a few jumps to get into the flow (probably because I set him up too close).

Try 4 looks QUITE nice. It may look better because we can see better with him coming toward us – but I thought it looked quite good.

Try 5 still looks like he’s hugging the previous jump on each take-off. And Try 6 looks quite nice again.

I don’t think I’m being totally fooled by the camera angle because I remember Debby saying that he looked better going from left to right (as seen on camera) than right to left.

From there we decided to try Set Point again. After doing the grid work, these turned out to be some of the best Set Point sessions we’ve had so far! In number 1 and 3 he kindof jerks his head on lift-off. But 2, 4, 5 look great. And in all of them – he’s giving the stride bar some space (he had been pushing off the stride bar – basically taking off as far back as possible).

What a day! Not a botched rep AND a few had one bar at 16″.

Try 1: Just BARELY made it over!

Try 2: Nice rep – but still early. You can see he has to reach his back feet forward in order to clear the jump.

Try 3: This rep had a bar at 16″. I think he actually ticks it – and when you look at his trajectory – you wonder how he made it over at all!!!

Try 4, 5, 6: Early, early and early!!!

Well – at least he’s looking more consistant. He’s not taking it as a spread, and today there were no ‘flailing over’ reps. So I think that’s good! Now that he’s gotten the hang of the exercise – maybe repetition will do it’s work. Now that he’s not taking it as a spread, maybe I can move the first jump in a bit more to force him out of taking off early.

My only concern with that is that we want him to take off in between the two jumps – not always ‘as far back as possible’ – because then when that stride bar goes away – so will his guide for where to jump. He’s not learning his take off point in relation to the jump he’s taking – he’s learning it in relation to the stride jump.

Comments are always welcome!!!

Super Slow Mo:

Try 1: Yikes. Not only does he take off from behind the bar, but he lands squarely on top of the jump. Guess that’s why bars are displacable!!!

Try 2: He must have learned his lesson ’cause try 2 is very nice! I little ‘upright’ still in the front legs.

Try 3: This one is even more ‘upright’ on takeoff. And he’s pushing against the ground bar (I view this as rebelling against the defined working area).

Sadly – at this point the battery died in the camera. It’s super sad because he had another one where he jumped from behind the stride regulator jump, so I put the stride jump back to 4 ft away from the jump (I had moved it in to 3’6″ because he was still jumping early). After that – I got some nice reps. At least no jumping from behind the line – but without video I don’t really know how they looked.

Super Slow Mo: