Resisting the Jump.
So far this season has been a lot of playing around and figuring it out. I’ve still had some great jumps and have come into meets very calm and collected. I’ve been waiting for it to all come together. Whether it’s finding the right pole or putting practice drills into play at a meet.
And that finally happened.
Too bad it was during warm-ups at the The Charles Torpey Tribute Meet at URI and not the actual competition.
The most significant thing I have been working on this season is breaking in my trail leg after a powerful swing, bringing my knees into my chest (but not to my face!), and just going along for the ride. I swing pretty long and that just slows everything down. So after many drills, watching videos, and visualizing what I wanted to do–it finally happened. I warmed up on a 13′ 135lb pole getting after a bungee and I FLEW. It felt great. It happened! I was so excited and Coach Jackson was thrilled too.
At competition time, I passed to 10’10″ and had to wait patiently for the bar to go up. This gave me a lot of time to focus–but it turns out I was focusing too hard. My brain was running a thousand miles a minute: What did that feel like again? How did I do that? Remember to really pull hard. You’ve done it before now just do it again.
To cut to the chase, I choked. No one would even recognize me on that runway. Slow approach. Weak plant. And crashing into the crossbar and never actually finishing the jump. It’s interesting to go from blowing through that pole just a week before to barely getting on it the next week. I did clear my opening height of 10’10″ but that was it. The rest of the jumps were absolutely useless.
It’s been a while since Coach Jackson has had to tell me to, to put it in nicer terms, “Remove my head from my–” Ummm… “opposite end.” But I couldn’t even process what was going on during the meet to even try to fix it. I had no idea what was happening. How could I go from having a huge breakthrough to jumping so poorly?
After the meet, Coach and I both needed our space to cool off (I swear, this is like a marriage in itself–I don’t know how Jenn Suhr does it). Then we were able to talk to each other without being mean.
“What happened? What changed between warm ups and competition? You had the girls out here nervous watching your warmups!” he asked me.
“I just wanted it so bad. I kept thinking, ‘Do it again! JUST DO IT AGAIN!’ I don’t have much time left. It’s this week, then BU Valentine, then A-10s. Then only a few meets in outdoor season. And I’m graduating in the spring. This is it.”
“But the fact that you did it during warm ups without even thinking shows that it’s in your brain. It’s in your muscle memory. It’s more natural now. You don’t even have to focus on it anymore. If you focus on it and work too hard on it, you actually end up resisting the jump and not letting it naturally happen. You have to trust.”
So I’m just going shake off this meet and get ready for the next one. Preparation for next week isn’t going to be about the drills or the technique that I’ve been working so hard on. It’s going to be to trust myself and just letting the jumps happen.




