August 06, 2010

More variable distance cavaletti

I was able to get Mike to help today, so I could move the camera much closer and have him pan to get all the jumps. I also added more info about what I'm looking for and how Dazzle is doing on this video.

VIDEO: cavaletti 9-9-5-5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkCydDVBuR0

I set up the cavaletti so from left to right on the screen it's 9' to 9' then 5' to 5'.  We started from the short side and as I suspected, he did fine with more extension at the end. He hit almost all the take-off points correctly.

Then I moved to the other end and he did two 9' distances into two 5' distances. He had some trouble collecting for 2 short jumps after 2 long ones and occasionally cheated and jumps the last two jumps together. But he quickly figured out that didn't earn him the ball! In the next to last run, you can see him really squeeze in that last jump! 

The last run on the video was beautiful! I hope he remembers how that felt.


I think I'll try adding a "jump bump" (4" jump) before the first cavaletti to help him find a good take off point for the first jump. That seems to be his biggest problem right now.  If he gets a good first jump, the rest of the jumps work out much better.
 
I don't think he's ready yet to move on to the next step.  I'd like to see him be more consistent with that first jump take off into a long distance bounce.  I think he sees the long distance and thinks he has to take off early to stretch.  Which is the opposite of what he really needs to do.