So I’ve been sent back to school; triple jump school. I can’t say that I ever really left Triple Jump School since I’m constantly learning, tweaking and attempting to perfect different aspects of my craft. Actually, even if I jumped this far, I’d still be back in the “classroom” the following Monday or Tuesday (after a bit of celebrating of course).

Given the recent issue with my arms being out of sync like I mentioned in my last post, I am going to try and revamp my technique in the hop phase. The main goals are the same (maintain speed, hop far and be patient) but instead of literally running off of the board and using a single arm take off, I’m going to try a double arm hop. To be fair, it’s probably somewhere between a single arm and double arm take off but either way, it’s very different than what I’m used to. There are probably just as many “single-arm hoppers” as double-arm at the international level but in my case it will allow me to make use of my left arm in the second phase rather than having it tucked like I have been doing since I switched to a single arm hop way back in my sophomore year at Harvard.

Yesterday was the first time we’ve done short approach jumps with spikes on in a little while and it was also the perfect time to start perfecting the new technique. When I hit it right, it felt great and other times it felt like it was my first time really working at it.

Both jumps are about the same distance even though my 2nd phase on the 2nd jump isn’t as patient as it was on the 1st. I definitely had more speed on the jump phase though which is what made up for the weak step phase.

Given how things went yesterday, I’m really looking forward to giving things a go from a full approach.