david bussabarger wrote: One piece of final advice: I strongly believe that your preconcieved beliefs have a big impact on how you percieve reality. So again biased people is what they want to.
I think you should keep your strong beliefs and your advice to me to yourself. It's not helpful to publicize your personal opinions in this way. You just
assume that I'm biased because you have painted all proponents of the Petrov Model with the same brush. Calling us all biased is your defense mechanism to rationalize things that don't fit into your view of the world.
I am biased towards scientifically sound principles of vaulting, and I have verified almost all of what I've learned by my own personal experience. Some of it has been the school of hard knocks, where I do NOT advocate certain technical aspects that did NOT work well for me. To me, this is not "
biased" in the same way that youl think of me as being "
biased". I am not swayed by people's opinions - I am only swayed by scientific or factual evidence. You may be surprised to know that my type of personal scientific expirimenting actually has a scientific name. It's called "
constructivism", which is a fancy word that means learning through doing. My scientific mind was sharp back when I vaulted, and it remains sharp. You even conceded that to me in a communication that we had last year.
Ironically enough, I consider you much more biased than myself, primarily because you have certain theories that you seem unwilling to change in the face of hard scientific evidence. For example, you have made no comment whatsoever on PVStudent's extremely thorough discussion of the free takeoff. Eighteen superlative posts from PVStudent on that topic, but not one comment from you.
I'll tell you what ... let's forget about quibbling over who's biased and who's not, because that's really not all that constructive. Instead, let's have an UNBIASED discussion of the pros and cons of Bubka's technique vs Lavillenie's. That's what's important - not infighting amongst pundits.
You may be pleasantly surprised if I agree with some of your analysis in this new thread that you've promised us. And because you think I'm biased towards the Petrov Model, my agreement to anything non-Petrov-like may look to you like I'm a turn-coat or a fair-weather-fan towards the Petrov Model. That's not it at all. I am constantly looking for new scientific evidence that may alter AND IMPROVE my view of optimal PV technique, and if you can explain to me why Lavillenie's style or technique is superior, then I'm all ears.
NONE of us has a perfect picture of what a perfect vault should look like, so we should ALL take our blinders off and keep an open mind on new ideas. That has certainly been how I have learned PV technique over the years, and I intend to continue doing so. Everyone should look in the mirror every once in awhile, myself included.
In your last post, it sounds like you are applauding Bjorn Otto's technique, even though he is "under" on takeoff. PVStudent has thoroughly explained why being under is bad technique (i.e. why
not being under is good technique). If you're going to defend Otto's technique for being under (or Lavillenie's for that matter - especially if you think he's
intentionally taking off under), then you will have to explain why.
Just saying that because the majority of 5.80+ vaulters take off under therefore it's good technique is
not scientific evidence that it's better to take off under than out.
You might as well say that most drivers speed on the freeways, so therefore that must be the best way to drive!
Kirk