39. Tim Reilly

One of the most successful high school pole vaulting coaches ever, Tim Reilly, has joined the podcast to discuss the recent success of his prodigies, the Moll sisters, his somewhat revolutionary "Day 1" protocol for teaching beginners, and how he has figured out a way to churn out the countries best high schoolers year after year.

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Transcript

Jake Winder: (00:00)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the One More Jump podcast by Rise Pole Vault. Today we have Tim Riley, owner of Northwest Pole Vault Club, and Coach of Northwest Pole Vault Club. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the one More Jump podcast by Rise Pole Vault. Today we have Tim Riley, owner and coach of Northwest Pole Vault Club out in Seattle, Washington. Tim has been just completely crushing it for a while now in the high school category. He's got just this lineup of incredible high school pole vaulters. I think, I don't know, I think he said in the podcast it was like 13 or something, 13 footers and then like multiple 14 footers that he's produced in his system of instruction. Most notably the mall sisters of, of the recent just success of them has just been insane. Both basically, you know, 15 foot pole vaulters, and it is just, yeah, it's not too shabby to get a high school girl to go 15 feet, let alone you know, two of them.

Jake Winder: (01:17)
And Hannah's just so close to it right now, so she's gonna get it pretty soon. But anyway yeah, it was really, really fun to have him on and he's had a ton of success. But I think the biggest reason why I wanted to have him on is he does have a different way of beginning pole vaulters. He gets them to a bent pole very quickly, and by very quickly, I mean, the first day of them learning how to pole vault, so the kid learns how to hold the pole, they learn how to run with the pole, and then they learn how to bend the pole all in one day. So that some people don't like that. Some people do not like that. I am like coming around to it. I think that, I don't know. Anyway, the whole podcast talks about, or a lot of the podcast talks about it.

Jake Winder: (02:19)
But anyway, he's just incredible and we wanted to make sure that we were able to, to pick his brain for all the little nuggets of information that he has stored up there. We did run into some audio issues early in the beginning of this podcast. We actually had to restart the podcast. So that's always a good time. But yeah, we, we made it happen and we're getting it going and yeah. So one more thing before we get started here. I just wanted to put an overarching disclaimer on this podcast and that disclaimer is don't listen to this podcast and then think it's okay for you to start teaching your kids how to bend the pole on their first day of ever pole vaulting. There is a large amount of knowledge in Tim Riley's head, and there's a large amount of ability to see things and to react to things as a coach that he has that you might not have. And he has the proper poles and the proper equipment and the proper system and progression in order to do this safely and effectively, but most importantly, safely. So please don't listen to this podcast and then think it's okay just to grab a kid off the street and have him bend it and send it. Not a good choice. All right, so that's my disclaimer.

Jake Winder: (04:06)
Well, we've been, we've been struggling just to tell the the viewers kinda what's going on here. So we started, the audio was just a little janky and what the, the value that this podcast is going to have is going to somewhat be erased if we don't have good audio for it. So we've decided to restart again. We are probably 30 minutes in, which is, you know, I don't know. Anyway, it's over. It's done with, and we're gonna get this thing out to the people because they want to, they want to hear it. So, in a quick synopsis, , what is your, what is your history in the pole vault? Like, where, where, where did you grow up? First of all? Like, was this, did you always live in Washington?

Tim Reilly: (04:57)
Yeah, yeah. I, I was a Spokane boy when I was a little kid, and yeah, Catholic school, grade school, high school guy. Our grade school actually had a a pole vault pit, a bunch of nets of foam rubber. So once I once I kind of found this sport, I got infected is the way I would describe it with this idea that I got a pole vault and I did it on a bunch of funky poles and things that I could find sticks and bamboo and whatnot. Then by sixth grade in the spring, we could actually use the, the one pole the school had I think it was an old browning or something like that. And I think I made maybe seventh sixth in sixth grade, maybe nine and seventh grade, and 10 and eighth grade, something like that, you know.

Tim Reilly: (05:55)
But all the other pole building was just in my yard, or my friend had a nicer long yard. And so at one point my mom and I were driving around and I, we saw this apartment complex being built, and, and it was just like raining foam, rubber out the windows. people were installing carpet and throwing all this carpet pad out the windows on the ground. And I was like, mom . And she said, oh, let's pull over and ask, you know, and they said, what, what is all this stuff on the ground? They said, garbage. And she said, do you mind? And so she got me a couple big burlap bags, and we started stuffing those full of those carpet padding. And, and oh man. So then, then we could raise the grip and back it up, and we could actually go over like 10 feet. And even into high school, we could go 11 feet and, and, and land on something rather than our feet. So yeah. That,

Jake Winder: (06:49)
That's hilarious. It's like, God, just rain raining down for,

Tim Reilly: (06:54)
Yeah, it was like mono from heaven, man. It was so cool. So high school did not go great. I, I liked it. I also played basketball and stuff, but there wasn't coached by any, I didn't even know that there was a coach in Washington. Could I have gone somewhere to get help? I don't know. So of course I was doing it wrong. As I tell every athlete that starts with me the first time I hand you a poll, you're gonna do it wrong. Mm-Hmm. , because doing it wrong is, is a reptilian response to having this thing in our hands and this desire to jump over something where we can't do it Right. Without intentionally seeing like, oh, that's not gonna work. Right. And so we, yeah. So anyway, I, I was mediocrely successful in high school with maybe three poles over my four years.

Tim Reilly: (07:43)
And I made 13 six, got to the state meet, you know it was very disappointing. In my first year of college, I tried at University of Idaho, Mike Keller was a great guy, but you know, they didn't have poles for me either. like, what am I doing? So I started trying to as I became a teacher, I tried helping kids pole vault because, just cuz I loved it so much. What did you teach? I was not, I taught English, mostly English and theology at two different Catholic high schools, 15 years each in the Seattle area. Yeah. So my awakening came from finding a mentor. Finally, I, I was always reading things, but when I found Carl Erickson and who kind of took me under his wing, it, it really just changed everything. My whole paradigm of how to teach this saying and, and, and work with kids was different.

Tim Reilly: (08:41)
And so I, I had rapid profound success that that made my kids in, in Bellevue, Washington, way better than anybody else's kids around me. And everybody wanted to figure out what that was about. So I, I started running camps and things and I, I spent a whole summer camping with Carl and Southern Texas and sultry heat and and nice hospitable homes where he would, some athlete would have us stay there at their home and feed us every day and all that. And it was quite an experience. And Bill Payne and a couple of others were, were his helper buddies too. And so we all kind of traveled around in this big old van of his with a hundred poles on the top of the car. And that was pretty formative for me. Really nice time. And

Jake Winder: (09:28)
Could you provide just a little bit of context to Carl Erickson? Like where did he coach? Yeah, and just so people understand, because I, I have a small connection with Carl Erickson. This is gonna sound really random, and if it's not the right person, then, you know, please correct me. Did Carl Erickson have one leg?

Tim Reilly: (09:47)
Yes.

Jake Winder: (09:48)
Okay. That's the person that I'm thinking of. Okay. Yeah. All right. Gotcha. Yeah,

Tim Reilly: (09:54)
He yeah, he you're thinking of the right guy. That's another story in itself. But yeah, he was at Baylor when I first met him, and at the time he had three 18 footers at the same time at Baylor, which was pretty cool. Mm-Hmm. . And he had a lot, and he'd say to me, oh, how high do your kids go in their first season? I'm like, well, I usually get a kid to 10 feet. And he's like, oh, Tim, Tim, Tim. That's awful. I'm like, really? And he says, oh, you gotta think differently. Oh my gosh. He said, you can stick me anywhere in the USA and within five years I'm gonna have a 16 footer every year. I'm gonna have a 17 footer every five years, and I'm gonna have an 18 foot jumper once a decade. I don't care where you stick me in Alaska, I can do it anywhere. Whoa. It's easy. And I was like, what? ?

Jake Winder: (10:48)
That's awesome.

Tim Reilly: (10:50)
Right? , so,

Jake Winder: (10:52)
Holy

Tim Reilly: (10:53)
Cow. So bring it. Show me, you know, and all that. So, and I,

Jake Winder: (10:56)
That is really, it's really funny though, cause my dad, my dad went, I wonder if you guys might have crossed paths a long time ago because my dad when was this? So he, he won the Illinois State Championship in high school in 79, and then he took a year or two off and then went to Texas a and m in Kingsville. And the reason that he went to Texas a and m in Kingsville was because his friend David Hodge, who's now owner,

Tim Reilly: (11:29)
One his

Jake Winder: (11:29)
Of Laia Sports Group, they, they were, they grew up pole vaulting together in the same town. And then David went and worked with Carl Erickson at Baylor, and then he was like, you gotta get down here, man. It's going crazy down here in Texas. You gotta just anywhere, just get anywhere down

Tim Reilly: (11:49)
Here. Yeah, right. Don Hood had a thing going on.

Jake Winder: (11:51)
Yeah. And, and so, and so my dad went and trained a little bit with Carl mm-hmm. . And he says, same thing you did, is just a really incredible person, incredible coach, and so on and so forth.

Tim Reilly: (12:05)
So yeah. Anyway, yeah, he was, he was, he was a self prescribed described maverick. He said, I am a huge left arm advocate and everybody thinks I'm crazy, but blah, blah, blah, you know? So I had to temper his emphasis on left arm as the only thing that mattered almost. And realized, well, it's one of the things that matters. And I appreciated that he'd start people on bending poles really early, even if he had to hold them up and push 'em on the back to get it to work.

Jake Winder: (12:38)
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Tim Reilly: (13:24)
He didn't think about smaller poles or whatever. He, he probably didn't have any of the same kind of little poles I have now in my mo modern teaching system. But that, and I mean, he had guys on 40 and 50 pound heavier poles in their body weight, and if you wanna go high right. You know, that's where the money is. When people ask me like, well, what's the difference between 11 and 12? How do I get to 12? I said, well, come on over here to my pole rack .

Tim Reilly: (13:53)
I said, here's where you are. You know what pole you're gonna use to make 12 of 'em. Keep walking to the right. You know, and they're just like, yeah. So how do we increase your pole rotation velocity? I know how to do this, but that's what the job is. Don't go talking to me about you're not swinging high enough. We're going to, we're gonna learn to move poles and we move poles. Right. My kids just ended up on 14,680 s at the University of Washington the other day, and they're 140 each. So those are some big frigging poles. You wanna go high, you better learn how to move poles. And one of the ways is not to eat your plant after building up all that beautiful speed you're working on. Not to lose it all with a big last step or a low plant or a crappy bottom arm. It's not gonna work. So right. You know, anyway, so there, that's kind of the starting story. I retired as an athlete and, and what did you jump as I,

Jake Winder: (14:48)
If you don't mind me asking?

Tim Reilly: (14:49)
15 at University of Idaho my freshman year. Okay. That's not impressive. And until you think like, wait, didn't you say that's the same pole you were jumping 13 six on in high school? You brought that pole with you to college and you never had another one? Yeah,

Jake Winder: (15:05)
That's a true story.

Tim Reilly: (15:07)
. That's the, it's the same 13 1 75 that I had in high school because there was no poles at Idaho for me. Oh my God. So I just learned to do more wrong things to make 15 on the same pole.

Jake Winder: (15:20)
That's actually really impressive.

Tim Reilly: (15:23)
. There's a picture of my plant in the yearbook that was just awful. I'm just so embarrassed now, if any, but my old athletes saw it. They'd be open coach.

Jake Winder: (15:31)
What's that? Right? Well, you, you got better. You got better at it. So, so yeah. So I guess that's, you know, I am curious, what do you say to a person that says you can't understand how to pole vault high unless you've pole vaulted high? What do you say to somebody that says that

Tim Reilly: (15:47)
There are some nuances of what I need to communicate to my athletes that I rely upon from colleagues like Pat Manson and Stacy and, and Erica Fraley who say to me, oh, when I was doing it, I used to feel, and I go, ah, that yes, I appreciate hearing that. Pat describes all the time his, his, his work between the cusps of danger and maximum controllable speed on all these little, how high do I swing? How fast do I go? Ah. It's fascinating for me to listen to 'em. And so I can say to my kids, now, pat Manson says when he is doing it. So I re really rely heavily on collegiality for some of that. And is a different thing. I mean, I experienced pole vaulting, you know, I mean, I, I, I know what it's like to work through little weird things and have, and kind of get in my head too much.

Tim Reilly: (16:47)
I need to get outta my head and all that kind of a stuff. I also had a really great mentor for the last 25 of my 30 years in high schools. I was just running summer camps for pole vault, but I, I was the golf coach not cuz I was a good golfer, right? But because they needed a golf coach. And I'm like, how bad can that be? And I found this guru of mental golf teaching a seminar seminars who travel the country explaining to people how to make use of their brain in their, in their motor movement learning and in their competitive situations and how to build confidence and all that. So I got really a wizard mentoring for 25 years on how to get the most out of the athlete, helping them understand themselves and why they're doing what they're doing and all that kind of a thing. How we can bring our best selves to the biggest venues and all that kind of a thing. So when people say, how'd you ever learn to be a really, I mean, your kids are so competitive in all these big venues, they just like sweep. There doesn't seem to be any nerves above. So for that thanks Bill Meyer, who's this really, really great wizard of a mental coach. All of that stuff transferred very easily for me into my, into my work with truck kids.

Jake Winder: (18:09)
Right. So, so, so you're saying that you have taken the approach of things that I don't, maybe I have not experienced or felt which I don't want to discount discredit like 15 feet. It's not like you didn't pole vault. Like that's like, that's that's a good, that's a good jump. Like but you know, some people just are so hooked on this idea that if you didn't jump, you know, six meters, then you can't help somebody jump six meters or, or whatever. And I think that you're just such an incredible example, of somebody who I, you know, who's just like, you know, well, I, I got to a certain point, but then I just have been a, an a really big student of different techniques and, and talking with different people and things like that. So you, you kind of just pool a lot of information from a lot of people and then add your little spice, you know, to it and apply your own logic to it. Is that correct?

Tim Reilly: (19:13)
You got it. Yeah. I, I think it's a blessing for me to know I did not do this myself. I think sometimes in all sports, because an athlete was a professional, it is assumed that they will be the best coach. Hmm. And coaching is an art form. It is really different. How do I turn kids on? How do I package my information? How do I motivate? How do we assess all that kind of stuff that's different. So I have known from the start, I'm gonna borrow and steal from every smart person I can find. And I'm always, even today, I would never say I've got this mm-hmm. every day in my gym is a, I mean, here comes 10 more kids, some of whom I haven't seen before. Here comes 10 more every day, five days a week. That has exponentially expanded my resourcefulness as a coach now. And every day I'm learning more. Every little goofy kid that cannot straighten that trail leg is like, okay, dude, we're gonna try. Oh, nope, it didn't work. We're gonna try it this way now we're gonna, you know, and I'll send a video to LA who I talked to like a couple times a week. Come, pat, what the heck? You know? And anything we can do to figure out another thing I'll, I I've learned too much to ever say, I've gotta figured out, you

Jake Winder: (20:40)
Know what? Yeah. I think that we're gonna find in the next five to 10 years with the growth of pole vaulting gyms and pole vaulting clubs that the coaching abilities in the United States I think are gonna go through the roof because of ki you know, hopefully that we're able to collaborate together and learn from each other. But I really think just the sheer number of coaching reps that you get Yes. At a club or a gym, it just makes you better. It's just coaching reps, you know, I mean, hundreds, maybe thousands of, of you know, responses to vaults every single week. And, and you compile those over, you know, weeks and then months and then years, and then five years and then a decade. It's like, holy cow, you could just acquire a large amount of knowledge Yes. About how to work with individuals on pole vault. And I, and I really think that that is going to be a huge thing Yes. In the next five to 10 years. And that's, and that, so would you say that since you opened your gym that, that you've seen kind of like a, a steady increase of your ability to work with all different types of, of vaulters?

Tim Reilly: (21:59)
Absolutely. You know McDowell's outliers speaks of the 10,000 hour phenomenon. We always say that, you know, kids need repetitions. Kids aren't the only ones. You nailed it.

Jake Winder: (22:14)
Yep.

Tim Reilly: (22:14)
How many thousands now, more pole vaulters have I worked with and more hours? Have I worked in the entire first 30 years? Am I just doing camps? Right. Absolutely. The coaches, I demeanor new drills, more contraptions,

Jake Winder: (22:33)
Right?

Tim Reilly: (22:34)
Yeah, absolutely. Better, better, better, better. All the time.

Jake Winder: (22:37)
It's really, it really is crazy because people I I, I can feel it. I, I opened up our gym rise pole vault training center in 2019, about five months before the pandemic started. And I opened that up and I, I had worked my dad's camp every summer for six weeks, you know, since I was 18 years old, you know? Mm-Hmm. . But the amount of growth that I have felt from 2019 to now 2023, it, I mean, is insane. Yeah. just because of all of those reps, which is really, really cool. Yeah. but going into, we, we've already talked about this when we were having technic our audio difficulties. But you, you had mentioned that Carl Erickson is a big proponent of starting with that bent pole pretty quickly. And this is kind of your thing. This is kind of like your thing

Tim Reilly: (23:39)
That you're, well, I don't, I don't want it to be my thing because it's so oversimplified. But people ask me all the time, how do your kids all plant so great? Oh my gosh. Every one of your kids is like, you're producing them on some cookie sheet. What the heck? It's like, the answer is I start them with an engaged bottom arm. Yes, I do that. I do not spend time on straight poles. I have leapfrogged over, I, you know, not having been raised by an old school guru , I was never raised by a petro or anybody. Right. So I felt free to, to find my way. And Carl, you know, certainly empowered me to, to think outside the box. But I would say that my thing is that what I've learned most in the last 10 years is that we're training nervous systems.

Tim Reilly: (24:32)
And the way humans learn motorized activity like that is by repetition and habituation. We have this who is it? This beautiful book. I'm gonna say the Talent code is a fantastic book on how we, how we motor learn things. And he says, we are male beings. We learn to automate necessary motor movements because they're necessary for our productivity and our survival. So whatever it is that we practice, we can become so proficient at repeating it. It's, it's automated thoughtless, right? So unfortunately, what's reptilian in us as pole vaulters is not gonna help us. We have to, to learn counterintuitive things. And so as I start people, I sit 'em in a chair and I explain this to them, that they're gonna wanna pull on this thing and they're gonna wanna suck up their legs. And we're not gonna do that. But saying so will have no effect on them.

Tim Reilly: (25:31)
I could tell you don't pull a thousand times, you're gonna pull, if I put a stick across a baby crib, the kid's gonna pull on him as soon as he can grab it. We will do that. But I'm gonna start you in this way. I'm gonna have you stand on a little elevated thing of an 18 inch box or the front of the pit. Hold the pole as you must raise your knee, and now lean into it. I'm gonna hold the pole so it won't go anywhere. I want you to stretch and hang from that right hand or the top hand, whichever it is. Stretch, stretch, stretch. Can you feel it? Tip your head up. Get straight. Feel the tension in your trail leg that's still standing on the pit. 10Th tense. Hold it. I'm gonna roll you over now. And over they go. And it's like, that's the only way we fly.

Tim Reilly: (26:14)
We gotta do it again. Now you do it by yourself. Nope. Didn't do it. You lost it. Hang again. Feel that, feel that roll and so fastidious perfection right there at that moment. The clay is so soft, you can get 'em feeling like, ah, can we do that 10 times in a row? Nice. Can we do it on the floor now? Walk, walk, walk, step over. Same stuff. Can we do it? Can I get you to jog a little bit and do it? Raise your grip a little, little bit. As soon as it fails, we pause and we make it right again. Do we gotta go back to the box? Let's do it back to now. Let's, let's throw in some wickets and see if you can go hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop. And still do it. Can we do that? Now? You're feeling good.

Tim Reilly: (26:59)
And I ask him, what's your comfort level? Oh six. They'll say, okay, let's repeat more, more, more. Now. How are you doing? I'm eight, eight and a half. Good. Ready for what's next? You know, what's next? I showed you the whole sequence we're gonna do today. You know, we're gonna do hurdles now, you know, we're gonna go to the pit now. You ready for that? And they'll say, sometimes, could I, could I just do one or two more like this? I say, yep, go for it. And then they say, I'm ready over, we go to the runway. Right? So it's like baby steps, baby steps, insisting upon the good stuff, the right movement, the right posture the whole time. Yeah. That

Jake Winder: (27:34)
Is, that is beautiful. It's magic. Like, it really, it really is. It, it really is artwork. And I know that that's like super, you know, woowoo or whatever like that, it's

Tim Reilly: (27:45)
Not right. No.

Jake Winder: (27:46)
It's, it is, it is artwork and, and it's the construction of that system. I, I'm fascinated with systems, I'm fascinated with, with systems of instruction, with the pole vault. I'm fascinated with business systems. I'm fascinated with mean accounting systems. Like, I, I just love systems. I, I, I think that's very, very, it's intriguing to me. And, and listening to that system is just, it's just beautiful. It's just a really cool thing to see how the one thing interacts with the next thing, interacts with the next thing, interacts with the next thing, and then it turns into Hannah and Amanda Mall, you know, . It's like, it's like, it's so cool to see that. But I do wanna mention one thing that you, you kind of skipped past that we had mentioned in our prior podcast before this which was the video. So Tim had mentioned that, that you video, you sh you, you have this all on video, and then you prep the athlete with the video so they can understand like, okay, I'm going, I'm going to be doing this today. And, and what, what is it? So this is a video on your phone and, and kind of maybe, you know, what the contents of that video might be.

Tim Reilly: (29:11)
Okay. Well, I've done this with hundreds of kids, right? Over the last 10 years. So I always film them at each little phase. So you know, I get a couple films of them stepping off the pit correctly and incorrectly. Then we move over to the floors, correct. Incorrect. And then we put the wickets down. So I, I've, I've saved some sequences, right? And so one of the best ones is this is the most fluid from start to finish in the, in a, in a two hour session. I, I sit them down and I just talk to, to 'em for 15 minutes and their parents can look over my shoulder or whatever they wanna do. But I explained to them that the project is gonna be so challenging because it's counterintuitive and there will be so many times it's just gonna be overmastering to wanna pull an up pole.

Tim Reilly: (29:54)
You may not. And so here's how I'm gonna help you not do it. You're gonna learn to do it this way. And this, these will be the steps we're gonna take today here. We're gonna do this. Yeah, we're gonna do that. And by the end of today, look at what you're gonna be doing. You're gonna be going 4, 3, 2, 1, and moving on a slightly bending pole. Look at the posture of this body. It's the exact same posture you had at the start of the day on that pit leaning with me before you even left the ground. That's what we're gonna bring. And we can, you know, and then I, and I jokingly say to them, so that's what I'm about to do. Are you wanna run to the car now? Do you wanna get outta here? Or, or are you in? And, you know, so they know what's coming and we can refer back to it during the day.

Jake Winder: (30:35)
Right? And so you ever do, you, does the kid, let's say just, you know, I'm just curious, does 80% make it through that entire sequence? Does hundred percent More, more 90%.

Tim Reilly: (30:53)
Yeah.

Jake Winder: (30:55)
Really? So like, oh yeah, 90, 90, 95 or a hundred

Tim Reilly: (30:59)
Percent, 90, here's something that's gonna happen. And the kids don't know this, nor does the parent until they get there. Well, maybe it's 80. I could have a kid that I say, okay, so now you're gonna go over the, you're gonna, you've got this posture beautifully here. You are rolling over, I'm pulling on the pole or tapping you on the back. You do it by yourself. And suddenly they shrivel up and I say, oh, you know, you, you, you lost that long body thing. You shriveled. And then I, within a 20 minutes, I can see, ah, I have a person who's afraid to do this.

Jake Winder: (31:32)
Right?

Tim Reilly: (31:33)
There is nothing I can do today to speed up that process. They will never be a pole vaulter, , everything about it. I'm not gonna say that to them. Right?

Tim Reilly: (31:45)
Right. I can, I can explain to them. I say, now, just so you understand, I know that you're resolved to stay long here. Here's how our bodies work. If there is any uncertainty, it will manifest in a contraction. You will pull or shrivel up your legs. No one ever taught me how to duck when someone shouts heads. We didn't practice in school. It's in my system. If I don't like something, I'm getting smaller. It's just the way we get safe. So that's why you're doing it. There's something about this is that scares you. Yeah. That's kind of different. Yeah. Can you do it? I think so. What can we do to make it more comfortable? You want me to stand here again? Do I gotta pull on the pole for you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do, do we wanna lower your grip a little bit?

Tim Reilly: (32:27)
At least they know why it's happening to them. And at the end of the day, I might say to the, to, you know, the parents always say, what do you think? And I say, well, here's what I think. This is gonna be an extremely slow process. Everybody has, is on a continuum of how much they enjoy the, the kind of the adrenaline rush, the, the excitement of doing the thing That's a little bit scary. This child is, is has a super cautious survival manager in the backseat of her car. Mm-Hmm. , it's gonna be very slow. I'm not gonna blow any smoke at you that she may never make 10 feet. However, you guys are gonna get in the car. And if this is the most dang fun she's ever had, you gotta come back. That's, that's worth something by itself. I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you this is, this is not gonna go easily every step we took today. Oh, she needed to tiptoe and her eyes got big. And it's like that, that's not the kind of kid you even want her in the first place. And hey, maybe you had a good time and you go back to doing something else. That's okay. We had a good two hours.

Jake Winder: (33:33)
Have you found a way to deprogram that quicker

Tim Reilly: (33:39)
Fear?

Jake Winder: (33:40)
Yeah.

Tim Reilly: (33:41)
No.

Jake Winder: (33:42)
All right. ? Nope. Moving on.

Tim Reilly: (33:44)
. It's a running, it's a running joke with all of us football coaches. Hey, what if you got this kid who's great, great, great, but they're just afraid. Oh, you get a different pole vault ,

Jake Winder: (33:55)
Right? That's hilarious. That's

Tim Reilly: (33:56)
A good one. No.

Jake Winder: (33:58)
So after they go through this process, and then you, you take 'em through their, and basically for the people who have never seen this, he, he takes 'em through, you know, a platform vault. And then he eventually gets them to doing a drill where they're, they're planting the pole with a, with a rigid bottom arm. I would say not a straight bottom arm, but a rigid bottom

Tim Reilly: (34:25)
Arm. It's not at all straight, but yeah, it's engaged,

Jake Winder: (34:27)
Engaged bottom arm.

Tim Reilly: (34:29)
Yeah. And the left hand even with a wristband visual aid stays in front of their face and they stay right behind it. So I don't want the, the head to tip over to the side to avoid collision. I want them to have a, a light enough pole that they don't have to try hard to do it, but it's just very easy for them to do it. To learn to jump up with a, with a fully tight elastic stretch. Right? And, and with the pole moving in front of them. Yeah. Like that. And all the while in the first two hours, we're not talking about swinging over anything. And we may not talk about that for a week or two. And even if we introduce it, I, I load them with more caution. You are going to hoist up your legs to go over this bar if I put it here, and I won't allow that.

Tim Reilly: (35:14)
So I'm just telling you right now, this is what you're gonna wanna do. And this is what I want you to do. I want you to keep that leg long and it's just swing it up. So come over here to my rings. I'm gonna set 'em down where you can reach 'em. I wanna see tap, tap, get swinging swing again. Tap, tap. Now start moving that trail leg. So tap, tap into this beautiful flight, and as soon as the flight looks good, and I see you stretched and you're arced, now move that trail leg. And if it starts bending on the rings, I'm gonna say no. Nope, nope. Straighter, straighter. And I'll just stand right next to him. Keep tapping that leg. That's not straight yet. Now it's straight. Now you're moving it. Can you feel it? Yeah, let's go do it. So here's the low bar.

Tim Reilly: (35:55)
As soon as you jump and swing, if I see a nice long, straight trail leg up and over the bar, and you land back on your feet again, perfect. You can keep doing it. Okay? If you fold up that leg, it's back to the rings, or we're not swinging at all today. We're not doing it wrong. I will not let you swing wrong in my gym. Also, I will not let you hug your pole the first time you try to swing. If something more important, falls apart, stop. That is a discipline of hierarchical skill building in this, in this event. It's a pyramid, in my opinion, that I adhere to very strictly. And I think it is difficult for spring track season coaches to adhere to because they're, they're probably not as, as skilled at, at that first session teaching, perhaps as of veterans like we are.

Tim Reilly: (36:47)
But also they feel compelled to rush and get these kids over something within the first couple weeks of the season so they can feel like they're a part of a team. And so they're twirling around in circles flying over five or six feet, and I gotta fix that. You know, after they do that for three months, that's a mess. And I don't let it happen in my gym. So I've never had a 14 footer. I've got my six that's just about on the brink. She just made 14 or 13, 10 or 11 or something again the other day. She's a junior. None of them, none of them started somewhere else. All of them are are ground zeros. So

Jake Winder: (37:24)
I going 13 footers. Go ahead.

Tim Reilly: (37:28)
Yeah, I got 13 13 footers so far. Maybe four of them jumped somewhere else before they came to me. So most of this is a product of zero to college ready. It's, it's not taking kids with awful habits and moving them from 11 feet, four years experience to 14.

Jake Winder: (37:51)
Right. And I think that it's, it's what's what really fascinated me is actually that girl that you're talking about right now, the I'm sorry to her. No, Ella. Okay. I was gonna say like, it's like a flying ninja, or she's, she's climbing ninja or something like that. It's her, her Instagram handle. Anyway, so she is a great one because I saw her go through that first day sequence on your Instagram. Yeah. And I've been following that ever since. Oh, and that was actually, she was the first one that I saw that I was like, hold on, this guy's got her been in the poll on the, the first day. That's, that's not gonna work. , you know, I'll, I'll be, I'll admit I, maybe I didn't say that, but I was like, ah, we'll see where she's at, you know, in, in a few months or something like that.

Jake Winder: (38:49)
Yeah. Well, we see where she's at now. And she's doing incredibly well. So I think people who are listening, if you want to see that, you can go on Tim's Instagram and you can go back and see her first, I think it was her, like her first or second class that she took with you, and she went through all those things that you're talking about right now. And then, you know, she doesn't block out and she does know how to swing, and she does know how to pull vol. She's gonna jump 14 really soon looks like. And, and it's, it's very fascinating because it, it does work. And you're just making, I think what's gonna happen with this whole thing with this you're bending the pole too early type thing, and you have to straight pull type thing. I think probably what happens is you're gonna make too compelling of a case, an irrefutable case, , you know, and, and, and then after that it's like, come on guys, let's just concede, let's concede it works. Maybe it doesn't work for you or doesn't work for everyone, you know, and can you but develop a pole vaulter with that straight pole technique, obviously yeah, you can. Yep. But we can't tell him that he's wrong anymore. We can't, we just can't do that. And I think you're, I think you're there, you know, especially after, you know, the mall sisters and, and their, their performance. So, so I, I, that was actually one of my questions was

Jake Winder: (40:24)
H when a kid comes to you and they've, let's say that it's a female that's jumped 11 feet when they come to you, they, they just moved into the Seattle area. Oh, I get to go and, and jump at Northwest Pole. Vault is northwest Pole Vault Academy,

Tim Reilly: (40:45)
Club

Jake Winder: (40:46)
Club. I get to go vault there. And now what do you do? Because they are coming to you having not been through your process, having not been built from the ground up from you. So how do you manage that?

Tim Reilly: (41:03)
It depends on the kid. You gotta look at what they're doing. And kids come, come from all over the place now to spend three days, you know, and some, you know, they're, they're very motivated. The families that in all that camp, could I please have a, that long pink charger cord? They, I mean, it just depends on the kid. Jake. So if all they're doing is they've been, been stuck at 12 for who knows how long, and they're convinced that it's, you know, like, oh, I just, I'm not finishing my swing or whatever, you know, chances are eight outta 10 times, I'm gonna look and say, well, what pull are you on? Mm. You're, you're not moving it. So look at here, here's the speed. Watch your last couple steps. See how you're leaning back. Here's the heel strikes. Well, you're leaking velocity, you're eating some of that right back into yourself with a flimsy bottom arm or whatever like that.

Tim Reilly: (41:58)
So we are gonna power you up as a first priority. We're not gonna learn to swing as a first priority. And so here's my best. These are my best drills to do that. Now, again, understanding how we learn our motor learning process. You have done this this way thousand times. How many times are we gonna do it right before this is a new way of doing it, right? Right. So if, if we make this drill, okay, this time I'm just gonna keep you at four steps. All I want to say, I don't want you swing, and I just wanna see you accelerate. I wanna see climactic speed, thumb, and engage bottom arm, move that pole.

Tim Reilly: (42:42)
If they do it, we celebrate. If it's a flimsy bottom arm, I say, okay, that was flimsy. Go get the PVC pole. Feel it against the wall a couple times. Ooh, ooh, big. Look at yourself in the mirror. Boom, big arm. Feel that, feel it. Go back in the go back in line. And if they're in a group, you know, there's three or four minutes between jumps. I don't like having people sit around visiting and that everybody knows well, they're gonna go watch their video, and then they're gonna go pick up the drill that they know my next ball. Now, if they're, if they're more advanced athletes of mine, they're gonna go to their notebook because they're kind of keeping a little scorecard for the day. Like, okay, today I was gonna work on a b and c 15 jumps. I'm gonna give myself a little star each time I do all those three things.

Tim Reilly: (43:31)
If I do two of them, that's two out of three, or whatever like that, right? So they do that, and then it's like, okay, so where's that little pole? I'm gonna remind myself how to flex in, or whatever it is they're doing. Yeah. So habit reformation, reprogramming requires activation drills. I call them kinesthetic drills so that they can feel what I'm asking 'em to do next. There's no purpose for my saying, Nope, you had a soft bottom arm again. Nope. There it is again. Nope, nope, nope. What are we gonna change other than a kid's mood? If that's the way our teaching model is, we have to let them feel it somewhere. Stop that drill, let's go. You know, you keep slowing down, go hit the sliding box a few times, blow that thing up, get fast again, go to the rings, feel that long swing again, feel it, feel it, and come back. You know? Right. That doesn't work. I got three other ideas, but we have to retrain and not by talking about it, we retrain it by rehearsing the motor movement that we want. Yeah. Right? So we have all these various ways to do that. And now, how many vaults? I sometimes I say to a kid, how many successful vaults have you had with a big plant since last time you were here? And if they look at me like, zero, I go, you're missing it. Right? Why didn't you do 50 a day in your bedroom?

Jake Winder: (44:56)
Right? Yeah. We, what are you doing ABC pipe or some sort of drill? Yeah. Because you can rehearse these things off the runway. You can easily rehearse these things off

Tim Reilly: (45:04)
The runway. You bet you can. Yeah. And the more vividly you imagine yourself doing it, at the next track you're going to, the faster it happens. We all know, don't we, that that our bodies and or our nervous systems cannot distinguish visualized experiences, especially if we are moving while we do them. Right? Hannah and Amanda now have told their other coach that when they lay down and do their visualizing, they can feel their muscles twitching because they're Oh, they're, they're, they're doing it right. So, you know, they're picturing the thing and it's like, yeah. So they're having a lot more successful jumping in between sessions than they just get in the session. So I, I, I'm pretty good at retraining bad habits. I'm getting better and better at it. Sometimes there's another route to it. If a person has trouble bending a pole because they're just afraid mm-hmm. ,

Tim Reilly: (46:00)
We gotta name it. Like, I don't think it's a technical problem. I see you slowing down before, look at slow the video down, you're slowing down. So what are you afraid of? Well, I don't know what, there's something, think about it. What could make you more comfortable? Could I tap you on the back a couple times? Do you wanna move from a five to a four? Do you wanna switch back that you just grabbed a new pole, didn't you? Let's you want to go down a pole. And as soon as that, I can see it in their face, like, yeah, let's do that. I say, okay, in the future, can you become a little more self-aware so I don't have to dig it out of you each time? Let's name what it is so we can address what it is. There's no point in talking about Nope. Nope. Your left arm. Your left arm, if you're afraid.

Jake Winder: (46:45)
Right?

Tim Reilly: (46:46)
So

Jake Winder: (46:46)
What are we talking about is you're, you're doing, you're just doing the things that you know you should do. And I think that that is, that's a com a a common human characteristic is, I know I should do this, but it takes a little too much time. Oh, it takes a, takes a little, yeah. As a coach takes a little too much time I'm tired or, or this, that and the other. So what you're saying

Tim Reilly: (47:14)
Is, is 10 kids on the runway, I don't have time for this

Jake Winder: (47:16)
. Right? Right. Exactly. Well, and, and the thing is though, is what you're talking about is manageable with larger groups of kids. Because what you're, you're not talking about ha you know, giving them some sort of long novel, every single time that they go when they pole vault, you're just like, Hey, you're having problems with your swing. So in between your jumps, you know, what are your cues? Okay, your cues are this. Okay, well those are your cues. You didn't do it that time. Go over on the rings, hit some rings, exercise, visualizing those cues, and then get back on the runway and do it. You're not walking over there with them and doing that. You know, like, so these types of things are very simple things that you can do. And you can give a very valuable feedback to a kid who just finished their vault in a minute or less and give them an exercise and then we Good.

Tim Reilly: (48:11)
Five seconds.

Jake Winder: (48:11)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So it's not, it's not, you know, you just have to put in the effort to think about the things. Probably when you're not at practice as the coach, you need to be like, okay, I'm mean, I'm running through this in my head as we speak. Yeah, yeah.

Tim Reilly: (48:30)
That's okay. , you're gonna do it today after.

Jake Winder: (48:33)
Yeah, exactly. My, our coaches are gonna get a big text message after this . So, you know, you just, you know, you should do it and just do it. And, and

Tim Reilly: (48:45)
Can I add a thing to that? That's Jake. Yeah. If I'm trying to learn something that I have not been doing before, I'm a trail leg shiver. I've been doing that way for a year. I'm trying to get 'em to swing long. They have to reduce everything to just that. They need what I call laser focus. And so if they try it three times, it's like, Nope, nope, nope. I say, Hey, look at me. If I had a hundred dollars bill and I set that a hundred dollars bill right there on the pit, do you think you could come through one frigging time and swing along trail leg? Yeah. said, show me and they do it. And I say, what the heck did you just learn?

Jake Winder: (49:27)
Yeah.

Tim Reilly: (49:28)
I gotta just think about what I'm doing and just focus on that. Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. Not try to do three things. That's, you know, that's . I used to call it the $20 drill, but nobody needs 20 bucks anymore. Right. So you can call it the lemon meringue pie drill or whatever. Like, dude, focus. And that's why I like

Jake Winder: (49:51)
That. That's all I was gonna say is like getting, getting athletes, I always say, you need to learn how to be more present in your vault. You need to be aware in your vault. Because a lot of times what happens is, is athletes will, will just, they'll have incredible intentions at the back of the runway. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. And then every step of the way, , they just start throwing it out the window, . And then once, by the time they get to the box, it's just like, I don't care. I just want to try. I just wanna get over and hopefully I make it, you know, know. And, and that is be, you're not being disciplined and being aware and being present about what you're trying to do. And the way that we've always, you know, tried to get them to do that is to give them, you know, visual cues or you know, some sort of cue that it's like, Hey, like are you doing this? And, and if they can, sometimes they'll be like, yeah, yeah, I'm doing it. No, you're not. Come on. Hey, look at me in the eyes. Are you really, are you really, no, I'm not

Tim Reilly: (50:59)
. You know? Well, you can ask 'em when they land too. Like, Hey, how'd you like that trail? Like, sometimes I look at me and say, good . I'm like, you don't even know, do you ? It's like, okay, so.

Jake Winder: (51:13)
Right, right. Exactly.

Tim Reilly: (51:15)
So overanalysis kills the soup too, you know, you don't, you, you know. But I, I just wanted to point out that intentionality and, and single focus is really pretty important to motor reprogramming. And that's where, where, where we forked off the road a while ago is how do I change people who come to my gym with funny habits? I really want, I gotta get to know them. I gotta find out if they're living like with all this pressure and all that kind of thing. And is, you know, if dad chirping in all the time, I say, oh, okay, I see how this is all working. We gotta , you know? Right. Whatever it is, I wanna do a full assessment of what's going on with them, and then I'll say, here's what I would do. Right. And usually they're very malleable. You know, they don't fly across the country to do the same thing.

Tim Reilly: (52:02)
Right. So they're open to, to to doing it differently. And but yeah, simple cues. I find more emotional cues, more right brain cues. When you're on the runway, when you're on the auxiliary runway or you're in between turns, that's when you, that's when you analyze and you, and you think about flip, press, flip, you know, whatever that is. Don't think about that on the runway. Let's rehearse it. Rehearse it, and now breathe and go attack. Those are, those are more things that are useful, like in the track meet. The other is driving range stuff. When I'm on the, on the live runway, it's more first tee box, you know, I'm not gonna be thinking about my right elbow or my this or that, you know, on the tee box, I'm just gonna think about there, this ball's going there. Right?

Jake Winder: (52:55)
Yeah. So that's some of that golf carryover. The, the mental golf carryover.

Tim Reilly: (53:00)
Where am I going? Not, how am I getting there? Is what's, is what saves the day at a track meet. So that's a whole nother thing. How do you get your kids to perform their best at meets? I got a whole lot of practice champions, and then they go to meets and they fold up like cheap lawn chairs and

Jake Winder: (53:19)
Please tell me how to get that rectified because that's a tough one, man, that it's a, it's sometimes for me, I'm like I'll get frustrated with myself and, and be like, man, like what, what is it like, is it just that some people just have that and some people don't, you know? Nope. But I think it can be trained, you know, I think it, I really do think it can be

Tim Reilly: (53:45)
Confidence is a muscle like any other, it absolutely can be. It's not inborn. I'm very confident at some things and I'm, I'm like, what? Sing in front of a crowd. I'm not, you know it's learned. I think this's, this is a really, this could be a podcast of its own, but I, I don't think people rehearse actual track meet scenarios very often in practice. Really smart coaches who can say to them, so you've got this athlete as a super athlete, performs well in practice that's happening, not happening. Oh, it's gonna, yeah, but it's not, they're still in the same place. How often have you said to them, you've got 30 minutes and we're gonna go opening bar, get ready.

Jake Winder: (54:37)
Right.

Tim Reilly: (54:39)
Well, that's a good idea. We actually we actually haven't done that . I was like, okay, so

Jake Winder: (54:44)
It's a good idea.

Tim Reilly: (54:45)
So, you know yeah. And so part of it is that the other part is, you know, you can almost expect, like, here it is, here's opening bar. Are they gonna go deep, Jake, or are they gonna land short? You know?

Jake Winder: (54:58)
Yeah. They're gonna land short.

Tim Reilly: (54:59)
Yeah. So why do we do that? Because we get so wrapped up in the gotta make it, gotta make it, or I'm gonna go to this meet I'm gonna make, I gotta make 14. If I don't make 14, I'm so sick of not making 14, 14, 14, 14. You are doomed to fail unless you learn to vault by process. Your entire orientation for the day is, you know build it patiently, crush it deep. That's all I'm gonna do today. I, my run is so tight and screwed up. I'm just gonna build it patiently and crush it deep today. What if you don't make 14? That's okay. Cuz if I learned to do this, fourteen's coming. So if you can cling to the process, each kid needs one, and then they, and they vary a little bit, but learn to just jump deep. So I, I just ran on meeting my place yesterday and I said okay, we're about to put the bar up.

Tim Reilly: (55:54)
Every one of you here is gonna land short the first time, unless you remember, we're starting a foot and a half low. We got plenty of space jump before swing, move your pole deep. You know, everybody on board with that. I mean, you know I just did this last week. I was, I was down at the University of Washington and Toby obviously is a wizard coach and that you you know, you know him well. Mm-Hmm. a couple of his athletes were with me when they were kids, and now they're with him. And I said, dang, this girl is still where she was as a sophomore in high school than Covid. I mean, what? I know she's making progress, right? He says, oh, she's getting so much better. Why isn't it happening? It's gonna, I said, okay, but have you put up a hard bar recently?

Tim Reilly: (56:45)
No. I said, I'm, can I mess with today a little bit? Do you mind if I just kind of play? So I went over to her and I said, Holland, you're a butt kicker athlete. Look at you. You're fast, strong. You're improving. You're still at 12 six. We got a little anxiety issue when it becomes real. Yeah. . Yeah. Yes. I said, so Toby and I are gonna put the bar up for you, opening bar. And her face kind of goes like, oh. And I like, oh yeah. And all we wanna see is just keep doing what you're doing. She was jumping deep, deep, deep in all these bungees, and sure enough, here it comes first jump short pollen. I was, yeah. I was thinking, I, I know you were. That's what you do. We're gonna fix that. Let's quit that. Deeper, deeper, deeper. Next one is a little deeper.

Tim Reilly: (57:32)
It's like, okay, was that all green lights or you got a couple yellows on the dashboard? You go it was better. I said, yeah, are you, are you free? Not yet. Find it. Kaboom, Kaboom. Come. Suddenly it's like, oh, now you're bombing the hard bar. Right. Just reminding her like, can we quit talking about your run and your grip and your this and your that? You're not bringing Holland to the moment you got all your parking brakes on. So, you know, it might not have worked this way, but she PRD twice Saturday, you know, and understood. Was like just all jazzed up and thrilled. It's like, you know, okay. So yes, you embrace the demonn, you know? Yeah. That, that was a project. Or you, you know, you kicked that little dragon in the face and, and let's at least name it. Right. You know, we don't need to spend all our time staring at the iPad. And if, if there's a person who has performance anxiety when the bar goes up.

Jake Winder: (58:29)
Right.

Tim Reilly: (58:30)
Right. Yeah.

Jake Winder: (58:32)
Yeah.

Tim Reilly: (58:33)
Agree. Can you expect of that?

Jake Winder: (58:34)
Yeah. That, that is exactly what I do as well is, you know, I'll, I'll tell them all. I just am just very blunt. And I'll say, I'm gonna throw this bar up and you guys are all gonna come down on top of it. And it's because you just, like, what's the first thing to go when a bar goes up your plant? That's the first thing that goes. And it's, it's, it, it's really annoying. And I, and I tell them that it, it's really, you know, frustrating. But I can't talk too much smack on it because I was a pole vaulter once and I did the same thing

Tim Reilly: (59:10)
.

Jake Winder: (59:11)
So I, so I do understand where they're, where they're coming from, but I tell them, knock it off on the way up, please. Please knock

Tim Reilly: (59:21)
It off on the way up. Please miss bravely. Yeah.

Jake Winder: (59:23)
I would love . Love for you to blow through this. Yep. And knock it off on the way up, because guess what? You just made my job so freaking easy, because all I gotta do is put next poll in your hand, and then we're gonna have a great day. Yep. You know? So please, please hit the bar. Please knock it off on the way up. Now if you knock it off on the way down, we got an issue. Because that's not me. That's you. You know, like, so, you know, you blow through it. Hey, that's coach's fault. You put me on the wrong pole, wrong grip, whatever. Okay. But you knock it off coming down on top. That is not me. That is you not, you're, you're just afraid to hit the bar, you know, in pole vault. We eventually are going to hit it, you know, and it is. And

Tim Reilly: (01:00:12)
They're afraid to miss. They're trying not to

Jake Winder: (01:00:14)
Miss. That's me. They

Tim Reilly: (01:00:15)
Don't wanna miss something. Oh, now it's 14. Well, you can be guaranteed. You're going straight up and straight down the soon as you get to the PR bar . Cause you're gonna forget. You're gonna forget. What does it take to make a PR bar a gigantic long jump before my swing? Yeah. Right. You're so excited for the higher bar. Everything changes. So we talk about it and we practice it. We're not even looking at the bar. We're gonna find the top hand. Right. We're going deep. Whatever Process, process, forget the bar. Let it fall up. It must, you will not make it until you learn to jump. Like it doesn't matter. Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. So

Jake Winder: (01:00:49)
It's hard. It's, it is hard. What I do too is I, I'll even, like, let's say they're jumping at a bungee and they have like extreme competent, like bar anxiety or whatever mm-hmm. . If it's, if it's to the extreme, I'll, I'll, I'll let 'em jump at the bungee, you know, to start the workout out. And then in the middle of the workout, not in the middle, towards the beginning of the workout, maybe they do a few jumps over a bungee. And then I put a bar up that's like two and a half feet below their personal best. And it's like, that bar's up there, but it's kind of not even really up

Tim Reilly: (01:01:28)
There non-threatening.

Jake Winder: (01:01:29)
You know, it's a very non-threatening bar. It's like, come on coach, what the hell? You know, like mm-hmm. , this is stupid. And it's like, Hey, well, show me, show me that it's stupid. Please. You know? And, and then, you know, they, they cruise through it and then you can kind of just incrementally bump it up with their confidence as their confidence grows. That's another one that I like to use sometimes too. But

Tim Reilly: (01:01:52)
It's a hard one. You just describing a coach in the process of figuring it out day by day by day. Yeah. That worked for this kid. It didn't work for that one. That's exactly what you gotta do. Just keep exploring and experimenting. Exactly.

Jake Winder: (01:02:07)
Hundred percent. Hundred percent. So what h how did this whole mall sisters thing happen? Is it just as simple as, did they, they start with you? Is it a Yep. So they, oh yeah. From first day, I

Tim Reilly: (01:02:24)
Could, I could send you a picture of the two of 'em. On the first day, doing their little four step run on a, on a 10 foot hundred pound pole. So cool. It's a beautiful thing. And and you could, you should see the joy bursting outta each of 'em. They were standing next to each other and I thought, okay, if there's two cuter people on the planet, I dunno where

Jake Winder: (01:02:45)
We're gonna find them. .

Tim Reilly: (01:02:46)
That's hilarious. So they were multi-sport athletes, mountain bike racers, gymnasts, rock climbers. And so their parents engaged a, a really smart reputable multis coach right near their home in Olympia named Mike Strong, who helped lots of kids learn multis. And he'd sent me Decathletes before because he, he thinks that's the best place to get 'em to learn to vault fast. So he said, you know, these girls are gonna need to try pole vaulting. Look at 'em. They're, you know, I can just see it in their, in their personalities, their gymnasts. Give it a try sometime. You gotta go to see Tim, give it a shot. And they had a blast, obviously. Right. So they were, I think it was the summer after seventh grade, perhaps, something like that. Maybe it was the summer. I think it was summer after seventh. The first time I ever took 'em someplace to compete was in eighth grade.

Tim Reilly: (01:03:43)
I think they were no, it was seventh grade. They made eight and a half feet or something at Junior Olympics as Oh wow. As thirteens. Yeah. so, so that's it. And then Mike continued to have 'em, one would throw javelin in high jump and the other would hurdle on long jump or whatever. They, they kind of did a lot of that multi stuff. They kept playing volleyball into high school and freshman year. But what started happening to them, happening to them on the Walt runway was obviously unusual and prodigious. And so those other kind of things just started getting in perspective. And it's like, we're, we're pole vaulters, aren't we? And we need to still hurdle perhaps cuz that's good for us and whatnot. But I don't think we need volleyball anymore. We wanna, we wanna train for speed and, and, and pole vault, you know, in the other times a year.

Tim Reilly: (01:04:32)
And so by the time they were going into their sophomore, well, yeah, by, by freshman summer, they, they were pretty much bonafide pole vaulters. Amanda, a man that broke the freshman record that Mia Manson had. And then a week later it was 13 five, and then a week later it was 13, nine. And then a week later it was 14 three was like, what? You know, so it's like, you know, don't leave hand out for long. She's gonna be right behind. You know. So she bloomed slightly later, but so that's how it started. You know, my buddy Pat Lari he started a club in Tacoma, which is an hour closer to them mm-hmm. . And I thought, they're gonna leave me. God dang it, . I can't blame him. Pat's great. He's close to their house. God, this whoa. Wow. It was fun while it lasted. And their mom was like, no, no. Right. We're coming. And I'm like, okay, whoa. Wow. And an hour and 20 minutes driver, whatever, every time they come twice a week.

Jake Winder: (01:05:34)
Right.

Tim Reilly: (01:05:35)
It's just, it's amazing. It's very humbling to me. Yeah. My

Jake Winder: (01:05:40)
Good for their parents too. I, I think that's a huge, a huge thing that I have got a shout out the parents that do that for their kids. It's very inspiring to me when I see parents do that. I have two little girls and they're not, you know, competing in any, you know, serious athletics or anything right now. But it's, it's amazing seeing parents do something like that for their kids. Like just they cons every week, week after week two times, just driving. We've got parents that do that hour, hour and a half drive too, and it's just mm-hmm. amazing. So it, I mean, there, what a, what a great reward though. Seeing, being able to be a part of this with their, with their daughters,

Tim Reilly: (01:06:27)
You know? Yeah. It is, it's an absolute privilege about parents who are willing to do that. I think there's, there's two kinds. Some are willing to do that they'll fly their kids anywhere, and it's like, I think this is for the parent . I, you know, I don't, I feel bad for this kid. These guys are so not that. Yeah. They just, they, they don't chirp at them for any, in any kind of pole vaulty stuff. Sometimes they don't even come in the gym till like the last 15 minutes and they sit way in the back. They're, you know, they're very, very hands off, all supportive mom's a a nutritionist. Oh, wow. Dad's a a recreational athlete superstar. And, and he's really into the mental stuff. And he, he works with that kind of stuff. Mike Strong is there right next to him. He, he coaches him three days a week.

Tim Reilly: (01:07:19)
Speed. And now just this year they've started doing a little Olympic lifting, you know, which seems age appropriate now. Right. always watching their, their wellness and, and, and reporting to me like, oh, Hannah had a little kind of hamstringing thing kind of feeling today or whatever like that. So just want you to know. I said, good deal. Thank you. You know, and we were always talking about it. I saw 'em a little flat today. What were, what'd they do yesterday? And so it, it is a confluence of support systems you could not possibly improve upon. No. And you have two phenomenal prototype athletes, right. Multi-Sport gymnasts, five 10, what, you know, what could possibly, what, what would you add to that? Right. Right. The PO vault is already a grossly unfair sport. Phenomenally favoring affluent families who can afford people like us. Affluent schools can afford to buy poles if their kids lack them. Parents who can fly a kid to a national meet or whatever, if the, if they get that good. All that kind of stuff. And then to be fortunately located by a coach, that's, that's really good. Some people are just like, we got nothing here. Mm-Hmm. , you know, you can have all those parts in one, missing the money or the coach or whatever, and it doesn't work. It's,

Jake Winder: (01:08:41)
Yeah.

Tim Reilly: (01:08:42)
It's, it's, it's really a, a I caution anybody into thinking that this is the Tim Riley story producing twins like that. It's a village of phenomenal people. And I'm

Jake Winder: (01:08:58)
Just like, yeah, it's gotta be, it's gotta be a, a con, like you said, converging all these different things together to, to get, to get something like that. You know, like you can, I, I think the whole, I think the consistent, you know, track record for you is the Tim Riley show. I think that that is, but the, the, those two parti particularly like that is what they've, what they've done is, is pretty phenomenal. But I, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know, discredit your role in that whole thing though.

Tim Reilly: (01:09:33)
I just want it to be, to be clear that this is a really unusual circumstance of Right. of, of a communal support and a Right. Such an amazing family. And the kids are so good. Even if they, you know, of all of that was there and they were cocky or selfish, or

Jake Winder: (01:09:54)
Right.

Tim Reilly: (01:09:56)
Snotty, or they weren't really good students, any of that just like, nah, it's not the whole package. It's, you know, you don't really make champions out of athletes if they're not champion people. And every aspect of it is, is positive and promising. I, I think it's really, I mean, they're, they may very well move the U 20 record by six inches before they're done this summer.

Jake Winder: (01:10:23)
I don't doubt that. They both, and Hannah looked really good. I saw a video of her that you posted up maybe a couple days ago. Oh,

Tim Reilly: (01:10:32)
It's five

Jake Winder: (01:10:33)
Two narrowly missing that. Right. Oh my God.

Tim Reilly: (01:10:36)
And so, you know, and they're, and they're under 20 through their whole freshman year of college. Oh. Oh gosh. You know, everybody else, you know, when you watch records go, it's usually a centimeter or whatever, . This is just blowing it all out of the water. It's, it's really, you know. Sure.

Jake Winder: (01:10:55)
So I guess that leads us into how's all that gonna work, with

Tim Reilly: (01:11:01)
College? How's that gonna

Jake Winder: (01:11:01)
Work with college

Tim Reilly: (01:11:03)
? Oh, well, what do you mean?

Jake Winder: (01:11:05)
Like, I, I just am curious, you know, that I think that's, that's a, that's a very difficult time for any athlete to, to transition from. I mean, they have an incredible, like, you, you just explained an incredible support system that Okay.

Tim Reilly: (01:11:25)
Has

Jake Winder: (01:11:25)
Been number

Tim Reilly: (01:11:25)
One, they lose none of it.

Jake Winder: (01:11:29)
Okay.

Tim Reilly: (01:11:29)
We're gonna move right into the University of Washington, and the only thing we're gonna do is add Toby to the team.

Jake Winder: (01:11:36)
Hmm.

Tim Reilly: (01:11:36)
Well, as a, you know, I'm moving there. Did you know that?

Jake Winder: (01:11:40)
I did. You had, you and I talked about that a little bit at Reno. But for those of people who don't know tell us a little bit about kind of how it all came about.

Tim Reilly: (01:11:50)
Toby and I have been speaking of it for some time. As he recruited them, he says, now these are very, very special people. I don't want you to think for a second that I, that I think I can roll this with continuity and not screw it up if you're not a part of the deal. I'm like, well, you know, well, what's that gonna look like? So we've talked to lots of ideas. Like, I, if they want to come to your gym to do their training, that's okay with me. If you want, if you wanna come here a couple days a week when they're jumping, that's okay with me. Well, how's that gonna work? Well, you know, we keep talking more and more about it, and, and the conversation just kept morphing. And it's like, if I'm gonna come there a couple days a week, do you really want them to kind of have a special coach thing going on?

Tim Reilly: (01:12:31)
I was like, yeah. You know, I, yeah. I don't want I, and I don't want to go dislike, not coach them. I want us to coach everybody. Right. Okay. So now we're, this is getting interesting. Can I do my junior program out of the Dempsey Center at the University of Washington with, with you? Suppose they would tolerate my running clinics in the evenings and whatever. You can do camps or clinics or whatever. As college coaches, I, it's gonna be different. I'm gonna lose my beautiful little training environment with all my favorite toys and all that. But you know, it, it, it can work. And so that's what we've been talking about. And so I go down there once a week and I coach a session with him, and we catch up and visit. And it's fun. We're just having a really great time. Like, Hey, Toby, don't say anything. Ask her this. Or he says, Hey, try this with her next time. And we're just like, ah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and we've, we've openly said like, are we gonna step on each other's egos here? You know? Cause I mean,

Jake Winder: (01:13:29)
Right. He's, I mean, that would be the natural question. That would be the natural question is how is going to work? Yeah.

Tim Reilly: (01:13:35)
He's not gonna tolerate that. And I'm like, well, he is. We, we've had a lot of good visits about it, and we're practicing. We're doing it together. And, and I, my ego is at, at risk too. I mean, you know, I, I'm a I told him my confidence in coaching kids from zero up is monstrous

Jake Winder: (01:13:54)
. That's, I love that.

Tim Reilly: (01:13:57)
I'm kidding you. I am so freaking confident that I can get a good athlete from zero to a really high place that's gonna seem so arrogant, but I've just, I know I can do it. I've been doing over and over again. It's so easy now. He said, I got it. I got it. We both earned our, you know, our credentials. I think four hours are gonna be better than two. And it's just, it's really, really cool.

Jake Winder: (01:14:21)
It's gonna be interesting. I mean, it could be, if it does work, which I think it, I think it can, I think the two personalities mesh well together. And I think that if, if it does work, it could change everything. I mean, that's, I mean, you would think everybody would want to go to University of Washington, you know?

Tim Reilly: (01:14:43)
Well, there, that won't be possible. Right?

Jake Winder: (01:14:46)
Yeah. Right.

Tim Reilly: (01:14:47)
Right. You know?

Jake Winder: (01:14:48)
Well, it big,

Tim Reilly: (01:14:50)
There will be a, I think it'll be big people, a really developmentally rich place to be. Right? I do. And, and Santiago, the strength guy, and Marissa, who's the, the head women's coach, is all about the kids' wellbeing and not caring about outcomes. Like when she was at Oregon, she felt like I'm contractually obligated to win, win win. Which she said, I want this to be a place where people grow to be beautiful, strong women. And I don't care about anything more important than that. So it all, it all sounds like it's gonna be perfect. Right. As good as it can get. So I'm, I'm excited to play in the new sandbox. I know it'll be challenging. I'll be humbled by it. I'm sure it's gonna be more difficult than I thought. Especially trying to get, you know, I, I don't, I know most of the kids there, most of 'em are mine already from, from before.

Tim Reilly: (01:15:37)
But, and maybe Ella piles in behind us, like, oh crap, now look what we got, you know? Mm-Hmm. . But I'm, I'm not encouraging her to, I'm encouraging her to make use of this opportunity. She's gotten, don't let me abuse my power ever over you. I want you to go where you gonna be happy. And she's super smart and, you know, wants to be a doc and all that. So it's like, wow, Stanford's the place. Go, you know, whatever. But Right. I think it'll be amazing. I do. And and we're, we're getting used to how it'll work together. I'm a little concerned about how the the junior influence I'm having in the whole northwest area. Can I, can I make sure I keep that stoked and I don't end up going off of, you know, I'm, I'm done with all that. I, I, I would feel pretty Yeah.

Tim Reilly: (01:16:23)
Bad vocationally if I let that go. Cuz it's Elaine. I've got really, really good at. And I don't think that we can have skillsets and just go fishing. I think we're kind of owe it to contribute whatever it is that we do well to the fabric of society and keep making it a prettier mosaic when we've got time to do so. I, I don't have an interest in sitting in an inner tube with a beer in my hand. at the end of my doctor. It doesn't, doesn't do it for me. So, yeah, if they, as long as they don't get tired of me, you know, and the, the athletes there find me useful to be there and I can keep helping kids, I'll, I'll keep doing it.

Jake Winder: (01:17:00)
Well, and how sad would that be? Like you're saying, like, you know, somebody who's developed such an incredible system of instructing young people, you know, that it'd just be, it'd be, it'd be tough, you know, like to, to see that go by the wayside. But I, it sounds like, it sounds like you've got, so you, if I'm saying this correctly, you are not going to have your gym anymore. You are going to be operating out of University of Washington.

Tim Reilly: (01:17:29)
90% likely.

Jake Winder: (01:17:31)
90% likely. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.

Tim Reilly: (01:17:33)
I don't know what, I have to learn a little bit more about how the, what would the rules be? Can I just leave the gym and go downtown and coach a juniors? What are the whole N c a recruiting issues? You would think

Jake Winder: (01:17:47)
I, somebody's gonna say I am the wrong, that's not right guy to talk

Tim Reilly: (01:17:51)
To. But I'm not sure that it's, it's not, I just think most n ncaa coaches don't have the bandwidth to do that. And so that's one reason it's probably not happening. I know that I can't, for example, have athletes come and train with me who live more than 50 miles away. So there, there's a rule about that, that you have that's interest interesting. If you're only helping the kids within your reach and all that kind of a thing. Yeah. So, so I need to learn more about that.

Jake Winder: (01:18:20)
Yeah, that would be interesting. So when, when is your lease up on your place?

Tim Reilly: (01:18:27)
At the end of August. I timed it that way, just in case it goes like this.

Jake Winder: (01:18:32)
Geez. Nice job. Yeah, that's, so are, are you, is that gonna be kind of a, an emotional kind of goodbye for that? Cause I'm sure you probably worked really hard to, to get everything up and running over there.

Tim Reilly: (01:18:47)
Yes. And, and the, the, the bomb that will suit me, the b a lm, is that I'll discontinue my gigantic rent payment for being in a building by myself in Seattle. I won't even say the number out loud. It's just like, it's just like what everybody I tell it to, like, I,

Jake Winder: (01:19:09)
You told me the number and we won't mention it, but it was, it was, it was too much. It was too much. I know. But, but it's too much at the end of the day. Like, that's what people don't, I I, I think that is one thing that people don't really realize, I would say from somebody who started, you know, something started a gym and, and all that stuff, you know, I had this idea of how much it was going to cost and I ran the numbers a million times before I opened it up and I signed my life away on, on a lease that was worth more than my family, you know? Yeah. My family's savings times five . And I would say that it costs about probably three x what I thought it was going to cost, like in, in the, in the end for me. And, and that's something that I think is, is really important for people who want to do do something like that to understand is there are, there's much more than the lease. There's much more than buying poles. There's much more than buying a pit and a runway. There's so many more things that operate in the background and cost a lot of money whenever you're operating something like that. So I'm sure that you probably won't miss those

Tim Reilly: (01:20:30)
Things, that thing. Yeah. And to keep it work. And I, I, and I find myself there seven days a week. Mm-Hmm. Like, somebody calls and says, Hey, could we come and have a private on Sunday? I'm like, dang, I, I can't say no. I gotta, I gotta stay busy, so I'll come and see you. And that's where the client stream comes from anyway. Right. People come to try it and then they get infected like I was as a kid, and it's like, yep, here you are. Next week you're in a group. Yeah. So it's going well enough now that, I mean, after the years of Covid that I got no new clients really, that maybe it, it, it could still be cash positive down there. I could have a couple other coaches who assist me once in a while. They, maybe they take Mondays and Thursdays, and so I can kind of reduce my days or whatever.

Tim Reilly: (01:21:18)
I'm really gonna miss the freedom to be able to meet any person I want any day of the week. Flip on the lights, let's go for this. I can't do that at, at the University of Washington. It's gotta be pre-planned camps, clinics, what's on the calendar, you know, and all that kind of a thing. So I may be feeling some anguish a year or two from now. Like, oh, I missed this, that, or the other thing. But I'm certainly gonna stick with my cool two Glen people I love so much. And , you know, transition them, you know, a year or two anyway. Maybe it goes five, maybe we go through LA and then maybe Toby's like, okay, not of you, you scoot on now . I

Jake Winder: (01:21:59)
Dunno. Right, right,

Tim Reilly: (01:22:00)
Right. You know, another cool thought is that I know Brad Walker would like to move back to the northwest. He's a Spokane guy. He's got he is gonna be a Cairo guy and he is gonna probably want a building. And, and maybe some elites want to keep coming to work with him. Well, maybe he and I figure out a place to have a building and and I rev up the junior program again and it's, you know, it's, it's the new Northwest mecca. But I kind of feel like maybe the timing of this is just gonna take me to the end zone. How much steam do I have at 70? You know? I don't know. I'm 65 now.

Jake Winder: (01:22:34)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's, it's a there's so much that you can do with it, but it's, yeah, it's a you know, I, I, I find my, I was just talking to my brother Luke about how people will tell you like, well, you need, if you don't have a 10 year plan and you're in business, then you're not doing it. Right. If you don't have a five year plan, you're not doing it right. Man, I'm having a hard time putting together like one year plan . Right. Well, just because there's so many things that change, like, there, there's so many variables. I mean, I have general ideas and layouts of what I want done and when I want it done, but man, like dialing it in very specifically is very, very difficult. But I do have a question about I think people would find this very valuable is your managing your athletes with their high schools. Because your, your athletes are very high performers. And it would be, it's, it would be very difficult to deny that you've had a you know, for these high schools to say, well, he doesn't know what he is talking about. You know, like, you, you kind of just can't say that. You know?

Tim Reilly: (01:23:47)
How do

Jake Winder: (01:23:47)
You, he says manage that. How

Tim Reilly: (01:23:48)
Do you manage? And I know that a lot of people have, have stressed relationships with the schools around them. We don't want you with our kids. You know, we don't want our kids talking to you. I think that there're, I know of examples of, of specialty club coaches, not pole vault coaches in this area that have angered almost every school who has a kid working with him. I think he, he tells those kids that your coach doesn't know ahead from their, you gotta stay here. You shouldn't even do your season. You should stay, ah, I'm really, really conscious of, of communicating with the schools whose kids I have that I am here for you. You know, you didn't even know this kid yet. Their school, I got this girl senior who just came in June. She's gonna show up at her school's, never had a high pole vault before.

Tim Reilly: (01:24:42)
And she's gonna say, hi, I'm your 12 six pole vaulter, and they're gonna go What? I mean, know. So they're gonna like that. And before I had my gym, there was only about four or five coaches in our state who were just like running the podiums every year. And, and it was all about them. Now all different schools in my area have had champions and all state kids, so they love it. Right. But it really requires respect for, for me. And I gotta tell the kids, now you're gonna see me at a track meet. You may not look over your coach's shoulder and go, what do you think coach? Right. It's just, it's too humiliating. It's not Right. You know, you got a smart coach. They, you know, treat 'em as such and, and they're, they'll ask me if they want input. And that's the only way it rolls. And if they just hate that and they don't want it, and, you know, we'll endure this three months and we'll get back together in June, we're, I'm, we're not gonna fight that at all if it comes up. And I'm blessed to say not twice can I think of over time have, has that ever gone south with any school in my area. Right. Never. Right. I think, I dunno, but just cause they like the outcomes or if I'm doing it right, like I'm trying to do it to really be respectful of the other coaches.

Jake Winder: (01:26:01)
I think it's a combination of the two, two, I, I mean, the performance doesn't hurt, that's for sure. Yeah. but that's the way, that's the exact way that we have gone about it too, is like, listen, we are here for you. We are here to help you. Yeah. And your athletes, I these kids are not going, we're they're gonna be training and then they're not gonna be wearing a rise pole vault jersey. They're gonna be wearing your jersey. Like this

Tim Reilly: (01:26:28)
Is, this is, yeah.

Jake Winder: (01:26:30)
All in support of the event of pole vaulting. Yeah. And, and your school's event of pole vaulting. Mm-Hmm. . And I think that that is what you said about, you know, I, I have not been to a high school track meet since I started this thing. And, and it's just for that same exact reason that you were saying is like, I'm not going there. And then the kids put, put, putting that, that coach in such a, a tough predicament where it's like, you know, Hey, you know, I'm gonna come over here and ask, you know, Jake, what he thinks about this and what that, so it sounds like you've talked to your kids and like,

Tim Reilly: (01:27:09)
Hey, this is not allowed. I do go to the high school track meets cause we have this other problem in our business that when we get to march, suddenly all the clients are gone. Right? Yeah. Cause they're all going to their school practices. Well, some of mine continue to come. They can't come right after school, but they can keep coming at five 30 in the evening. Some schools are always asking for me to help coach during the season. There's always more schools with no coaches. So this year I've, I've been talking with a another couple of schools, they're gonna work together, have other kids go to the same site? Will I be their coach? And I'm like, yeah. I, I think I I can do that. Yeah. so I can only go like two days a week, one day a week. They gotta come to me in my gym, you know, I'll go to your place one day a week and you know, I'll go to the meets and then, you know, at the meets, every coach at every meet, you know, knows me. I know the whole state. I mean, we're all gonna be elbow to elbow on the fence line together. And there's just, there's good collaborative visiting about it all the time. There's no like, keeping your cards to yourself or who needs a pole. Everybody knows they can pick a pole outta my bag if they need something. I'm not gonna ever let a kid jump on a wrong pole if I got one that they need. Right,

Jake Winder: (01:28:19)
Right,

Tim Reilly: (01:28:19)
Right. We also have a certification system that we've started 15 years ago. So everybody in the state attends one of these clinics in their little area. We have area captains and so on. So everybody is so familiar with each other. It's really a, like the, the uniquely brotherhood, sisterhood, atmosphere of pole vaulters. It's that way with coaches in Washington.

Jake Winder: (01:28:46)
That's

Tim Reilly: (01:28:46)
Pretty good. No, no snarkiness, none of that. It's just really, really fraternal idea sharing, pulse sharing. That's that's

Jake Winder: (01:28:58)
Really awesome.

Tim Reilly: (01:28:59)
Yeah. I hope, I hope, hope someone would say someday. Well that's, yeah. That's cuz of the stuff you were doing. I, I would love it. That would be a great honor if someone said, yeah. I I think that you affected the state that way.

Jake Winder: (01:29:11)
Yeah, that would be best. Certainly

Tim Reilly: (01:29:13)
Been an attempt

Jake Winder: (01:29:13)
That's gonna be, that is something that I just have been trying to preach as much as possible is, is that relationship of I am not, we're not a threat. We're not trying to threaten anyone. We're just trying to provide a resource for the pole vaulting community and, and there, and it's slowly starting to turn, you know, and, and I think that, you know, what we can do as, as owners of gyms and clubs is, is we, I, I told my brother, you know, what we want to try to do is we want to just try to swoop in and try to save as many situations as possible like you were talking about. Yeah. Like, Hey, we don't have this, Hey, no, don't worry. We got it. You know, and we don't have this. Oh, don't worry about it. You know, like, or this kid's having this problem, this kid's having this problem and is, and then they, then people will start to see like, oh, they're not here to try to steal my kids. They're not here to try to do this. They're here just to be a resource and try to help people. You know?

Tim Reilly: (01:30:18)
Have you ever sent up your shingle to say, if any school program has a kind of a wobbly, novice coach and would like to bring your entire team into our gym and have us coach a session with you, we'll watch your kids together. You'll, you know, you'll see what we see and we'll tell you what we see, what drills we would say each kid, you know, here's how I would set it up. Or maybe you farm out yourself. Maybe you say, I am willing to come to your place. I wanna watch your practice, how you organize it, what stuff you have to make activation drills work. You could become a little bit more of a, of a program mentor.

Jake Winder: (01:30:58)
I think I've thought about that often. And, and that is something that I do intend to do the best that I can offer right now. Just because my time constraints are Yeah. Are really, really rough right now. But the best that I can do right now is I just say, Hey, reach out to me. And like, if, if you just want to come stand next to me, .

Tim Reilly: (01:31:18)
Oh, yeah,

Jake Winder: (01:31:19)
Yeah, yeah. You know, and I can absolutely, I can coach. I can't guarantee that I'm gonna be able to have a huge long conversation with you, but I, you can see me instruct, you can see what we do and, and why we do it. And then, and then maybe afterwards I can kind of debrief you on, on why I did certain things or whatever. So mm-hmm. , that's as good as, as I can do right now. But I think in the future I really have thought about, you know, bringing there, you know, Joel block. Of course. Yeah. So Joel brings a group of his kids in every

Tim Reilly: (01:31:55)
Year Oh, cool. Every year. And he's a smart coach.

Jake Winder: (01:31:57)
Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. And, and so we do that and I've thought about doing that. And then also I do think it's a cool idea of, oh, we can actually go out into the community too. I do, you do have to. I don't know if you guys have rules and things like that.

Tim Reilly: (01:32:18)
No rules in Washington,

Jake Winder: (01:32:19)
No rules in Washington . That's what I'm talking about. . But I always, I know what you're saying. Very, very, I, I interact and, and communicate with I H S A, which is our governing body. Yeah. every step that I take. Yeah, good. Just, just to make sure that I'm not, you know, stepping on anybody's toes or, or whatnot. But yeah, me too. It's, it's part of the, part of the game, but it

Tim Reilly: (01:32:46)
Is.

Jake Winder: (01:32:46)
Well Tim we are probably going on, we're been going for a little while now, so I'm gonna get to kind of our last section. So our last section is, we usually talk about top three exercises that you would prescribe, but I'm gonna add some bonus material onto yours. So I would appreciate it if, if you could do this thought exercise. If you only had three exercises to do for the rest of your career you could pull vault as much as you want. So that's a given. And you can, yeah. So, but you, you could pull vault as many times as you want, you know, however many jump sessions. But outside of that, what are three specific exercises that you would use for the rest of your career if you had to whittle it all down to three?

Tim Reilly: (01:33:42)
Yeah, yeah. The number one drill away from the pit, I would say is full approaches with pole tape measure, mid mark cone takeoff, cone sliding box.

Jake Winder: (01:34:01)
I love it.

Tim Reilly: (01:34:03)
Speed traps. Bonus, you got 'em

Jake Winder: (01:34:05)
. Nice

Tim Reilly: (01:34:07)
If you don't have speed traps so that you can measure progress, like, wow, you smoked that, that was 7.5 meters a second. Now we're clicking, or you know, it, it's all designed to create maximum velocity at takeoff, right? So you can watch the pole drop, the timing, you know, the, the light weightless carry, all that gets practiced, right? And we're going max velocity here. We're not just jogging. And if I don't have speed traps, I watched the distance of flight, you took off at 10, you popped into the air and you traveled and came back down at two.

Jake Winder: (01:34:44)
Are you taken off and then landing, landing on your left?

Tim Reilly: (01:34:47)
Yeah. most of my kids, and I don't mandate that if it's more comfortable for them to switch, if you jump at 10 and you landed at two, that's an eight foot takeoff. That's not very impressive. Right? Right. We're not gonna get on bigger poles until you can fly from your takeoff point pass zero. So next time, boom, nine, baby celebrate the wins. Next time 10 double high fives. Right? And so most of my better kids, you know, are, are able to jump from 10 or 11 and go flying past a zero. So they're jumping 11 feet. That exercise programs the nervous system, remember what we're, we're primarily working on here, the confidence, the tempo, the, the, the bravery of striking that box a little bit and, and hitting it full velocity, no breaks, no leaks and velocity. All that gets kind of melted away.

Tim Reilly: (01:35:45)
And yeah. So that's big. I, I just think that's a huge thing. And if I can get kids to move a sliding box or an eight foot jump to a nine and a 10 and finally really start flying through it, the difference will be visible on the pulse sizes immediately on the runway. Yeah. So just doing that well is a big part of it. And you can't do it well enough on the runway. When you're in a group at a pole vault session, you know, in fact, half the time you're doing it, you're only running from five anyway. This is full run rehearsals, truck meet ready, full speed. So that's one thing in my gym, I make more use probably out of my adjustable height rings than anything else. So people can, you know, there's just a chain on a, on a big wall anchor and on a pulley, so the, the kids can raise it up and dangle you know, repeat swing up just for strengthening, right?

Tim Reilly: (01:36:43)
It's kinesthetic, but it's also a strengthening thing. But frequently I have it set down and any height person can put it down so they just can casually grab it with a, with a tall reach. And then they get this big pendulum run going on, thump, thump, right? Left thump, thump, you know, swing out, come back, thump, thump again, and then connect the big stretchy takeoff to the swing. It's, it's just the firing pattern of jump, swing, jump swing. So that we always include that follow through, that stretched out elastic foundation from which the swing must happen. Mm-Hmm. that's, that's a huge thing. I've got kids over there all the time if something's not quite clicking. So that would be a second. If I was coaching world-class pole vaulters, like the college folks are doing, and I'm about to do, I might say the next thing has to be some strengthening feature, some hang clean or like pick my favorite weight room activity.

Tim Reilly: (01:37:41)
That's most that's, that's best for inoculating injury from injury and, and for creating explosive power. But I have, have raised most of my champions without that, right? Mm-Hmm. At my level, I've, I start with pretty strong people, right? I'm not turning flimsy, flabby people into pole vault. They're, they're, they're already athletes. And if I was in a high school, I'm not going searching down the hallways for anybody with interest. I'm looking at the PE class for that kid. It's the wide receiver boy or the gymnast girl who already comes with that core strength, integrity. So I've been just blessed by teaching of the pole vault.

Jake Winder: (01:38:23)
Right? Right.

Tim Reilly: (01:38:25)
So it's, it seems lopsided not to include a strengthening thing, but that's the reason it, it's not a first priority for me. So, well,

Jake Winder: (01:38:32)
I gotta, I gotta press, let

Tim Reilly: (01:38:34)
Me, I got one.

Jake Winder: (01:38:35)
Okay. Gotcha. I was gonna say, I gotta press you cuz that's too general. That's okay. What's the, what is it?

Tim Reilly: (01:38:42)
I would say, and this is, and I is this outside the box too, but, but it is exercise. Have your cutoff pole or your P V C and your home environment and use it for every com comprehensive visualization of the perfect vault. The approach, 7, 6, 5, 4, eyes closed, whatever one, boom, stretch, paddle it, flex in turn, pike celebrate, fall back on your bed if you want. Yeah. Whatever. Do it over, you know, every day.

Jake Winder: (01:39:21)
I love

Tim Reilly: (01:39:22)
That. Give it the time. Yeah. I would think you'd do more with that than you would with any strengthening exercise. Excuse my table thought for wiggling here. How about that? Is that specific for

Jake Winder: (01:39:33)
You? I love that. I love that. I was gonna mention this earlier, there's a book called 10 Minute Toughness by Jason Silk. I, that was a big one for me. It teaches you a, a 10 minute routine to go through and to be able to visualize and at, in the different camera angles of of visualization. I actually, I got him to agree to come on the podcast, but he only agreed to do a half an hour. So I was like I don't know if I, I, I'm, I'm not gonna get anything done in a half an hour, but I'm still working on it. Okay, so si so we've got your three. So we've got slide box, full, full approach, slide box. Yep. We've got rings mm-hmm. . And then we've got you didn't, you definitely agree that there needs to be some sort of weight room component, but your third one was a PVC pipe for the purpose of rehearsing and visualization or,

Tim Reilly: (01:40:32)
Or a cutoff pole, a four foot long pole, you know, that you Yep.

Jake Winder: (01:40:36)
Right, right, right. Yeah. Okay. and then for the bonus material, I am just curious. Same exercise, same thought exercise, but three cues.

Tim Reilly: (01:40:50)
Hmm. One of my favorites I keep repeating is jump up before swing up,

Jake Winder: (01:40:56)
Jump up before swing

Tim Reilly: (01:41:00)
Pole speed first. Swing speed. Second. Always, always prv first pole rotation, velocity swing second. So never skip the, skip the penetration for a quick swing. And, and it will be tempting all the time to rush the swing and, and forget where it comes from. So the different ways to say it, jump up before swing up.

Jake Winder: (01:41:23)
Jump up before swing up. Okay. So that's one.

Tim Reilly: (01:41:28)
Breathe.

Jake Winder: (01:41:30)
Okay.

Tim Reilly: (01:41:32)
You're amplifying, you're gonna screw something up. The bar goes up, you change poles, suddenly you're all puckered up and your whole run's gonna change. Breathe, smile, voice your pole. Stay, stay in the zone. A sweet spot of, of optimal zeal or, or optimal amplitude. Right. Guard yourself against over amplification.

Jake Winder: (01:42:01)
Gotcha. Breathe.

Tim Reilly: (01:42:02)
So it all, what I do is I say, Hey, I just, sometimes they look over at me and they go, you know, they, that's all I gotta do is just take my breath like that cues. So jump up. Those, those are just like, what

Jake Winder: (01:42:18)
About one

Tim Reilly: (01:42:19)
At the top? Come what for the top end?

Jake Winder: (01:42:22)
Oh, one at what about one at the top? Yeah, I'm just curious. Just cuz I, I, we have one that we use, which is, you know, see your knee at your top hand, you know, looking for that top hand. I'm just curious what

Tim Reilly: (01:42:33)
You, I would say stay behind the pole.

Jake Winder: (01:42:36)
Stay behind the,

Tim Reilly: (01:42:37)
That man's as you start swinging, don't kind of collapse the bottom arm and pull because your hips are gonna swing out beyond, you know, in front of your pole. So from mid-swing to finish, constant pressure on the top hand keeps the pole moving in front of you, keeps your hips rising behind it, and then you have a pole to turn around rather than one that you're, you're flying out in front of. So stay behind the pole.

Jake Winder: (01:43:01)
Stay behind the pole. Yeah. I like that one a lot. That one's a really good one. It's so easy. Kids lose their hips so many times, so, so often they, they just fall flat on their backs. I always say, you know, jump off the ground, don't fall off the ground because a lot of people are Yeah, yeah. They, they run up and then they fall off the ground , you know? Yeah. And and yeah, so I am so sorry for all the jumping around in today's podcast, but there was something very important that was mentioned at the end when we got off the air. So I wanted to splice it back in right here. Hold on. Let's, let's just start from right now. Cause I'm gonna clip that in because that's a really important piece. Just purely it is an important piece for a safety, for a safety perspective. So, so we had forgot to mention your situation with Brian Yoki Yama, and, and we should, we should probably touch on that because starting kids with a bent pole requires a coaching a a high level of coaching mastery. And, and you, you can't just listen to this podcast and then start start doing this. You have to, it takes a lot of years. So anyway, Tim, please explain.

Tim Reilly: (01:44:20)
Well, yeah, when I sat on my pro vault coaching series that I think it's a waste of time to start on straight poles and then unlearn those funky habits and to learn to engage the bottom arm later, I got a whole bunch of rolling eyes by my colleagues who are all great coaches, but who have, have been advocates of the straight pole first, you know, bent pole second. And so they said at the end like, oh man, I can't believe we're, what are we gonna do? We're gonna, you actually said you put kids on poles that are not legally waited for them. Oh my gosh. What? You know, and said, I'm not pole vaulting, I'm just teaching. This is day one. Right. That's what we're talking about. I'm teaching them posture and movement and I'm, I'm gonna accelerate this process so much by, by having poles that are light and easy to manage and they're gonna be posturally correct all the way.

Tim Reilly: (01:45:11)
Well, so Brian and I had a lot of visits about this when we were at the world championships and enough that he said, well, you know, I, I, I want to come up there. So he came up and he did a camp with me and spent the weekend here, and we, you know, we had a lot of hours of visiting about it, and he said among other things, I get it. I love it. I myself think straight pull stuff has outlasted its usefulness. I, I liked letting the pole bend a little bit, even on the swing up drills, but what worries me is how do you communicate that with amateur coaches that don't have your coach's eye and know how to say, Nope, too much, Ben. Nope. Raise your grip lo nope. Just enough to make this work really. Well, you're gonna have a bunch of, you know, crazy teenagers bending the crap out of polls and doing nothing correctly.

Tim Reilly: (01:46:06)
Which of course is never what I've advocated. But the danger is you know, good has come from the rule 7 43 that, that require people to use even weighted poles, but some terrible unintended consequences too. And I hate it. I can't, in all my expertise, put a kid on a, on a foot and a half lower grip on a pole I happen to have that serves them perfectly mm-hmm. because of the weight level. Why, why do I have them landing short on a pole on the only pole I have, which is too big? So that's the thing. It, if in an ideal world we would be better off if we could all do it this way, but Right. How do we, how do we get beginning coaches to to see the benefit of that when a, they don't have a lot of little poles, perhaps mm-hmm. and b, when they might misunderstand that the, the objective is not to bend the pole, the objective is to learn to vault well and the lighter poles accelerate that process.

Jake Winder: (01:47:14)
Yeah, I think

Tim Reilly: (01:47:15)
That's a good point. I don't know how to answer it.

Jake Winder: (01:47:18)
Yeah, I, well, I I think it boils down to equipment, like you had said. It does, if you don't have the equipment to execute this method, don't try to execute this method. Yeah. If you don't understand what we're talking about right now, don't try to execute this method . Okay. If you don't know what a weight label is, don't try to execute this method because, like honestly though, like, so that I, I agree, I, I agree wholeheartedly with Brian Yokoyama and his take on, I love what you're doing. I personally am encouraged to try and, and implement some of these techniques. But with that being said, I've been coaching the pole vault since I was 18 years old and I'm 35. You know, I, I understand greatly about instructing the pole vault and what too much Ben looks like. What too high of a grip looks like, what too big of a poll looks like, what too far outside looks like, what too far under looks like, all of these things. So I think that this disclaimer that we've tacked on to the end of this podcast, is very, very important. Don't do this unless you are a very seasoned coach and you have the proper equipment and ability to instruct it. Right.

Tim Reilly: (01:49:01)
How many are gonna jump on board now? , no one.

Jake Winder: (01:49:06)
That's right.

Tim Reilly: (01:49:08)
I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll still be bringing my kids to nationals and you can have your straight, straight starters jump against my others and we'll see how it goes for you all. ,

Jake Winder: (01:49:19)
I mean, but that's, yeah, I mean, it's one of the benefits of, I mean the, all the work that you've put in, right? Yeah. Is, you know how to do it. So yeah. It's, it's just a part of the game, but there really is no, I don't know if there, even if you laid out perfectly, I, I don't know. I think what the crux of the situation is, the coach's eye like you were talking about, is the ability to recognize things and feel things and your intuition as a coach. I think that that probably plays the largest role into the way that you coach. And, and I'm sure that you've probably tried to do this, but and, and probably have done it pretty successfully. I, I don't know. But showing another coach how to do that mm-hmm. proves to be very difficult.

Tim Reilly: (01:50:13)
Yeah. It helps when you're together, they come to camp or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Even just the simplest thing, you know, like the little swing drill, almost everybody gets people to start swinging on a straight pole, but what if it just flexed a little bit? Mm-Hmm. . And they weren't even pushing on it. What if it was just so light that it just gave 'em a little bit of a bounce at the end and they, and they went for a deep landing and then they widened their grip a little bit and popped that left arm a little bit more, a little 30 degree bend, and same swing, you know, nice and deep. That's a, that's a critical bridge drill. Mm-Hmm. for anybody. And it answers the question, why is it so easy to swing on a straight pole and so hard to do on a vent pole? Because you don't have that bridge drill. You're not using the light, easy deep swings excuse me, light easy flexing poles for deep swings first, and, and that even if you didn't start 'em, the way I start 'em, lighten the pole, lightening the pole on the swing up so that there's some bend and bounce into it. I think Butler called it the pop-off drill or something, just to feel a little top at the end when your hips and top hand come together. Right. It really helps you finish all. Well,

Jake Winder: (01:51:22)
Yeah. And that's what we've at, at my, at my place, what my dad, you know, my dad's developed a system of instruction that is incredible, absolutely incredible. Cool. And, and it started way back when, you know? Mm-Hmm. just, just like you, you know, 50 years now he's been involved in the pole vault. And that's, that's exactly what he would say is, you know, you just, if you're, if you're executing the proper technique and the mechanics of the run and the takeoff, and you're gripping high, the high enough, the proper spot on the properly sized pole it will start to flex and then you incrementally raise that grip a little bit and like you said, maybe widen that grip out a little bit and then it will start to flex more. Yeah. And then you'll kinda like it and then you'll start to get a little more confident and then it slowly starts to snowball from there.

Tim Reilly: (01:52:18)
Yeah. And you're vaulting off the end of that bent pole rather than flying off of it halfway up. Yeah.

Jake Winder: (01:52:24)
Cool. Absolutely. Cool.

Tim Reilly: (01:52:25)
Alright,

Jake Winder: (01:52:25)
Tim, well

Tim Reilly: (01:52:26)
You splice that in somehow and you're a magician.

Jake Winder: (01:52:29)
I'm gonna throw it in there. Yes, yes. Absolutely. but I'm gonna go ahead and re end the podcast now. And thank everybody for listening to the 39th episode of the One More Jump podcast. Thank you guys.