TRIPLE JUMP IN
THREE RINGS
Teaching the Basics of the Three Phase Jump to Beginners
Written by: Fred Grindle Retired Track Coach
At the age of six, my grandson came to me with a “great” idea. He wanted me to teach him how to triple jump. He had seen the event on TV and was intrigued as to how it worked. He was actually skeptical that anyone could “really” do the event. So, being the good grandfather (as we all are), I told him that I’d put a plan together and we could start to train for the event in his spare time. I figured that would be the end of it and chalked the request up to a passing fancy. Nothing would come of it I thought as many of such ideas had come and gone over the years. It reminded me of a year earlier when he wanted to learn to pole vault. I found an old broken pole and began with the basics. It worked out that he would rather run down the sidewalk using the pole vault pole as a jousting stick while riding his imaginary pony. Needless to say, the would be vaulter lasted all of a few days. The pole is still in our garage only brought out to get something out of a tree or bush. However, to my surprise, he came back several times within the next two weeks asking if I had finished putting the training plan together and when were we going to get started on his “training.” I then started to take him seriously and decided to put something together. Being a six-year-old at the time presented its own set of challenges for me. First was to teach him the basic principals of the event while making 46
it a fun and learnable experience. Secondly, the matter of the hop, step, and jump created a visual that a six-year-old mind would have a hard time wrapping himself around. Lucky for me was that he loved to jump and was constantly jumping over and onto thing. He had been “jumping” for a long time over puddles, across streams, from seam to seam on sidewalks, up onto various pieces of furniture, and jumping at anything else he would come upon. That was a great start, but putting three distinct movements together in a singular action created something that even beginners in high school had problems with. Thinking about where to start, it came to mind that both he and his sister had loved to jump into and over their hula hoops when they were small. So why not start with something he was familiar with and make that the teaching tool. I chose three hoops because of the three facets of the jump, but to emphasize the parts of the phases I chose to have two of the hoops in a matching color and the third as a different color. The two colors would create a visual for him to understand that his feet should match the colors. Thus, if the right foot entered the first ring, it must be the right foot that lands in the second ring (same color as the first ring). Then the left foot must be the one that enters the third ring as it is a different color from the first two. You could DECEMBER 2024