Professional Documents
Culture Documents
F[sAo?
ModeFn$ch n Qs3til
ATHLETIG$
(Pant
2l
Tom McNab is interviewed bv former General Secretarv
of the Physical Education Association, Alan Gibbon
c
F ig.3
THE BRrrfsH Jo uRN AL oF TEA CH TNG PHysrcaL EDUCATToN wi nter zoo o --- - (^
3. Step back on to the ball of the AG And would you hove competitionswith AG Whot next?
right foot, which is parallelto the everyoneputting a differentweight? TM Soft landing,givingat the knees.
diameter line. TM Yes. The bigger lads put the stand- Then it's on to speed.I ask every-
4. Close the shoulders ard weight,the smaller ones with one to attackthe take-offat speed.
my garden centre rocks. What we
Even the position in Fig.4may be AG Won'i this extro speed chongethe
alwayshaveto remember is that
too difficultfor most children,and approachrun?
not one child in a hundredwill want
somethingcloser to Fig 3 might be TM Marginally.I encourate them to
to become a shot-putter. What
the best that they can expect to make adjustments, by askingthem
I'm aimingat is an enjoyable,
achieve. to jump in stream,one by one,
educationalexperience of shot-
checkingeachjumper.
AG Yes,eventhat positionis fairly complex PuttinS.
for o beginner. AG And then?
TM Yes,even moving weight forwards
AG Let3 look ot tongjump.Do you use o
take-off board?
TM Height.Ask for lift" This meansthat
and upwardswithout the shot may we've covered the basics. Speed,
be difficultfor some children.
TM Never at this level. No, we have a
height,accuracy.
broad, l-metre area,marked by
AG So whot's the movement? white lines. This removesthe AG Is the pit markedout?
TM To drive in the right toe and knee problem of hitting a narrow wooden
TM Yes. Cones at 2.3 and 4 metres
The aim is to get hips and shoulders take-off board. And the attack is etc., so that each child can get an
parallelbefore punchingthe shot from the side of the pit. idea of distancecleared.
out. The shot, like all throws, is
about getting the slow, powerful AG Whot if the pit's too norrow? AG Anycompetition to finish?
musclesof the legs in first. TM Then we haveproblems! My aim TM | finishwith a competicion with
would be to widen the existingpit. mark out a hundredfor technique.
G Radiotingout to the orm ond hond. Otherwise long jump consistsof a
TM Yes. line of kids on a rutted approach AG Speed,height,accurccy.Heels?
run, all waiting their "go". TM Yes.Thus evena moderate jumper
AG But eveno bosic stondingpositionis can win. Everybodyknows that the
often difficult,ot c/oss/eveL AG Whot obout opproachrun lengh? big guy with the beard and the deep
TM Agreed. I work with talented TM For children of l2-l 3 years,seven voice is going to iump the furthest.
young club all-rounders,and they strides will do. That's about ten Thatt no great surpriseto anyone.
often find it difficult enough to metres,and this should be marked I'm interested in their expressing
master these positions.There has b y a l ine or a c one. what they havelearnt and under-
to be realismin all teaching.Putting stood.
lighter shots and simplifyingthe AG How do you estoblisho toke-offfoot?
throwing positions is therefore TM Simplyask them which foot they AG It o// seemsso simp/e.
essential. would take off from in high iump. TM It is,at this level.
Then, becauseit's sevenstrides,
AG ls o shift thereforenever worth the opposite foot is placedon the AG And hitch-kickand other flight tech-
considering? niques?
ten-metre line.
TM Not a shift in the conventional TM A completewaste of time. This is
sense.You see,for a novice,a shift AG So whot's the frst priority? where we havealwaysgone wrong.
can at best produce only about a TM To take off in the marked area and And I includemy book "Modern
to land with heelsin line,an absolute SchoolsAthletics". At this level,
l0% improvement. lt all breaks
jumping3-4 metres,flighttechniques
down. They start to pull the shot essential.The childrenrun to
are an irrelevance.The "technique"
awayfrom the neck and get into all command,the pit is raked,then
(if you can call it that) is a simple
sorts of trouble. This is because they jump again.The aim is to get
"big step" sail.After all,interna
the central core of the putting lots of jumps in. The childrenwill
tional femalejumpers have cleared
techniquehas not been firmly gradually"sight" the take-off area
over seven metres with it. lt's all
established. and get closer to its edge.
that's possiblewith a flight-time of
around 0.5 seconds.
e
-6> AG To conclude,couldyou summorise
"a\
ru.
ffiI( { your positionon schoolsothletics?
l9 TM Yes. lt hasnt changedmuch through
ffi the years. We must make a big
r/i effoft to produce teoching facilities
E.t
&
capableof dealingwith large
-L numbers. Our approachmust be
A achievement-based - how far, how
c E fast,how high. And we must work
Fig.4 usingrealisticbreadand butter
technicalmodels.