Bunny Hopping

To clear a hurdle properly, one must pull their trail leg through, slightly rotated out, under their armpit.  The slight rotation is critical.  If you do not do this I call it bunny hopping; all the leg action is happening underneath your person.  My number one objective is to teach my hurdlers how to NOT bunny hop.   If a kid wants to hurdle, is making an attempt to do it correctly and having fun, they become mine.

This year, a girl I coached for two cross-country seasons and two track seasons told me, "You're the best coach because you don't tell us were doing good if we really aren't."

I asked her what good it would do if I didn't correct them and she replied, "No good!"

Many 7th grade hurdlers return  in 8th and I depend on them to tell the new kids that I'm not really crazy, I just shout a lot.  I'm not yelling at them, I am coaching and try as I might I cannot keep quiet.
"No, no, no, you're bunny hopping! Remember the Hang Pop?  That's how it should feel!"

The Hang Pop is an exercise we do that mimics actual hurdling.  Kids stand on one leg at the barrier with their other leg hanging over the crossbar, that thigh horizontal to the ground.  After they are set they push off the foot on the ground and simulate 'finishing' the hurdle.  The leg on the ground comes up and becomes the trail leg.  It lets them feel correct hurdling, plus it's a good exercise for those who bunny hop continually.  "Go have so and so help you do some hang pops," I repeat often.

Bunny hoppers practice on the grass until they don't bunny hop or they want to run on the track with their peers.  There are no hard and fast rules.  But when bunny hoppers move to the track and start to run fast, I cringe at the thought of a child catching their foot on the hurdle and going down.  Just this year, early on, a girl broke her wrist and I've had a lot of scraped body parts and such.  All weather tracks cost a lot of money though, so K.M.S. is stuck with what we have.

Bonus!  When the middle school ended this year, I was able to continue coaching.  One young man will be running in the A.A.U. meet in Bozeman and asked me to help him with his long hurdle race. Of course I said yes.  He is a dream athlete, almost.  He ran both hurdle races at the beginning of our middle school season but informed me he would only be continuing with the 200 meter hurdles, When I asked him why, he told me he hit seven of the ten hurdles in his first 100 meter hurdle race. But, when I told him I could teach him how not to hit them, I may have caught an eye roll and shrug.

I breathed a sigh of relief our first day on the all weather surface of the high school track.  I felt like I was home.  The fact that I only had one athlete training for one race was also a new feeling.  I was in heaven!  The boy has a good sense of what his body is actually doing so it makes my job easier and his dad was at my beck and call; he scrambled around moving hurdles and even ran some intervals with his son.  We'll probably have our final practice in a couple days but I am thankful for the opportunity I've been given and you can be sure my hurdler will not be bunny hopping.