Why? The Science of Athletics

228 WHY?-THE SCIENCE OF ATHLETICS The other case I would like to quote is that of Harry Simmons, of Taunton's School, Southampton, upon whom I first set eyes in 1927, when he tied with C. L. Napier, of Sloane, for the English Public Schools High Jump Championship at 5 ft. 8 ins. Simmons was then sixteen years of age, and I was tremendously impressed both by his character and his peculiar physical make-up, which I considered to be especially suitable for high jumping. We had a long talk, the upshot of which was that the boy asked me to undertake his athletic instruction. The only snag was that I lived at Bedford and Simmons at Southampton. I had, however, a pretty good notion of his capacity, was convinced of his earnestness and determination, and had very clear ideas of my own as to the one way in which it would be possible to get the very best out of him. Camera as "E . 'JIB-m- Attendance" One point on which I made up my mind was to make a camera with a very rapid lens my "eye-in-attendance" upon young Simmons's training performances. The camera, I knew, would tell me a great deal about what he was doing ; but, 'on the other hand, it would obviously not provide me with the whole story of his action. To begin with, he was purely and simply a natural scissors jumper, which meant that he was relying entirely upon such spring as he had been endowed with by Nature, and was therefore constantly forcing his buttocks down on to the cross-bar. Consequently the first problem was to begin getting all the heavy parts of his body down to his centre of gravity in bar-clearance, for he had acquired already a fine lifting kick to raise his common centre of gravity to bar-level, as shown in Fig. 52, Plate 14, which portrays his original natural action. It seemed to me, however, that in finding some means of getting everything down to the centre of gravity one might at the same time be building up a means of 1ifting the hips to a higher point above the bar. To this end