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Pop Vault :: Tutorial
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The pop vault is an essential technique for anyone, seeing a lot walls you come up against will be head height or above. The idea behind the pop vault is just to jump up into the wall, pushing off to add a bit of extra height, before entering into a normal vault to clear the top and land. This lets you get over the wall quickly and easily, instead of scrambling up.
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| Click the photo (above) to download a video of this technique.
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Start off with a nice run-up, much like your usual vault. You don't need to sprint into the wall, but you can’t do this vault if you’re going too slowly.
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| As you approach the wall, remember you need to be jumping up at the wall, not straight into the wall. This is to make sure you can get the height to clear the top, and not remove your kneecaps. Here you can see me preparing to jump up |
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| Jump up towards the wall, foot out, ready to push up. You'll want to reach up towards the top as well, in order to pull yourself over. |
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Push UP off the wall, gaining even more height from the jump, and grab the top of the ledge.
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Tip your body forwards over the wall, exactly like a two-handed vault. Push yourself over the wall using your hands, again just like a two-handed vault.
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Tuck you legs up and around, to bring them over the wall. You can't see in the frame, but my hands are still on the wall to push myself over further.
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| At this point your momentum will just carry you over the top, leaving you free to land/roll however you wish. As usual landing one footed will make it easier to run off again quickly and fluidly. |
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Variations
The pop vault is a quick and easy jump, and comes extremely naturally after you've done it a few times. There are however a few variations, though these are (mainly) concerned with the final vault over the wall. As you'd expect, as you jump up and clear the wall, you aren't just limited to swinging your legs up and round. If you’re good at monkey vaults, you can try and swing your legs through your arms as you clear the wall, allowing you a good push-off and extra speed leaving the vault.
You even do things like 360's as you go over the top, instead of swinging your legs round, rotate so that they pass more over you, and you end up landing sideways after a 360 rotation. Not only does it look impressive, but the secure foot placement lets you run off again extremely quickly. You can also just keep hold of the wall as you swing round, so your body rotates as well and you land in a cat-leap, perfect for dropping down if the wall is high.
The final variation is normally known as a wall hop. These are used when the wall is really high, and you can't clear them using a pop vault. The idea is to just take several steps up the wall instead of one 'pop', and then grab the top and pull yourself over. There a few extra variations for those wall hops, though I won't go into them here. |
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