Look Ahead

As in the high jump, where you look is where you'll go. Long jumpers need to have a visual focus during the approach, but it shouldn't be the board. The jumper should look at the board early in the approach, but should then shift their gaze to directly ahead of them at eye level after the first few steps.

This way, a sense of speed and board location will be established and the jumper will not get in the habit of looking down at the board before takeoff, which causes deceleration. At takeoff and during flight, the jumpers' eyes should be looking up at a forty five degree angle from horizontal. If you want to go up and out, that's where you need to look.