The hop on cleans,snatches etc...

[Stanley Koga]

Aloha! I havent been around here too long. Never really did any O lifting before. I am trying to learn proper technique by reading the Journal , watching vids and paying attention on here.
Heres my question : I see and understand that part of proper form on cleans and snatches involves exploding up to the point of coming off of the floor with a sharp hop. My problem is i have messed up knees--one in particular has no cartilage , is pretty much bone on bone and arthritic. So while I can perform the lifts with relatively little discomfort if I minimize impact ( I dont come off the floor completely--usually just my heel and only to a small degree ) when I actually try to do a hop it jacks my knees up something awful.
What am I losing out on? How critical is the hop? How much is this limiting me and my loads? Is it not really a "clean" without the hop? Mahalo.

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

You shouldn't come off the ground

[Lincoln Brigham]

Air time is wasted time.

[Stanley Koga]

ok, cool...maybe im not in such a bad place after all. I cant help but point out that there are LOTS of videos of CFs doing the hop. So much so that I thought that was the standard. Are all of these folks doing it wrong? Or are there two schools of thought ...?
Also, Im fairly certain Ive seen vids of actual Oly lifters doing the hop...
Not trying to be argumentative at all, just seeking wisdom.

[Lincoln Brigham]

Most lifters need to move their feet from the pulling postion to the squat stance. However -- air time is wasted time.

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

You can see light under a good lifters feet since they have to move from the jump to the squat position (as lincoln said), but light is about all you can see.

And videos of CFer doing the o-lifts is not the best way to find out what the proper techinque is.

[Stanley Koga]

Thank you for they explanations. I'll try and pay more attention to actual O lifters in the future. Aloha.

[Eric Montgomery]

If you're doing a clean with 50% of your 1RM, it would be easy to jump 6 inches off the ground if you wanted to. That doesn't mean you want to jump high, as Jamie and Lincoln have already pointed out. You'll develop some bad habits that way and mess up your ability to pull under the bar quickly.

1RM-type loads have a funny way of pinning you to the ground and decreasing that jump quite a bit. You want to think about jumping as hard as you can, but realize you're not going to get up off the ground much with a heavy clean, nor do you want to.