Teach me to clean.

[pantsaregood]

At this point in time, I'm (attempting) doing power cleans. I probably look incredibly clumsy. I ultimately want to start performing full cleans due to the heavier weight they allow you to move.

I probably look terrible attempting these now. I don't know where to begin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecEg4FG3CTk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lNEGk8QuEs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGND8OzoSQc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvecWD6Ko5M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h57wZM8DSyg

Yes, I've read the chapter.

[LudwigVan]

Your biggest problem is with the racking. My cue for you would be "fast elbows." You're trying to slowly guide the bar into place with your hands. That's not how a power clean gets racked. You need to bring your shoulders up to meet the bar by quickly rotating your elbows around the bar. You should time your elbows and move quickly enough so that the bar racks as you stomp your feet after the jump.

Also I think you could fix your setup on some of those reps. It looked like you had your hips lower than they needed to be and your shoulders too far behind the bar. SS tells you to have your scapulae over the bar, and the front of your shoulders in front of the bar, for the setup.

Also do sets of 3 instead of making 5 different videos with one rep in each.

[Carlos Daniel]

Just to be clear, you are aware that the power clean is an explosive movement, right?

You seem to be racking the bar fairly slowly and I suspect that is it caused by not doing the lift in an explosive way, that is, shrugging and extending the hips quickly, resulting in the bar shooting upwards, finishing by racking it. The mental image of the lift is jumping and shrugging the bar as if trying to make it go through the roof, not gently making it go to your shoulders.

[Dastardly]

It looks like you are trying to use plantar flexion as a significant contribution to the lift.

Dont.

When getting to the "jumping position" jump! Use the power of your hips, and dont try any kooky stuff with the feet.

[thersites]

Just like in the book, practice the rack until you get it using hang cleans. You can do this with just the bar to not tax yourself for other work.

While I agree with the "fast elbows" cue suggestion, I think a more explosive jump will cure a lot of your racking problem. I also think some of your initial set up is getting you trying to juggle to many movements and making a good explosive second pull difficult. LudwigVan's set-up suggestions are critical, but it also looks like you are monkeying around trying to get a sort of running start to help your lift. This is counter productive. The first pull of the lift (off the floor) is a controlled lift to get the bar into position for the second, explosive pull. You want a tight lower back with a bit of arch and do not attempt to use your arms to raise the weight. Don't worry about speed on this first pull at this point, just getting the bar up in a good position for the second pull. This was one of the harder things for me to learn, as the instinct is to try to get the bar going to make the lift right from the start. Again, this is why Rip teaches the lift from the top down, so that the last step in learning is merely controlled pull from the floor into position where you have already mastered the main part of the lift.

If you can get the bar into position for the second pull using a controlled first pull, you will likely be better able to explode up with your hips in the second pull, and the arms will largely take care of themselves and that "fast elbows" cue will be a finishing touch.

Use a lighter weight to practice the movement until you feel you've got it down better. You can put plates down on the floor to raise it up into a good starting position. If this gets frowns at your gym, just practice with the empty bar letting it hang about where you would start if you had 45s on the bar.

Good luck!

[rpbrown]

This isn't really a form comment, but please try to edit your videos by removing the useless 20 seconds of setting up the camera and walking to the bar. These videos aren't a particularly bad example of that, but I found myself click-dragging the bar to get to ~20 seconds for each video.