A further complication is that I skated as a child for several years. Sometimes this is great - I can occasionally pick things up again quite quickly. Frequently not though... I often used to do the more advanced version of things I simply can't do even the beginner version of now.
My backspin for example... can't really get any proper entry we've tried to date to actually spin. However, while trying to fix my arms in my loop (thus accidently landing it on the flat... What do you mean arms AND legs at the same time? )... we discovered I can backspin and could keep the spin going for 2 or 3 revolutions! It felt really familiar!
Apologies for quoting myself... I was thinking about what I wrote above, while on the way back from work, and something potentially very important occurred to me...
&)
- The backspinny loops occurred when I was working hard on fixing my arms.
- This was also the point at which we were working hard towards my jumps getting more spring and height.
- When working on fixing the above (the arms particularly)... I sometimes utterly forgot about what my feet were doing.
- ... at which point my coach had to remind me frequently to lift my non landing (left) leg and have it alongside my right calf.
- landings are the biggest thing wrong with my jumps.
- Within a few days of the backspinny loops I managed my 1st "proper" loops that really sprung up and actually had flow on the exit too. This has been the only occasion as an adult that they've felt "right" and very, very familiar. (I did 4 or so within 5 mins!) Sadly this wasn't in a lesson and I haven't been able to replicate that feeling again.
- The free foot on landing in those familiar jumps seemed more swooshy somehow, rather than just jump up and then out upon landing.
- my flip takes off and rotates fine, I just 2 foot the landing of that every time too and have the same left leg position issues into landing as the loop.
What occurred to me on the bus was...
- I 1st learnt the loop when I was 6, maybe just turned 7. And i quit skating when I was 10 and a half.
- When I quit skating I was working on lower level doubles, up to and including double loop.
- Presumably I was capable of hitting a decent legs crossed at the ankle, backspin position in the air or I wouldn't have been able to be working on these. My axel was clean and test ready and had been for a while.
- Now, when I jump up and rotate 360 degrees and land on one foot in landing position
off ice I automatically cross my legs into that backspin position in the air (presumably as I was drilling that a lot as a kid trying to get doubles). It feels odd if I try to do the same
without crossing my ankles.
- when I landed the backspinny loops - my left (free) leg position must have been amenable to spinning (ie my weight in the right spot over my axis) or I wouldn't have continued to spin.
Question...
Was I concentrating so much on my arms and getting much more height that I just automatically defaulted (thanks to old, old muscle memory) to crossing my legs during those wonderous jumps?... Entirely without noticing?It'd explain why they felt so right... many years of crossing those legs and coming out of that into landing position! It'd explain the swooshiness of those lovely jump landings too and why my normal jump landings never feel right!
I'm sooooo looking forward to my next one to one lesson, when I can talk to my coach about it!
Can anyone lend me some extra jumping courage please... I think I'm going to need it!
Apologies for the thread hijack!