Spirals/parallel spins

[skatingmum2]

My 9 year old is not great with either of these. On a good day gets 5 or 6 rotations on a parallel spin. Some days they are dire. Parallel sit not great. (Only recently able to get really low on a sit-spin and back sit). Struggles to get legs as high for spirals - one would think he should get it as high as for a parallel.....

He is very skinny and quite long legs. Flexibility not great - but - can be passively flexed to a really good spiral position. I don't think he is the strongest kid either.

Are there some exercises that would help? He's not likely to do more than 10 minutes or so per day as he gets bored easily. He tells me he skates in order to jump so is not terribly concerned about the spirals although he is keen to do more tests and the "bribe" is more mature music once he passes those tests.

I could show him any exercises and guess it would be his call whether he will add them to his warm up routine. (Skates with loads of girls who boss him around during warm ups so does do these reasonably seriously).

[sarahspins]

This is more of a muscle issue than a flexibility issue... there are some things you can have him do off-ice to help build up the muscles that support the leg.  One is using ankle weights and simply doing off-ice spirals, and the other involves doing kickbacks with resistance bands and is a little harder to describe, but I think it's more fun to do and can help build flexibility as well as training those muscles to work faster.

[Sk8tmum]

I guess you mean a camel spin by parallel spin??  Make it relevant to him by showing him really good male camel spins on YouTube.  Boys respond to challenge and oooh! Cool! stuff.  Also, if he does other sports, improving lower back strength which is what he needs for these moves will benefit him in other athletic activities.  Spirals are a hard sell for boys, as they don't generally do them... 

[Doubletoe]

Have him do off ice leg lifts in spiral position, with his skates on (or ankle weights).  Have him hold onto something and get into a spiral position, pushing his belly button down toward the floor while squeezing his shoulder blades together and lifting his chin.  Then have him raise the back leg and then lower halfway, raise all the way, lower halfway, raise all the way, as many times as he can.  Repeat on the other side.  He can also do the same thing and just hold the spiral position as long as he can on each side.

If his leg is lower on his spiral than on his parallel (camel) spin, it's probably a technique issue.  On a spin, the skater is balanced on the ball of the blade, right behind the toepick.  It's also OK for his skating leg to be a little bent on a camel spin.  But on a forward spiral, if he lifts his leg too high and that pitches him forward onto his toepick, he will do a face plant on the ice, which is probably why he unconsciously keeps his leg lower.  The solution is to push the free foot forward and pull his hips back away from it so that his weight is on the heel of the skating foot and the hips are *behind* the skating foot, like this \  In a forward spiral, the hips should NEVER be directly over the skating foot like this | Telling him to lift the toes of his skating foot while pointing the toes of his free foot will put his weight on the heel of the skating foot while giving him a nice free leg position as well.

[sampaguita]

For a camel spin, should the hip be above the skating leg?

[Sk8tmum]

For a camel spin, should the hip be above the skating leg?

The foot must be above the hip through the required revolutions, or it is not a camel spin and will be called as an upright spin. The foot should also be pointed, but, that's just me

There are different variations of the camel; there is an "open hip" camel, which is where the one hip is above the skating leg and the skater's body is turned out, which you often see in male skaters;  and there are closed hip camels, which are done with what looks like a flat back and the skater looks more like an airplane; there is also a variation in which the "bellybutton" is pointing directly at the ceiling, which is a difficult variation.
 
Check out Youtube, you'll see quite a few different, but excellent, camel spins with the hips in the various positions. 

[skatingmum2]

He was inspired watching men's programs at worlds (the small amounts that were shown).... Time will tell if its enough to make him work over a period of time. Still trying to give him the message its not all about "jumps". THe monkey does have extra-ordinarily open hips - fell backwards doing a spread eagle (few weeks ago) and bruised his cheek - sisters response - wish my hips were so open I could fall over backwards.

[Doubletoe]

For a camel spin, should the hip be above the skating leg?

Yes, during a camel spin, the skating hip will be more directly above the skating foot, not pulled back away from it like on a forward spiral (unless you are doing a *forward outside* edge camel, in which case the skating foot needs to push forward so that the skater's weight goes farther back on the blade).  In fact, that second photo I posted was actually a skater doing a camel spin.  The reason her hip is directly above her skating foot is because she has her weight right behind the toepick, which is where it should be when you are spinning on a backward inside edge (forward spin) or backward outside edge (backspin).  The skating foot can also be directly under the hips when a skater is doing a backward spiral--especially a Charlotte--since it's only dangerous to have your weight close to the toepick when you're going forward.  However, even on a backward spiral, you want to push your skating foot forward and pull your hips back a little to avoid scraping your toepick and slowing yourself down.

[skatingmum2]

Thanks to a lovely big sister (age 13) she figured out his hip position was wrong on spirals  - he was turning it sideways slightly and it hasn't been right above the skating foot. Just her explanations to him means the boy has a much nicer camel spin and the camel sit is coming along nicely. Additionally she is teaching him how to clench his gluteal muscles and activate his "TA's" as she calls them. She understood your posts and will be taking him on patch ice soon to help with the spirals. She has some strengthening program she is planning to do  with him and plans some core work she will do with him 3 times a week.