I competed in an IJS event this past weekend and learned something from the tech panel regarding spinning in the other direction. Sadly, my spin ended up getting dashed, but I wanted to educate everyone on an IJS spin rule/clarification that wasn’t super clear to begin with.
Here’s what I learned:
According to ISU communication 2558, which is still in effect this season, a skater can earn a feature if they execute a spin in the opposite direction (as long as it immediately follows the spin in the “normal” direction for that skater). What this rule doesn’t clarify is that if a skater executes this spin, it is considered a CHANGE FOOT SPIN. Because the skater changes feet for this feature, it will receive a code for the respective change foot spin.
Example: a skater does an USp and immediately does an USp the other direction. The code it will receive is a CUSp. Same goes for a CSp to opposite direction CSp and SSp to opposite direction SSp (they will be coded as CCSp and CSSp, respectively). A combo spin with a position in the opposite direction (assuming the skater executed the same position on their “normal” foot) will receive a CCoSp code.
The reason why my spin was dashed is because we didn’t realize it would be coded as a change foot spin. I already executed a CCoSp earlier in the program, and because my final spin had the same code, the final spin received no value.
Please don’t let this happen to you and I hope you share this with others!