How to get more than one rotation for off-ice jumps?

[Arwen17]

My on-ice and off-ice axel has exactly the same problem, rotation-wise, always 1/2 rotation short.
Even if I just jump in place, I can only get one full rotation before I land. It doesn't seem to matter how much I bend my knees. Shallow bend or deep bend both give me only one rotation. WTF?

If I try to kick higher on the floor-axel, then I can't snap into backspin position because the knee is too high. But I don't know how to get more height or rotation-speed. I feel like its gotta be one or both of those for why I can't fully rotate the jump and always forever be 1/2 short or 1/4 short.
There was a time when I was trying to "brute-force" it, which left me panting and too exhausted to do anything else after several attempts. I stopped that because it just doesn't seem like everyone else is using that much effort to make rotation or height happen. They seem to do it so easily and effortlessly. I asked one girl who just got her axel if she thinks she uses more energy in her camel or axel and she said definitely camel. Well I can do a camel just fine and I'm working on back camel. Why is axel taking this much energy to rotate and still failing? I'm missing something.

Anyone else have problems rotating more than once (on-ice and off-ice) and how did you fix it? Is this just a rhythm/timing thing or a strength thing or what? It's just hard for me to believe it's a strength thing since the others seem to do it so effortlessly and think camel spins take more energy than axel. How much energy or strength do you think axel takes in comparison to other skills you have?

[Doubletoe]

Some of it has to do with getting enough height, but a lot of it has to do with how you create rotation in your right hip and what position every part of your body needs to be in for rotation.  Here's the exercise that got me my axel on the floor (and later on the ice):

Wearing sneakers that fit well and aren't *too* grabby on the bottom, stand in front of a secured bench or other raised surface that is about the height of your knee (not higher).  If you're facing the bench, turn 90 degrees to the right so that the bench is to your left, about 2-3 feet away.  Now simulate a landing position on your right foot (RBO edge) with your left toe resting on the floor for balance. Now, look in the direction of the bench, bring your free foot and arms in to square up, then step forward onto the left foot facing the bench for takeoff.  Keep your right shoulder back as you take off.  Now do 1/2 turn in the air and land backward on the bench on your right foot in a loop jump air position (arms rounded in front of you, left thigh lifted, left heel in front of right shin).  Do this exercise until you can land completely backward on the right foot with control.  Now do the same thing on the open floor, but pull your arms and free leg in once you are backward in that loop jump position.  That will give you the additional 1 revolution.

[Arwen17]

Some of it has to do with getting enough height, but a lot of it has to do with how you create rotation in your right hip and what position every part of your body needs to be in for rotation.  Here's the exercise that got me my axel on the floor (and later on the ice):

Wearing sneakers that fit well and aren't *too* grabby on the bottom, stand in front of a secured bench or other raised surface that is about the height of your knee (not higher).  If you're facing the bench, turn 90 degrees to the right so that the bench is to your left, about 2-3 feet away.  Now simulate a landing position on your right foot (RBO edge) with your left toe resting on the floor for balance. Now, look in the direction of the bench, bring your free foot and arms in to square up, then step forward onto the left foot facing the bench for takeoff.  Keep your right shoulder back as you take off.  Now do 1/2 turn in the air and land backward on the bench on your right foot in a loop jump air position (arms rounded in front of you, left thigh lifted, left heel in front of right shin).  Do this exercise until you can land completely backward on the right foot with control.  Now do the same thing on the open floor, but pull your arms and free leg in once you are backward in that loop jump position.  That will give you the additional 1 revolution.

I will add this exercise in with my usual ones! thank you for the reply!

[axelwylie]

I am having a similar challenge on my double salchow. The culprit is the lack of internal hip rotation on the landing side (I am a CW jumper). My left hip stops rotating after takeoff, so that is where the half rotation is missing.

Try standing on two feet (on or off ice) and rotating just your right hip in (almost pigeon toeing).  That is the feeling you need to get inthe air prior to landing. If you bam get that right hip to keep rotating and all the way down onto the ice, your landing should be clean.

[Loops]

I remember my coaches always reminding me about my arms- there was a scooping motion to bring them up, then crossed against my body for the rotations.  That scooping motion helped me increase height.  Perhaps one of the coaches on here can comment?

[Query]

Slightly off topic, but do you folks feel that tightening your core, to eliminate excess shaking and other internal motions, is very important to good rotational jumps in general? Does using strength to stabilize the core matter more than using strength to jump high and to swing the leg around with more power?

[Doubletoe]

Keeping a really tight core is crucial to rotation, whether you're spinning or rotating in the air.  Any jump of at least one revolution requires a conscious effort to establish and hold a spinning axis that goes from the right foot through the right hip and up through the right breast (which requires a little counter-rotation in the shoulders), assuming CCW rotation.

[Query]

Keeping a really tight core is crucial to rotation, whether you're spinning or rotating in the air.  Any jump of at least one revolution requires a conscious effort to establish and hold a spinning axis that goes from the right foot through the right hip and up through the right breast (which requires a little counter-rotation in the shoulders), assuming CCW rotation.

So, on an axel, you swing the RIGHT leg forward as you take off of the LEFT foot, swing the RIGHT leg back behind the LEFT leg while in the air, and the RIGHT leg then becomes the rotational axis, rather than the left leg?

And how much strength do you need to put into the leg swing and return? I.E., do you put more strength into controlling the core then swinging the leg?

[Doubletoe]

So, on an axel, you swing the RIGHT leg forward as you take off of the LEFT foot, swing the RIGHT leg back behind the LEFT leg while in the air, and the RIGHT leg then becomes the rotational axis, rather than the left leg?

And how much strength do you need to put into the leg swing and return? I.E., do you put more strength into controlling the core then swinging the leg?

I would eliminate the word "swing" from your vocabulary when referring to the axel.  Swinging is bad.
The strength you need is in your takeoff leg (left leg for CCW skaters)  The right leg helps you aim the jump and create some rotational momentum, but the height on the jump should come from a deep left knee bend just before takeoff, followed by explosive power and strong toe point from the left leg on takeoff.
1.  Take off from the left foot and LEAD with the right shin as you lift up into the air, bringing both arms through with the right leg.
2.  As you reach the top of the jump, turn the right hip in, straighten the right leg and lift the left thigh/knee to get backward over the right hip.
3.  Pull the arms and free leg in.
4.  On landing, lift the left thigh again and check the left leg straight back for the glide-out

[Query]

It took me a while to figure out what you meant by no swing.

I will assume this demo (by Michael Weiss, not in competition)
 
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFGLGFv8Mu0

is approximately right. (I cheated, and viewed it at quarter speed, so I could see exactly what he did.)

I see the right leg starts backwards, than starts to swing forward, but by the time it comes approximately along side the other leg, that leg and torso have already begun to rotate, so the right leg never really passes the left leg - an incomplete swing. I guess that is what you mean by not swinging.

In fact, stopping that swing next to the other leg appears to be part of the way that right leg motion imparts a CCW spin to the rest of the body. Hmm. Actually, quite logical, good applied physics.

But I see that he does use a fair amount of strength for the jump itself, even on the single axel, because he gets fairly high off the ground. Which in turn means he has more time to complete the rotation and other motions.

Tonya Harding uses a lot of strength to get high in the following video, too (in competition, but it was a triple axel, so maybe height was needed):

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIGoWGjetog

though she swung her leg around in front after most of the jump was complete.

I was mostly just curious about how much core stabilization mattered - because none of my coaches discussed that (they were mostly ice dancers, and talked about stabilizing the upper body instead, perhaps to imitate relatively stiff "frames" of ballroom dance), but it makes sense from a physics perspective, in terms of

1. Stabilizing the axis of rotation. (Because letting the the axis drift wastes angular momentum.)
2. Keeping as much as possible of the body mass as close as possible to the axis, minimizing moment of intertia.
3. Removing other internal motions of the body that would waste angular momentum.
4. In general, it helps efficiently transfer momentum between parts of the body (like the leg, foot, and boot, to the rest of the body). (I've gradually figured out this helps in some other sports, such as kayaking.) Because if you let some of your momentum, energy and muscle strength move the wrong joints, much of that momentum, energy, and muscle strength are wasted.

I guess my coaches were used to working with better athletes, who had already figured out that stabilizing the core matters when they were small children. So they never saw a need to explain such basic ideas. They may not even be conscious of doing it. But I was a nerd as a child, uninterested in athletics, and lacked the most basic elements of athleticism, so I needed such an explanation to get much of anywhere.

OK, I think I will drop out of this thread now. In all likelihood, though the original poster didn't include a video, my issues aren't her issues, or those of most of the people on this forum, so they are irrelevant to the thread.

In any event, I'm not ready to do any serious jumping, as I am still recovering from an injury, and I've never even done a really good single jump.

But thanks for the help, Doubletoe.

I can go back to my (mostly) waltz jumps, and see if stopping the leg swing and stabilizing the core will make them better.