Describe your transition from single to double jumps

[Arwen17]

Since I'm at that point in my skating career where I'm trying to cross the "threshold" of the single axel, aka currently terrible and under-rotated, into double-land one day, I'd like to hear the tales and thrills of this crossover point from other skaters. 

Age 14, 1 year of skating:
For me, I advanced thru LTS skate classes like lightning, 3-4months max. Everything was EASY PEASY, just a couple days or maybe two weeks at most to totally master a move.
Then everything continued to be ridiculously easy and only take around a month or so in the earliest freestyle levels: waltz, salchow, toe loop, one foot spin = super easy, mastered almost instantly. Scratch spin took a little bit longer, but it still came quickly. Sit spin and camel spin too came quickly. They certainly weren't perfect and I was beginning to feel the struggle to succeed as fast as I had been, but I was still able to rotate, which was all I cared about lol.  Loop jump was the very first hurdle I HATED. It was so scary going into something backwards and expected to rotate far more than of the previous jumps, which had been easy. Flip and Lutz were just as scary. I already knew half-flip and half-lutz. Full-flip and Full-lutz seemed impossible and terrifying.
I finally came up with my own messed-up method of rotating the loop that felt "safe". I did a forward inside-three turn, then jumped. The rotation of the opening three-turn helped me get just enough "spinny momentum" to pull off a bad loop jump.
Then I stopped skating completely. Partly because mother pressured me to stop, partly because of school and time pressures, partly because it was taking longer and longer to move thru the levels. I had gotten used to the fast progress I had been making up to that point and was frustrated I wasn't catching up to the girls who had already been skating since they were 5 years old. At age 14, I just didn't have the patience or the moral support from the mother for it to work out.


12 years later, (26 years old), January 2017, I decided to return to skating lessons. Over the course of 12 years, I had made sure to go to the rink at least once a year so that I wouldn't lose my skills. So I started where I left off, although everything was rusty and needed a month to get back up to what it had once been. I started working on the horrible loop again. Rediscovered my "forward three-turn" trick to making it work again, finally turned around backwards and did it from crossovers like a proper loop should happen. Finally fixed the uncrossed leg position. Obsessed and analyzed tons of youtube videos when I wasn't taking lessons or practicing and the flip and lutz quickly followed the loop in success. The camel spins, sit spins, back sits, back camels etc all continue to improve like crazy. But the axel, holy hell that axel. It's like the loop all over again, only 10x worse lol. Always underrotated and frustrating. I think once again, I've been spoiled by the fast progress of returning to skating and getting all of my singles (loop, flip, lutz) so quickly back-to-back.

So please, share your stories of your "major transitions", particularly if its a singles to double jumps transition! How long did you struggle with the threshold? Did it just start happening or did you make some specific changes? Is it effortless now or are you still struggling? Also state how old you were and how long you had been skating at the time since that plays a part as well.

[nicklaszlo]

I thought everyone learned the loop jump that way.

You have not been working on that axel for very long yet. 

[Arwen17]

I thought everyone learned the loop jump that way.

You have not been working on that axel for very long yet.

Nope, all of the kids at my rink are told to do backwards crossovers and then told to "jump". I was constantly being criticized for my forward-three-turn spinny-trick method until I finally turned around backwards and did loop the proper way. I figured out on my own how to "ease" my way into that jump since I was so scared of it. It was completely improper technique, but it helped me get over the fear since jumping while moving backwards originally seemed so suicidal. I think I'm having the reverse problem with the axel now. Leaping forward off a cliff seems suicidal.
But the good news is the axel may happen after all! That's usually how it works. I reach the epic point of frustration, try to use the internet as a sounding board, then suddenly things finally start improving. 

Day #1:
Basically I just kept my hip/butt pads on the entire time and did nothing but axels for 3 hours straight.  My coach actually saw me fully revolve a few, so that's good!  Though it still isn't "correct". Instead of fully kicking thru, I'm just snapping and revolving as fast as possible to keep it low to the ground. But for me its like "hey! that's what I was going for! I was sick of being under-rotated!" The new skates are helping too. I've got more confidence to jump since I've got better support now and a larger toe pick to vault off of.
Tomorrow I'll probably do another 3 hour long axel jumping session and try to figure out how to kick all the way thru like she wants it, but still snap into position properly for rotation. I can't seem to do BOTH. If I don't kick-thru very much, I can snap and rotate fast. If I do kick-thru, I get more height, but I cannot get snapped into position before I'm already back on the ice.
I WILL get my axel and double jumps eventually. NO WAY am I letting age or fear or anything else hold me back. I want this so bad.

Day #2:
I think I managed to kick all the way thru and fully rotate a few times today. My coach had me work on the harness yesterday for the kick-thru part and I just tried to copy that as best I could. I'm still just doing it from a standstill, but coach showed me how to do it from the moving stance yesterday, so I'm trying to do that now too. (I take that as a sign she's much happier with my standstills now or she wouldn't have showed me how to do the moving version.)
Basically I've been working on it for a few months now and I've gotten to the point that I know the only thing probably holding me back is fear. So that's why yesterday I just kept my pads on the entire time and did nothing but fling myself into the air like I wanted to die. Same thing today. I rarely ever fall, but it's the fear of it hurting that I hold back a bit unless I really push myself with suicidal thoughts lol. The kids just go for it, they have no fear. And that's what I have to imitate to get anywhere.

I don't think there's any reason I can't progress almost-as-fast as the kids. I'm still in my twenties and in good shape, so while I may not be quite as fast/flexible/perfect as the younger kids, there still shouldn't be a huge massive difference. It's really just fear and the psychological game that I have going on that the kids don't have. I LOVE jumping as much as I love spinning. Gives me a thrill.
My coach has said before (when I start whining or trying to use age or my height as an excuse) that she expects the same things from me and trains me the same way as the kids because she sees no physical reason I can't do it.

[skatemom189]

My DD was taught the loop from an inside three turn.  She learned it as her first single jump, after becoming comfortable with waltz jumps.  Yes, this is contrary to the LTS curriculum of  toe loop and salchow first.  She was not shown the typical backwards takeoff until after she was doing flip-loop and lutz-loop combinations.  By that time her loop was very automatic and learning the two foot backwards takeoff took about 5 minutes.

Moving into doubles happened while she was learning the axel; her coach started her on double salchow soon after starting axel work  She learned them at the same time, as she was taught they are basically the same jump.

[Arwen17]

Moving into doubles happened while she was learning the axel; her coach started her on double salchow soon after starting axel work  She learned them at the same time, as she was taught they are basically the same jump.

I figure once I can do an axel from moving instead of standstill, my coach will probably start trying to teach double salchow since yes it is basically an axel from a different entrance. Technically so is toe loop too.


Day #3:
welp, did like three fully rotated axels from a standstill tonight. It keeps coming and going. When it works, it's like "wow that felt good. How did I do that again?" lol
Coach is secretly watching and is all "stop trying to throw yourself over there" when I'm trying to force it. It's some place between trying too hard and not trying enough when I hit the mark and fully rotate it. And yeah, it doesn't take a huge effort when I hit the mark, no more energy than any of my other jumps. So it has more to do with position and timing. I had been trying to brute force it for months like I was trying to do a quad or something lol.

[Nate]

I started working with a new coach, who said I should be working on doubles (from watching me jump on sessions, before).  He asked me to go for a double flip, which I rotated and fell on.  Since then, it's been the primary goal.  I had a lot of boot problems, so I've had to go back to singles to "fix" jumps that were broken by new equipment/bad blade mounting/etc.  But generally the goal is to get back to doubles.


I've landed all of them up to Lutz.


Can probably be doing them more consistently, but I have dropped off the amount of skating I do, and the amount of lessons I take considerably since you can't even compete the elements and I don't feel like taking 10 tests to do so :-P