Forward Crossover question

[Hannah]

When I do forward crossovers in the "wrong" direction (clockwise), my circle gets tinyer and tinyer every time I cross over. If I kept going, I'd just be spinning. This didn't used to happen, but I have only recently been able to do several crossovers in a row in that direction, so I don't know if anything has changed or not.

Anyone else do this? Anyone know why? I have a private lesson on Friday, but I am going to skate before then and would love to have some idea of what I might be doing...

[doubletoe]

Keep your back shoulder waaay back and keep your front arm straight out in front of you, not crossing in front of your chest (your chest faces inside the circle and your arms are extended straight out to either side, forming a T). Also, lean your torso a little outside of the circle to counter-balance your lower body lean.

[sk8pics]

Also, pay attention to where you are placing your right foot. I sometimes place it too much to my right, and that will also result in your circle becoming smaller.

[froggy]

keep in mind that its your waist up that is facing the inside of the circle make sure not to start turning in your hip and pelvis on your left side which may lean you to much in creating tighter and smaller crossovers. where is your head placement, are you looking down onto the ice into the circle? try looking ahead with your chin up. good luck! i find cw forward crossovers also a big challege where as my ccw are much more decent. keep working on your cw ones!

it's incredible how any movement from any part of our body can greatly effect the way we skate..it can so easily throw oneself off an edge!

[AndreaUK]

I still struggle with crossovers, probably due to the fact I am not getting enough practice in with them at the moment.

I am using patch sessions now to practice but I am over cautious about getting in anybodies way (since the posts on here of a couple of weeks ago) therefore I am not using the circles now to practice these crossovers. I tend to stick to a tiny piece of ice and work on my 3 turn over and over again. It is impossible to skate using the circles during public sessions, infact its impossible to skate on a public session full stop these days.

I find that the backward crossovers are coming a lot easier than the forward. Oddly however, i cross my right foot over my left much easier (going backwards) than the other way. Same as I find the right 3 turn easier than the left. Im right handed also so apparently Im a bit odd. I will probably be a clockwise spinner too.

[Hannah]

I had my lesson today, and I thought it was worth dragging this thread up the list because the fix was so simple- it just required my coach actually seeing my feet.

Going in the clockwise direction, I was trying to make the curve with my inside foot, which was dragging the rest of my body into a tighter circle. Once I thought about my inside foot going straight and my outside crossing foot making the actual turn, suddenly, magically! my crossovers were as easy in the "wrong" direction as the "right" direction ones.

[doubletoe]

Fantastic!!