How do skaters find their natual balance on a non-free hand move?

[FSWer]

Say,I was wondering about how a skater would find their natual balance on a move that they use both their hands for? Such as skating with one leg over their head with both hands on the blade? Does any skater here know the answer? Thanks.

[momsk8er]

It takes practice. If you practice it on the floor first it seems alot easier on the ice, cause the momentum when you are skating helps you balance on the ice.

[FSWer]

It takes practice. If you practice it on the floor first it seems alot easier on the ice, cause the momentum when you are skating helps you balance on the ice.

Can you give me a for-instance?

[Rusty Blades]

Can you give me a for-instance?

Try doing an outside edge off-ice - it don't work! ;) By very subtle movements of the skating foot, you can shift your balance and maintain the pose. Something very similar happens in spins though most people wouldn't be aware of it.

[Sessy]

Well it's part practice, but there are a few tips and tricks as well.

For example, it matters how you grab the blade, or else you'll never get it over your head in the first place (your shoulder will lock, or you will pull yourself off-balance trying to lift it that high). There's typically two ways to grab it for the move you're describing, from what I see around here. Obviously fiddling around for an hour before you grab it and can lift it won't do, so you need practice in order to know exactly where to bring your hand and where your foot will be at this very moment. For me, this will still go wrong about once in a hundred attempts or so, but the more you practice, the more of a piece of cake it becomes.

Also, the lift of the leg isn't just coming from the arm, cuz then you'll pull yourself off-balance easily grabbing it. You actually partially lift the leg into position, so you need - apart from good flexibility - also strength in your lower back and lifted leg. That can be trained like any muscle.

Which brings me to flexibility. You need an absolutely free range of motion far exceeding the position you bring yourself in, in order to be balanced well. The closer you get to your maximum range of flexibility, the harder you have to pull up, the harder it becomes to stay off your toepicks. Which means stretching stretching stretching all summer and all winter, once a day at least. Hurts like heck sometimes and is really boring. Except for the biellmann (that's the figure you're describing) I find it very relaxing for my back. Unfortunately the biellmann isn't the only thing you have to stretch for, pretty much anything involving spirals and spins needs to be stretched (for me at least).

Also, it matters where you have your balance on your blade. Typically for a forward slide, it has to be further back on the blade than for a backward slide, or else you'll trip over the toepicks. Obviously in practice I've done that a lot, one time on rollers on asphalt, that hurt I'll tell you. In competition I've done it too, unfortunately, cuz in competition a part of the finer motorics go down the drain cuz you're not properly warmed up, nervous etc. This is like... Practice practice practice practice practice practice. It's not just the balance to stay on the right part of the blade either, it's also muscle power, especially lower leg-ish.

Well and other than that you need to have good edges, which come over time with figure skating if you follow your coach's instructions and practice your MIF like the good girl/boy you are.


Actually I skate a lot of public sessions and though my biellmann doesn't reach to the blade (I hold my other wrist or elbow, or sometimes do a free hand one, especially on the back one) it's still, by far, the EASIEST "cool" thing I can demonstrate which I'll admit I sometimes do just to entertain the little kids when they ask to do "a trick". Practice makes easy. Climbing on top of my rotating chair to get something off the top shelf is more difficult for me than the biellmann, balance-wise.

The most amazing thing was once when a girl on a public session who could barely skate at all asked me to show her how to grab the blade. After voicing my safety concerns she insisted and I showed her, and she did a biellmann right under my nose - one better than mine, too.
Turned out she was doing that same figure on top of a galloping horse on a regular basis. Well yeah it must kind of be a piece of cake to "only" stay off the toepicks after that! She'd just never skated before.

[peanutskates]

maybe if you're really scared, you can ask a friend/coach to stay in front or at the side and be ready to catch you if you lean too far forward?

ITA with the fact that you must have a better range of motion that needed for the movement... and also, be able to get into that position really quickly and easily off ice.

[Sessy]

Can you give me a for-instance?

A for instance at very low-level skating, try lifting one foot off the ice standing still on the ice, or gliding. Gliding you'll stay standing, standing still you'll fall one side or the other. That's blades for you. The contrast becomes even larger as you start getting on deep edges, like a shoot-the-duck on an edge or a sit spin, versus a shoot-the-duck off-ice or on-ice but in standstill (the latter being entirely impossible I think)

[Skate@Delaware]

I would think before you do such a move you have very good core strength-which helps with balance.

Take for example a plain spiral. Most beginners have poor core strength. As it builds and develops through other exercises (like edgework and stroking and off-ice work) then the spiral gets better and better, as does other stuff like spinning. Once you have a good spiral, you work on more advanced ones such as an attitude spiral (which requires more strength and balance).

If you notice, most things in skating build on the previously learned things. It's a progression of skills and development. These all build up the body and prepare it for the next step. That's why you shouldn't skip steps.

[tidesong]

On land you can't really do an outside edge but you can shift your weight forwards, backwards and sideways minimally on one leg without falling over. On ice, you can lean more with a certain amount of speed. On land, if you can balance in position by itself it already helps when on the ice. So example, try stand on one leg on land with your arms behind your back and your free leg near your standing leg. That should be quite easily done, then feel your center of gravity shift from the middle of your foot to the left of it and then to the right of it (by attempting to lean extremely slightly to the left and to the right) without falling over, that's the same kind of center of gravity corrections you can make on the ice without using your arms. The balance doesn't come only from the hands or arms, the balance comes from the whole body working together.

Or maybe another better illustration would be trying to do a one legged squat on land. Stand on one leg and squat on it while the other leg lift it into a shoot the duck position while on land, keeping the hands infront of you. That should also demonstrate how balancing can be done without the arms. Its pretty much the same as on land, except on ice you can lean to a greater degree and still stay balanced with a bit more speed.

[miraclegro]

Yep, it is a lot of keeping your balance while shifting your weight.

There is that exercise 1/2 ball looking thing that you put one foot in and you can balance with it to get the muscles workingas you shift your weight. Don't know what it is called. A personal trainer would probably know. :)

[mikawendy]

Yep, it is a lot of keeping your balance while shifting your weight.

There is that exercise 1/2 ball looking thing that you put one foot in and you can balance with it to get the muscles workingas you shift your weight. Don't know what it is called. A personal trainer would probably know. :)

I think it's a BAPS board. I've used one before to retrain my ankle after spraining it, and have seen others in action using it (during my days as a PT volunteer). I think it somehow retrains the proprioception in that joint. Google results say it stands for biomechanical ankle platform system. (No wonder they need an acronym for it!)

ETA: I think I remember in another thread someone (sue123?) posted that PT after an injury helps the collagen fibers line up better. I wonder if the use of the BAPS board helps that during recovery from an ankle injury, or if that's a totally different thing...

[Sessy]

I've got to use one of those to train my pereneus muscles at the fysio. They were damaged when the ankle was broken too, and take significantly longer than the fracture itself.
For at home I have something similar, it's like a board with a cilinder attached to it in two spots (the cilinder lays flat and has a radius of about half an inch, maybe a little less). The board can dip over on both sides and you can stay balanced too, if you have very strong muscles all over. Great stuff. I swear it's even improving my spirals and spins, not just my ankle.