Fingers & thumbs

[black]

Did my first ever (mini) competition 8O on Friday; it went okay :oops: :D but looking at the photos afterwards I noticed that for some of the moves my fingers were in odd positions. Nothing rude you understand but definitely breaking line.

Have you noticed this in yourself or others?

[jp1andOnly]

I tend to ball up my hands or finger the judges SOOOOOO.....

I wear beige coloured gloves. Even if I practise without gloves on a regular basis, its still the same result. My coaches think the gloves are the best idea. Sure, you can see them a bit, but its better than throwing the judges the bird..hehe

[FlyAndCrash]

I get comments from my coach every time that I'm on the ice, regardless of gloves. Now, I try go consciously think about my hands during crossovers, spirals, and other transition moves. And to stretch all the way to my fingertips on exits...

[Skate@Delaware]

OMG!!! Can't tell you how many times we have worked on this :oops:

Coach-what are your hands doing?
me-What? what do you mean?
Coach-during that (move)? what did they do?
me-huh??? I don't know? hands? I have hands? You mean I have to pay attention to my hands too???
:frus::roll:8O

Coach-Yes! It's IMPORTANT!!! So, what were they doing?
me-Um, what were WHAT doing???
Coach-muttering something......sounded like zombie...stiff.....drink...???

We did:
SANDWICH HANDS; BARBIE HANDS; SQUEEZING GLOVES, etc..... :lol:
then TAPE!!! RUBBER BANDS!!!!

yeah

[Isk8NYC]

I use the "fists of fury" on every jump, lol.
I also have a tendency to let my hands go limp. Not pretty.

I've found that I do something very strange with my hands on any sideways maneuvers (side steps, side toe hops, mazurkas) -- I point my index finger in the direction of movement. I think it's from teaching, lol.

I took an adult footwork clinic one summer and no kidding - the guy spent 20 minutes working on my ugly hands, trying to get me to do the "palm an apple" movement for more than 5 seconds.

What would happen if you put a cardboard "hand" cutout in your gloves to stop the fists of fury?

[flo]

Yup. Lots of early pics with floppy hands. I've spent lots of time in front of a mirror. I also pretend that I have extentions on my fingers that go out an extra few inches.

[fsk8r]

Wish it was just the hands. I have demented seagull arms. If I worry about the feet the arms just start doing their own thing and start sticking out at funny angles. If the feet know what they're doing I can worry about the arms. If jumping, I don't trust my feet enough so the arms can look a bit strange much to my coach's amusement. Thankfully, I've spent so long trying not to look like a demented seagull as I spin, that they've sorted themselves out.
And why is it, when I've told to moves arms and hands in my program the brain omits to tell the arms and hands that they're meant to be moving at the same time as the feet and I end up getting frustrated with myself after the event!

[TreSk8sAZ]

Unfortunately, it's only my left hand that I have problems with. I definitely curl my fingers, especially on moves and some solo dances. My dance coach has started holding just that hand to keep it straight, but we have no idea why I do it in the first place!

[Sessy]

Yeah like a quarter hour out of each ballet lesson, we do hands... Mostly it's like, keep it all round like if you were trying to hold a cellphone between thumb and middlefinger.

On ice, I just mainly keep my hands stiff and straight LOL, which seems to be the common strategy at our club to teach to beginning competers... It doesn't always work as desired, this boy from my club had a 1-foot spin in which he was supposed to raise 1 arm above him. I think the idea was that he do so with like, ballet arms and hands - you know this slight round shape with a bent elbow, bent wrist and round hands, or at the very least that it be sort of a "hi, I'm here!" spin (it was the closing spin in his programme)... Uhm the kid was so tight-up he did a sort of, don't take this the wrong way, "heil hitler"-spin if you can picture that... That looked *very* wrong. 8O

[patatty]

I have terrible hand and arm positions when I skate. I guess it is from having no dance experience at all. My coach is working with me on correcting the really awful ones, but it's hard to keep it all in mind, especially when I'm concentrating on trying to land jumps and not trip on footwork in a program. My mind can't seem to handle thinking about upper body and lower body at the same time. I'm always appalled at how ungraceful I appear when I watch myself on video. I even took ballet last summer but it didn't seem to help.

[Ellyn]

I have to clench something when I take off for a flip. Usually fists. But if I make an effort to keep my hands open, I'll probably clench my face instead.

[quarkiki2]

Hehehe... hands and arms are the ONLY things I do consistently right... I once had an instructor tell me that if you only looked at me from the wiast up, you'd think I was doing everything right all the time...

[Skate@Delaware]

I have terrible hand and arm positions when I skate. I guess it is from having no dance experience at all. My coach is working with me on correcting the really awful ones, but it's hard to keep it all in mind, especially when I'm concentrating on trying to land jumps and not trip on footwork in a program. My mind can't seem to handle thinking about upper body and lower body at the same time. I'm always appalled at how ungraceful I appear when I watch myself on video. I even took ballet last summer but it didn't seem to help.
hahaha! that's MY story, except I haven't had any ballet....I grew up on "the farm" and used to ride, so clenching reins, bridles, lead lines, etc. was the way it was...I shoot archery and I clench my bow (not good)

however, Saturday I start belly dancing, which should be good for my arms at least. That the hope of myself and my coach (who is still rolling her eyes at this but hoping it helps and she is still trying to talk me into a spotlight program, yeah).

[sk8lady]

I tend to drop one hand down and point the fingers of the other hand up. It looks very strange so I've started watching myself in the glass a lot of the time to make sure I'm not doing it. Now my hands look better but I look really conceited because I'm looking at myself all the time.

I also have been taking belly dancing for about a year and I think that helped a lot. (I did a belly dance program at AN this year and I didn't notice any weird hands in the pictures or videos, although there was plenty of other weird-looking stuff going on!!!)

[icedancer2]

When I used to be able to solo the Killian I would point my thumb up on my left hand as I went through the choctaw and into the back section on the end - it looked like I was hitchiking!

I think I just wanted a ride...:roll:

[Kim to the Max]

I'm usually pretty good on everything, BUT my pulling in for my loop and lutz jumps where my arms go in in such a way that it looks like I'm flipping off the judges :(

I can do it right if I really concentrate, but that doesn't happen very often...this issue is creeping into my axel... :(