skatingjumpsecrets.com

[sk8ryellow]

anyone ever heard of it?

[Skittl1321]

If you do a search there are a few posts about this website already, but not too much information yet.

[Query]

A USFS judge qualified to judge up to silver test level told me that someone who "cheated" the beginning and end of the jump by doing some of the rotation on the ice (rather than the air), as that site suggests, would be downgraded to one fewer rotation, and would be given a -3 grade of execution. She said the most you could cheat and have it count at all (and that with the grade of execution penalty) would be 1/4 rotation.

There seems to be an issue of what constitutes touching one's toe pick (e.g., whether or not you slow down the glide) on edge jumps, but the one I asked said any contact would be bad.

I have no idea whether all USFS judges in all geographic areas use the same criteria, or what applies in other countries or in international competitions. Why not ask local judges? They don't bite.

Mostly.

[mdvask8r]

. . . There seems to be an issue of what constitutes touching one's toe pick (e.g., whether or not you slow down the glide) on edge jumps, but the one I asked said any contact would be bad. . .
Perhaps there was some misunderstanding in the judges comments - the last thing to leave the ice on ANY jump is the toepick.

[Query]

Perhaps there was some misunderstanding in the judges comments - the last thing to leave the ice on ANY jump is the toepick.

I understand that it is much more more ergonomically efficient to jump while rolling into the toe.

But is there a specific USFS rule or other official guidance you can point to that indicates that it is legal to touch the toepick?

This quote from http://www.usfigureskating.org/About.asp?id=60 "the skater takes off from the entry edge of the skating foot..." would most easily be interpreted otherwise, as can descriptions in the USFSA Basic Skills Instructor's Manual.

[TreSk8sAZ]

Okay, I think either you're misunderstanding or asking the question improperly, or the judges are. You aren't "touching" the toepick in the sense that you are using it to assist you into the air on edge jumps. You are jumping up by rolling through your foot to the front. In other words, you aren't jumping flat footed. That means the toe area is the last portion of the foot to leave the ice in a natural motion, not by using the toepick in an illegal way by putting it in the ice to assist you.

When you do an edge jump, you engage a tight edge to assist you in getting enough momentum to get into the air. This edge naturally takes you around a bit while you are in the process of getting into the air. This means that you do not jump exactly backward in comparison to the exact position you started engaging the edge. The edge has to turn slightly because, well, it's an edge. Rolling through the foot on your way up takes time, so no, you don't necessarily jump from 100% backward if you consider "jumping" the time the entire foot is off of the ice. It's physically not possible because of the edge you take off on. However, the foot does start coming off of the ice while you are backward. All the video shows (as I understand it) is the fact that your foot starts coming up while your backward and continues coming up to the point it completely leaves the ice as you continue on your edge. In order to make people "think it's easier" they call it leaving forwards off of the toepick. But in reality all it is doing is showing the natural progression of a jump in super-slow motion. You start backward, roll through the foot as you continue on the edge, get into the air, rotate, land backward. In a real jump, this all happens so quickly that you don't see that the foot may not be 100% off the ice while you are still 100% completely backward (again, in comparison to the exact point you started engaging the edge). Again, you aren't using the toepick in any illegal way -meaning assisting you by picking into the ice (such as you'd see in a flip) or anything like that. You are rolling up through the front of the foot and pointing the foot as you go up.

[doubletoe]

TreSk8sAz is exactly right. It is nearly impossible to leave the ice without pointing the toes of the takeoff foot and rolling up onto the bottom pick as you leave the ice. Elephants cannot point their toes or flex their ankles, which is why they cannot jump. The only difference between an "edge jump" and a "toe jump" is that a toe jump uses the toepick of the other foot as sort of a pole vault to assist the takeoff.

[liz_on_ice]

TreSk8sAz is exactly right. It is nearly impossible to leave the ice without pointing the toes of the takeoff foot and rolling up onto the bottom pick as you leave the ice. Elephants cannot point their toes or flex their ankles, which is why they cannot jump. The only difference between an "edge jump" and a "toe jump" is that a toe jump uses the toepick of the other foot as sort of a pole vault to assist the takeoff.

Are you telling me the rhyme I learned in childhood about Mary Mack isn't true?

[FSWer]

Here is the link if anyone is interested. http://skatingjumpsecrets.com

[Skate@Delaware]

Heaven forbid I re-learn the toe-loop as a cheated pre-rotated toe-waltz after spending the past two years unlearning that horrible technique! NO THANKS!

As for edge jumps, we are currently overcoming my "flat-footed" technique on the salchow and emphasizing the push off of the toe and the landing back onto the toe but it's still a salchow (and not pre-rotated on the ice). My tendency to land it flat-footed is again, from my earlier beginnings and the bad teaching I received from a prior coach.

I'll stick to how my coach currently teaches it, thanks.