I was just wondering if you have any tips for layback, attitude, and headless spins. They're very hard to center!

The only one of those spins I've done is the attitude spin, and what I was told to do to help the balance and centering was to slightly bend my spinning knee - same idea as scratch spins. And keep pressing to the ball of the foot, although I try to focus on the middle of my foot b/c when I think about leaning on the ball area, I tend to lean too far forward and wind up on my toepicks.

Since headless spins are so rarely mentioned, I will answer about this one.

I learned it early in my skating, soon after the scratch. Although it can be done from a slower spin, the full effect is not achieved unless the spin is very fast or even blurred. Basically, it will not work at all (even if slow) unless the spin is very well centered. At first, you may wish to work this w/ your coach or a knowledgable friend watching who can tell you if you are centered. Instead of pushing the arms down or up over the head, you want to raise them to your neck w/ elbows out and hands locked. Put your head straight back. In a fast spin, the head virtually disappears in a blur w/ the arms/elbows. Make sure you don't turn your head to the side or you will have a terrific pain in the neck the next day.

Kay

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my coach had me put my hands on my hips during the layback. it helped me keep my hips out and my spin more controled. it also took away some of the fear i had of leaning back more.

Thanks for replying. Yes, the headless spin seems to be neglected, doesn't it!

It's tough for most skaters to do a really good, fast, well-centered forward scratch spin. It's almost pointless to attempt a headless spin until you can master the forward scratch; hence you rarely see people practice headless spin at all.

It's amazing that Dorothy Hamill still has one of the best forward scratch spin in the business. I don't know of any other eligible or non-eligible skaters who can do a scratch spin with the same quality as Dorothy, although Cohen's scratch is pretty good.

Right. Dorothy could bring the free leg completely forward, fully extended, parallel to the ice. That is so difficult. She still has beautiful technique and remains my fav skater. I love to watch her. So graceful. Her edges are worth other skaters' triples.

I had a coach who was a former world pro champ. He could blur spins and spun like Dorothy. He taught me to spin early in my skating "career". Although I have a good scratch, I still have trouble getting the excellent position that Dorothy starts her scratch spins w/. I would like to spend more time on this in the future.

Kay

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Dorothy really is one to emulate and admire!!!! We do have one girl at my rink who can bring her free leg up that high, she does bend it almost right away.

I actually took a video clip of Dorothy's scratch spin and slooowed it down, and printed out frames to study.........echoes of geekdom & i am not worthy!!!

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

To what Kay has already said, I will add BE CAREFUL when trying this for the first time. Normally your head is centred on the axis of your spin, but in the headless spin it drops out of the axis and the inertia of a fast spin can pull it back surprisingly hard. Once you are accustomed to how this feels it isn't a problem, but I can remember it being a shock to me the first time I tried this spin.

Another idea is to do the headless spin on a fast backspin. I actually much prefer it on a backspin and I sometimes finish off a flying camel with a fast headless backspin.

John

Could you post these somewhere? They would be useful for a lot of ppl. I would like to get a good look at her spin too.

Kay

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Ok, here are the Dorothy photos:

http://www.sk8rland.com/users/tkahline/Misc%20Things/

The pics should be read in columns (down). I got the video from the Technical Skating website (the guy with all the video clips...
http://oasis.dit.upm.es/~jantonio/pe...naje/index.htm and click on spins if you want to see her original clip (it is in b&w).

Enjoy!

ps-I used to have that haircut (a few years ago!)

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Skate@Delaware, are you able to view the video clips on the Technical Figure Skating web site?I have Windows Media Player, and .avi files are supported (the kind on that site), but I'm getting an error message each time I try to view one of the clips...

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Try saving them to your computer first-see if that helps....sometimes firewalls, popup blockers, etc will prevent you from "seeing" videos. Let me know if that doesn't work and we can try something else (but not tomorrow-I have 4 hours of show rehearsal and I will be a popsicle!...I'm halfway there-just came up from my unheated basement from sewing and my feet are numb!)

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Thanks, Skate@Delaware--saving them first worked!

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I see someone was up late last night (besides me)! Why is it-when you want (or need) to get up early the next morning, you almost always end up with a late night beforehand? It was darn near midnight before I hit the sack....

With hubby snorin' up a storm (loud enough to be heard by Jazzpants clear across the country) I ended up rising earlier than expected....

Now I'm trying to find warmer stuff to layer on for rehearsals today (altho it's always my feet that start to freeze first)

I did notice, for watching videos on the internet, if you have dial-up, sometimes it is better to download them to your hard-drive first.... and sometimes the different media players get funny about playing them (if you don't have a plugin).

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

My first coach had a great way to get me over my fear when learning the layback spin ... she absolutely swore to me that I'd NEVER fall on my head when I'm learning this spin. I'd certainly fall out of it ... but not on my head. She was right, although I still don't completely understand why. So we started by doing three revolutions at a time, then four ... not trying to spin until I was completely out of control. And it worked. Now I don't even think about it, and I like playing around with different head positions (try looking up on a back camel ... psychedelic!!)

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