Hello again,

I d like to give you an update about my daughter's spins. Everytime she is in the ice she does at least 15 spins. She is in a routine now that she does something she likes then a spin. I have to say I see an improvement. Once I showed her the blade and asked her wich part is she trying to balance at. She said the flat part towards the back. That explained.... Anyway we talked about the "sweet spot" and trully it made a difference. Next time she was in the ice she performed really nice 2-foot spins (at least compared to what she did before). The one foot still needs work. Sometimes she has it some times not. At least I am glad now she knows how it feels when she does it right so she has a sense. I think the hard work is paying off.
She did have one private class that went well but the teacher did not offer any more wisdom. She asked her to keep trying. She told me that my daughter knows what to do she just needs to keep trying. The coach however taught her how to enter and exit the one foot spin wich my daughter immediately picked up, so at least now she does a sloppy spin with beautiful entrance and exit That is better than nothing...
She is also signed up for the bridge class but did not start yet. I think she will use this class mostly for the spin since she has all the other elements by now.

ok, and a note about the off ice spin trainer... OMG that sounds such a luxury to me... How much does this cost? I do not think I afford right now anyway. However, it sounds very nice, I am wondering what type of exercises they do. Does anybody know?

That's great that your daughter is making progress with her spin. I have to say the spin is a strange element to learn. It does take time and lots of practice but it gets there in the end so I wouldn't worry too much if she's not doing great spins straight off.

As for the off ice spin trainer, I tend to feel this is a bit of a gimmick. It doesn't compare to spinning on the ice on a blade at all and in all fairness your daughter will do better just plugging away on the ice.

Nicki

I'm really, really glad to hear that she's mastering spins. This hard work will pay off in the future. Give her a pat on the head from me!

As for spin trainers - I agree with NickiT. I don't think it's really necessary or will help with spins. A friend gave my daughter one, it's a small turntable with a rubber pad attached to the top. My kids play with it, but I won't let them use it in the kitchen -- too many sharp corners if they fall off! Of course, I do back spins in my socks in the kitchen - mother's priviledge! LOL

They run from $25 to $50. Rainbosports.com has them online, if you want to see pictures.

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That is about right. Spins are hard, they take time, and there's no 'magic bullet' that will suddenly take a kid from sloppy spins to gorgeous spins. Practice is where it's at. It took me around 3 YEARS to manage a one-foot spin that could be identified as such, LOL! I would travel, get off-balance, not get more than two revolutions, and that's if I didn't fall over the entry edge and scrap the spin from the start! Now I can get into a semblance of a spin more often than not, but it's still not consistent. It's something that has many, many small bits and parts to it, and if any one of them is wrong, the spin will often not work well. It just takes time to get all those ducks in a row, and then put it all firmly into body memory so that it happens every time. Some people are more talented this way than others, that's for sure, but it still doesn't happen overnight.


Oh, and I liked my spin trainer a lot (I had the square metal plate one), but I wouldn't say that it helped much, if at all, with my on-ice spins. It's a whole different beast. The trick to the spin trainers is that you have to be pretty darn perfect on them, or they buck you off (and into the television or coffee table, so be careful where you use them!). I suppose it can help with keeping the perfect, squared-up posture, but it really doesn't allow for mistakes, which makes it hard for real learning.

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Wow, even the simple plastic "skate spinner" is $25. I have both kinds. Someone gave me the more expensive one, but by that time, DD was spinning like crazy anyway. I picked up the plastic "skate spinner" at a second hand shop for about $2, and I like it.

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My daughter uses the plates on ball bearings spin trainer. She had tremendous success with it, and now there are actually classes at a local rink on how to use them, not only for spin training but also for jump entry. They are not large, but they can be fast, so you need an open area. My daughter said it truly helped he find her center. I paid $45 for one. I didn't like the looks of the plastic ones, so I opted to price up... she has used it for many years.

I have the metal-plate one as well. It was a third-owner hand-me-down from a skating friend in Jersey to my oldest daughter. No manual or packaging, just the spinner. I'll have to find a manual for it; maybe we're using it wrong. Hmmmm.

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I don't think mine ever came with a manual.

Yeah, you can use them for jump training, too. One skating director I used to know said that his kids would not only use them for jumps, but they'd put two of them down, and use them for flying spins. Way beyond me.

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
--Thomas Jefferson

www.signingtime.com ~sign language fun for all!

How do you use it?
-do you wear your skates? does it not damage them? aaah confused
Does it really help with spins?
Is it worth the money?

Thanks

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I got one for my birthday in hopes of it helping my backspin, and it did! I tried doing a bunch of backspins on it, which I've been having major issues with and when I went on the ice and tried one, they were so much better! I think it depends on the person. And it doesn't help if you have issues with the entrance so if that's your problem, don't even bother. It didn't do much with my foward spin except make it a little faster, but my foward one was really good to start out with. But my backspin.. man. Before I only had 2 or 3 revs but after the spin trainer I could go for 8 or 9!

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I've got one of those spin trainers but frankly, they only help once you're already a pretty good spinner. I'm only getting ANYthing from it now that I have a scratch spin of like 6+ revolutions, and still it's faaaar inferior to training on ice.

However, what it IS doing wonders for are my jumps. Practicing the backspin position on it really helps even though it's not a spin on the spinner and not a spin on ice either. But for the jumps, it's good enough.

At home. It's two disks rotating over eachother. You use it at home, preferably away from hot and sharp objects as you might fall over. You put your foot down on the middle of the spinner - the ball of your foot, and then you push off with the other foot and you try to spin. Takes a lot of practice.

It doesn't do anything for your spinning entrance except messing it up actually, but it does help with the balance some. Especially if you already have a good balance it helps to perfect it.

It also helps some against spin dizzyness.

I haven't got the two-disc kind, only a one-foot balance one. I must dig it out, as I find it really helps with 3-turns, and now that I'm seriously working on back 3-turns.... well, maybe learning how to stand in the correct position will help.

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I've had a plastic one for years - my mom bought me one at a competition after they first came out. All I could ever do on it was fall off, bump my hip on the kitchen counter, and get very dizzy. It didn't help my spins (only more on-ice practice did that), but it is fun to play with. Just watch out for those kitchen counters!

You've gotta be very careful where to put it... It didn't work on our kitchen floor, since our kitchen floor wasn't perfectly level but had little bumps.