Well, don't thank me unless it works! If your sitspin is your most centered spin, it's probably because you get deeper knee and ankle bend on the entrance edge to your sitspin. That makes your entrance edge rounder and also forces you hold the edge a little longer before starting the spin. Try bending your knee as deeply as a sitspin entrance on your upright and camel spin entries and see if it helps!

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

and this:

Are being printed out and put in my skating bag. It's all so true and funny!

Ant

Your advice did work, doubletoe. My spins still need a lot of work, but there were a few during which I managed to do what you were saying and they were more centred. More the knee and ankle bend is needed and trying to do less distance on the left outside entrance edge (but make it more curved).
Thank you

Well, on a nice quiet session your folks ideas started to work, especially those of thin-ice. I can't pretend instantaneous success, but between eyes closed and listening to the blade, at least I know how to proceed.

(Looking at the reflection in the glass made me busy, so I'll drop that.)

In particular if I try to spin on the sweet spot, by rolling forwards on the blade until I feel a change of curvature, and I do everything right, I can hardly hear anything, and it spins a little longer. I guess sound wastes energy, so quiet should be good.

Is that where I should be spinning forward spins? Is that what I should hear?

Except: most people I've talked to prefer to center forward spins so their toe pick just brushes.

On my (dance) blades, the sweet spot is centered around the ball of my feet, and spinning on the sweet spot does not touch the toe pick. I talked to a coach whose sweet spot centers near the center of her blade. A boot fitter once told me all blades from each manufacturer have exactly the same profile, regardless of length, so I guess people with small feet have the sweet spot near the back, and people with large feet have it near the toe...

Where is that sweet spot on most people's blades? Where should it be?

Yay!! Glad it helped!

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

These two things will help you a lot! Most people rush the entry and that dooms 99% of spins; if you are uneven and not level you will travel. So, for your first 5,000,000 attempts, slow it down and don't even try them from back crossovers instead do them from the line or from a 3-turn entry until that works for you. Once you have that down, then go from back crossovers.
I believe that everyone will have a slightly different spot that works for them...for me, its the ball of my foot and what helps me is stretching my skating leg and actually feeling as though I'm on the ball of my foot (lifting my toes & heel in my boot). When i do that my spinning is better assuming I entered it correctly and I was level.

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

How do I know when a spin travels?





I get bills in the mail because spins don't have their own credit cards, nor do they carry checks. Sometimes the bills are more expensive when the spins fly. So it's important to have either a Visa Check Card, Master Card or personal checks of your own but don't be in a hurry to turn the corner or the trip won't be fun.



:rotflol:

Really, I can tell when my spin is going to travel when I go into the spin without keeping my arms and shoulders level and when my free hip has dropped or is dropping before I hook the spin. Sometimes I travel because I get too impatient and hook the spin early instead of waiting until I'm almost back to where I begain the spiralling edge. If I keep my shoulders, arms and free hip lined properly and be patient enough on the spiralling edge before hooking the spin, I can attain a decently centered spin no matter the type of spin.

Don't forget to master your patience on the spiralling edge and to check that your shoulders, arms and free hip are properly lined (arms and shoulders horizontal from the ice not tipping one way or the other until you have centered the spin for at least 1 rotation after the hook.

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"It's not age that determines but the heart." "Skating is not just a sport for the young but it's a passion for the soul of the young at heart." Brigitte Laskowski

I am a nomadic adult skater who is a member of Windsor FSC (Skate Windsor) WOS SC again since Sept. 1st, 2008.

http://eastcastlemusic.tripod.com

Singerskates Sports Music Editing

I agree, the "sweet spot" is different for many people since each of our bodies is slightly different so we carry our weight in different ways and the size of the toe pick itself makes a difference in the balance point too. For me, the sweet spot is just behind when my toe pick brushes the ice, although many of my friends say they have to just barely feel the toe pick on the ice. And yes, quieter is better... less drag means less wasted energy which means a longer duration for the spin. I LOVE the sound of a well-centered spin... it's one of the things that can make an otherwise "bad skating day" good. Glad some of it helped and I'm so glad you could figure out which tips worked for you! Happy spinning!

I was thinking of the shape of the blade, not where you actually spin. I.E., a sweet spot in blade shape terms is a point along the blade where the length-wise ("rocker") curvature changes, or where the rocker curvature is discontinuous, forming a place where it is designed to be easier to rotate.

Or are you saying you had your sharpener move your sweet spot to where you wanted it? I wonder if a lot of people do that.

I don't know about anyone else.. but I'm not messing with my blades except to make sure they are sharpened regularly. I'm not an engineer and don't feel capable of redesigning them... and I'm probably a little too lazy and cheap to want to experiment with my blades. So I just make my body cope with what's there... which could explain why I have some problems with my skating. But spinning (at least forward spins -- I'm still trying to consistently find the right balance spot for back spins) have turned out ok for me.. and I figure if my blades are the same kind as the "hot shots" use and it works for them, I'm not that special I need them changed to accomodate my quirks. I'm not going to the Olympics without a ticket.

But I appreciate your definition of "sweet spot". I was thinking of it more along the lines of the same term for a tennis racket's sweet spot... where you hit the ball to get the most bang for the buck, so to speak.

Good luck on your continuing quest to conquer spins!

I think real athletes can compensate for a lot of blade and boot issues. Congratulations! I'm such a poor skater that I have to get everything right on my equipment to do anything. You don't have to be an engineer to think things through or experiment. I'm not.

But I can see why you are afraid to. Blades are ridiculously expensive, given that the material costs are probably a few pennies each. I'd bet manufacturing costs are under a few dollars. If I were an engineer, I'd be tempted to make them - and skates too. Outrageous profit margins.

A well respected sharpener re-profiles and re-hollows all new blades. He claims blades are sometimes factory shipped with different hollows on left and right blades, and that they sometimes ship blades which differ substantially from the usual profile in non-constant ways. But another very good sharpener said that was true of MK, but not Ultima.

Whenever a blade is sharpened, it flattens and loses the sweet spot, if the sharpener isn't careful to retain the original profile - just like sanding a rectangular block of wood tends to round corners. I wish someone would post photocopies of new blades on the internet so we could all put them back.

I agree that the Pro-filer uses far less metal than machine sharpenings. Part of this is consistency - not all sharpening wheels actually have exactly the same shape, even if they are the same brand, model and nominal radius. Part of it is the slower grind allows you to reshape the metal, rather than just grind it away. Like using a "steel" on kitchen knives in between rarer occaisions of using a grinding stone.

Do you use water or oil as the lubricant? The instructions say oil, but some of the tool sharpening community claims water gives cleaner edges at hand sharpening speeds. Since I don't want a mess in my skate bag, I'm using water too.

Re-hollows, definitely. But re-profiles?? My sharpener would only re-profile a blade if the rocker had been flattened or made uneven through previous sharpenings, i.e., it's not something you should ever need to do on new blades. If the profile isn't right on a new blade, you send them back.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

Maybe you are just overthinking the spin thing and trying too hard? I've seen that to be the case as well, you try too hard and are all tensed up when you start spinning....that dooms it from the beginning. Then you try again, more frustrated and it just spirals down from there.

as for the profiler, I mostly use oil but my stone has soaked in water a little bit so the oil floats on top...gets wicked sharp that way! I love my profiler!!!! Which reminds me, time to go sharpen.....

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