I have a problem with my axel- I have a good position in take off, but I can't keep my left leg crossed,I keep it next to the right leg.I practice backspin and a waltz jump followed by backspin, but I still can't manage it .That also holds me back with doubles- I don't practice them (though singles are really good ) because I know there will be the same problem.Does anyone have any usful tips?

something my coach had me do to keep my legs/feet crossed in the air.
it also helped a younger skater i showed it to land her axel.

do each of the following about 5 or ten times a practice until you get it.
start with a backspin with a strong checkout.
now do a backspin and while your in the tightest postion jump into the air without losing the postion. but do not checkout when you land (yet.) spin a few more times then strongly check out.

it helps you feel and get the tighter leg crossed position in the air.

hope that helps.

In addition to that, do a lot of waltz jump into backscratch spins and do two variations for checking out. (for practice)
1. waltz jump-backscratch-jump (one rev.) check
2. waltz jump-backscratch-jump-backscratch-jump-check

Hope that helps too

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Tim David's Website

I had that problem for the longest time. The exercises that everyone else mentioned are great. But if your big worry is just landing the axel right and you can do waltz jump backspins in your sleep my suggestion (and its kind of obvious) is just to think of nothing else in your jump other than crossing your leg. If your take off is already good than you dont have to concentrate on that, take the jump step by step. Crossing your leg, having your arms right, take off and landing. Concentrate on just one part each time you do the jump and eventually they will all come together.

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I have this problem on my double sal. What really helps me is to do a pivot to a backspin - but only push once or twice, and then focus on getting the foot converted from side to front crossed.

I don't really "cross" my free leg on my axel or my double salchow and it isn't absolutely necessary to do so if the jump is big enough. However, you DO need to have the free foot in front of the shin/ankle of the landing leg, not next to it. The problem with having the free foot next to the landing foot is not the tightness in the air, it's that your weight is not over your landing hip when you are rotating in the air. In fact, if you think about "crossing" your free leg, it might make you move the free leg in the opposite direction of rotation just to get it to cross over the landing leg, and that will only hurt your rotation, not help it.
Instead, you need to think about rotating backward over your landing hip just like a slightly open backspin in the air. That means your free foot is in front of the shin/ankle of your landing leg, with the knee slightly lifted. Do a bunch of slightly open backspins to feel exactly what it feels like, then get into the same position in the air on your axel, snapping the landing hip in quickly and straighting that landing leg as soon as you have left the ice. Then just pull in. You don't have to "cross" the free leg because you will have turned into it and it just naturally ends up in front of the other one as you rotate. You should feel like you are pulling yourself around backward with the outside of your landing side butt-cheek.

What is beginning to help me with this is to just think about my free leg being in front of me when I land. For some reason, I can't feel (or, don't have any sensation) of my legs being crossed in the air. However, if I just can start landing with my leg in front of me, rather than to the side, or behind me, then I think that I must be starting to get some sort of wrap in the air.

I think the wrap is more of a mental thing, because even when doing an axel off ice, I've been told I have a nice wrap, but I have no "sensation/feeling" of being wrapped at all.

i don't know without having seen your takeoff, but I know sometimes feet end up side by side is when the free leg on the take off isn't going straight through but is coming across (toward the the skating leg) on the takeoff.

When the free leg doesn't go straight through on the take off, the body prerotates on take off slightly and then your spin axis is somewhere between your legs instead over your landing leg.

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okay this may not make sense but it always worked for me..
try staying in backspin position while hopping on your right toe-pick (left if you jump opposite).. you could also try hopping around yourself like a back spin but instead of staying on the ice and spinning, you hop around in a circle!

its really hard to explain but i tried my best, sorry if you don't understand

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~*Jenna*~ Newfie for life!!!

wouldn't that be sort of the same as just doing several loop jumps in a row, it's bascally the same movement

Thanks for the advice.That was really helpful.I have the axel already, and I start working on doubles

sort of, but don't actually rotate as much!
if you do loop - loop - loop etc. each time your in the air you rotate once while with the little practice thing i told you about you only rotate like a 1/4 (quarter) rotation! Also you don't have speed going into the practice thing as you do for the loop, you do it standing still! It's harder to balance standing still so by practicing this you get better at having your weight on your right side (left if you jump opposite) and balancing. THis isn't practice to help you get rotation, its to help you feel what its like to get the right air position (over your right side, balance etc.)

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~*Jenna*~ Newfie for life!!!

This is exactly what my problem is. I had very nice jumps....great height and full rotation, but my legs have never been crossed in the air. I had all of my jumps up to and including a double lutz just like that. I would never get any credit for my jumps at competition, because te judges could not understand how my jumps could be clean with that air position. I switched coaches and have strictly been working on crossing my legs ever since. I've done a ton of backspins. Backspins by themselves, backspins on the landings of jumps, backspins with jumping up and then landing in a backspin again, everything!!! It's been a slow and grueling process, but so far, I am able to cross my legs in an axel, double flip, and double loop. The other jumps are still on their way. I've had to work very hard to break my bad habit. At some points I just felt like giving up. I felt like I was getting nowhere, and I'd end up getting off of a bunch of sessions in tears. I still have days like that, but I've learned to work through them. There are so many excercises you can do to help cross your legs. I found that the most helpful thing was the harness. There's a coach at my skating club who has a harness that he holds and he saktes around the rink with you. It helped me because I felt more balanced, stable, and in control of my jumps when in the harness. It's very rare to find a harness like that, so pretty much jsut do backspins!!! Trust me...they help.

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