Too early? It seemed like it would be because it was too late...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HOa_0OEa0Ik

anyway.. there they are. they have no height at all basically because I never fell asleep last night and had to get up at 5 to go skate.. and then to cross country practice.. and now i have another skating lesson... lol.

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I watched your backspin videos as well. The lower body is great - you have terrific control over backspins (and back pivots, which I despise. LOL) I can see you've been practicing these, which is terrific. FWIW, I really liked the backspin-loop-backspin-loop exercise -- I use that with my students as well.

Keep working on the backspins to get more upper-body control. I can see that draw the left SHOULDER in front and open to the side. While your left HAND does come all the way across to the other side, you never close that shoulder to check the in-air rotation. If you put your left hand across your tummy and your right hand behind your back, you'll find where your SHOULDERS need to be in order to pull in properly.

Getting that free (left) arm in control is your biggest obstacle right now. You're squaring off the shoulders in the double loop and not getting into a good backspin position. In some of the attempts, you actually fling that arm across and catch up with it later, which is not good. You also have to work on crossing the free foot at the ankles, but it's secondary to that shoulder control and might actually be easier once you've resolved the upper-body issue. Practice getting into and holding that position on a back outside edge and also while doing back outside threes or twizzles.

Your axel attempts are great. You'll get this jump as soon as you stop breaking at the waist before takeoff. You're stepping onto the forward edge with your back hunched and your chest leaning over. Your legs are doing the work, but you're not standing up straight on takeoff or in the air - you're always bent at the waist. As a result, you turn more slowly than you should.

Think about stepping onto that edge with your face and chest over your skating foot, the same way you do on the landing. That should help.

All in all, what great progress you've made in a few short months! Congrats!

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On your double loops, the best ones you did were the ones where you covered less distance on the ice with the takeoff edge and instead curled the edge more into a circle before taking off . Just like on your spins, it is hard to get centered and rotating over an axis on this edge jump unless you create an edge that gets rounder and tighter as you're about to spin/jump. When you don't create that centered axis before takeoff, it gets hard stay backward over your right hip, and that actually looks like the main problem you are having. After 1-1/2 revolutions, you lower your left leg and let some of your weight shift to the left side, which is why you are hopping forward onto the left toe when you land instead of staying backwards over the right side. Even if you are 1/2 rotation short, if you keep your left hip and knee up a little and stay pulled in, you should be completing the last 1/2 turn on the ice, backwards on one foot.

See if this double loop setup helps: Do a LFO 3-turn on the hockey circle, holding the entrance edge and the exit edge each for a count of 3. The entrance edge is on the circle, but the exit edge starts to take you inside the circle. Now step down onto the RBO takeoff edge. Hold that edge for the same count of 3, keep your shoulders and counter checked to the right, then spring straight up off the toe as you feel your edge curl. When you take off, you should be right in the center of the hockey circle, near the red dot.

On your axel, you aren't really going up and then snapping the hip and pulling your arms and free leg in. Instead, you're trying to do all of it at the same time and forcing it, pulling your arms in too early. So first, lift all the way up, with your arms in an open position. Then, with your arms still holding that big imaginary beach ball, snap your right hip in and straighten the right leg, lifting the left knee as you do so. NOW pull the arms in. And don't worry about crossing the free leg. If you turn your right hip in and get into an open backspin position, all you need to do is pull the free leg in and it will automatically end up crossed in front of the landing leg. And if you pull your arms in, your free leg will pull in automatically with it, so you don't really even have to think about it. Just think, "Uuup! Hip, Arms" or if that doesn't work, try "Uuup! Backspin". And yes, it's true, on your takeoff edge, you need to arch your back so that you are straight, with your chest puffed out a little. Your right shoulder should stay back until you take off, and your chest should be over your takeoff knee, which is over your takeoff toe.

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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

Thank you guys!

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ok ... I still have the same advice as before. Needs more height, needs more snap, needs a straighter entrance, check your left side in front the whole time. The free leg on the entrance looks much better.

Do you have video of a nice single?

Really, I think this video is much improved over the previous ones. Still, as others have mentioned, you still need to work on the snap, especially for the Axel!

I wonder if this makes sense, but the deepening of the curve for take off happens by pressing up closer to pick, rather than increasing the lean on the outside edge. Almost like what one would do for a figure-loop (ok I can't do a figure loop to save my life, but that was what my old coach told me).

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Blog: http://chowskates.blogspot.com

Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/chowskates
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Yes, that IS how you do a BACK figure loop!

I'll get you one. haha. I really do appreciate your input. Height is an ankle issue for me, since that's the ankle I had a stress fracture in(that I got from doing single loops, ironically) so I guess it just needs more time to build up the muscle. But I'm trying. Straighter entrance? Aren't you supposed to be on an outside edge? YAY I DID SOMETHING RIGHT. Ha I remembered what you said about the left foot.

chowskates, which one am I supposed to do? lean more for the outside edge? Was I pushing up close to the toepick? Ya gotta be step by step with me lmao.

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Hmm, not sure if this is what the others are talking about, but I've seen skaters work on double loops where they take a few strokes or whatever down the red or blue lines on the ice, do a mohawk, then go right into a double loop. (How you were doing them on the harness video...) I've done mine this way, and it's not really that hard. It's especially helpful if you tend to sit on that outside edge before jumping too long, which causes the jump to wrap around itself instead of jump up and out!

If this isn't what was meant, sorry - it's so confusing at times trying to understand what others are talking about without diagrams or actually watching it in person or via YouTube.

Anyway, your double loops are getting better! I'm going to tell you the same thing I mentioned last time - same thing for the axel: keep your arms in and don't throw them out to stop rotation. Maybe try landing with them still in or just holding them in longer than you think is necessary. Each time you open up, you lose that rotation in the air...

GAH I KNOWWW. I suck. People keep telling me that and I never do it! I think it's just fear. LSKJFLSKJDLKSJDFLKJ. Thanks though.. lol.

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Don't be so hard on yourself. It'll come over time. Be patient!

vesperholly.. there's a bunch of single loops in the beginning of this video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=InVJI0ATM3g

some are loop-loops and loopbackspins.. but whatever.

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I know this is probably going to drive you crazy, but looking at your single loop, I really think you may need to spend more time working on them before you do a lot of doubles. Doubles are about 10 times as difficult on your body as singles, but a good portion of the problems with your technique on your double can be correcting by working on the single -- saving you from frustration and injury. Even with my best jumps, when I was working to add another rotation, I always did 4-5 singles/doubles for every double/triple.

For your single, I see two main problems:

1. You do a really, really good job of using your free leg to get yourself into the air, but you're really not using your skating leg quite enough (usually, people have the opposite problem!). You need to bend more before you take off, and spring up more quickly. Practicing off ice jumps landing and taking off just on your skating leg (one foot) as well as on both feet, mimicking the jumping motion of the loop, and really help...you don't need to do any elaborate set up, but stand, jump, and pull your arms to your chest (you can do maybe one rotation in the air, but you should also work on some where you don't rotate your shoulders or body at all), and land in a landing position. Practice that until you get the rhythm of the jump, then try to feel that on the ice.

2. You're pre-rotating it too much on the ice. This will help a lot with the jumping too, because it won't feel as out of control. Your endge on the ice is kind of light (it looks a little like you "slip" a bit on the takeoff) because you're not bending your knee enough but instead relying on your shoulders and upper body to get you up and around. Fixing this is the key to getting the double loop, and every coach has a different method for it. My coach used to tell us to feel like we were being pulled backward by the strap of your bra (or bathing suit, when we were too young to know what that felt like!), the one the crosses your back. Feel like someone's grabbed just under the hooks and is pulling you up and back, straight until you get into the jump and can pull in. Kind of hard to describe the feeling, but you'll know once you get it.

Again, unfortunately that's because my ankle is weak from not doing loops for 3 or 4 months because of a stress fracture(because of a loop gone wrong) So it's not very strong at all. It's really annoying. But I will definitely take all of your criticism into consideration. Also, those loops in that video were not my best, just the only ones I could find.

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Did you have physical therapy during your recovery? If not, you should because you're an athlete that really uses that ankle. Keep doing them if you have PT exercises, it can only help strengthen the ankle.

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I have to admit, I didn't read the entire thread! Sorry!

The off-ice jumps will help this a lot, as will generally conditioning your ankle. Maybe try some calf raises? Stand with the ball of your foot on a raised, flat surface, and go up on your toes, then let your heel go as far down past the stair as you can. Good for your balance too! You can also do theraband exercises, placing the band around your toes and pointing and flexing, moving against it side to side, etc. Your really need more jump to do the double loop though, so if it really is your ankles keeping you from getting up, you should do everything you can to strengthen it (which, if you are, you can completely disregard this comment!)

I never had PT but I'm supposed to be going sometime soon because my lyme doctor recommended it. She was worried about my feet being so torn up! haha.

That's perfectly fine. Your comments help either way. I think I'm going to have to start doing some excercises though if I ever want to be able to do doubles(or even the single)properly.

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Thanks for the single loop videos. The free foot position was much better in the second video of doubles. She can be taught!

Yes, a loop takes off from an outside edge. However, if you curve the edge too much, you can pre-rotate the jump - meaning you are so much around, you actually only do one rotation in the air. All loops have a natural 1/2 pre-rotation, because in curving the edge to jump, you have to turn a bit, it's impossible to take off from a 100% straight edge. But that pre-rotation comes from when you bend your knee deeply and then spring up, pulling the edge with it, not from wrenching your body around the curve so much so that you're taking off forward.

The idea is to not think about curving the edge, but to think about keeping yourself straight and square until you jump. The straight-line entrance is to counteract pre-rotation tendencies. Keeping your left shoulder forward is a big part of that - your arms should be in a widened L shape, left to the front and right out to the side and slightly back. You should never have to change your shoulder positions from takeoff to landing. If you open your left shoulder the jump is doomed.

Once you have those things under control, then you can go back to doing the loop on a circle. But a BIG circle. Otherwise your jumps may be very spinny - like you hop up, spin the rotation very quickly and land (a la Tara Lipinski), instead of JUMP UP, rotate and land (a la Bebe Liang or Yu-Na Kim). Taking off from a tight circle will end up in a tight circle landing with little flow or speed out and an edge that curls in on itself. Your singles aren't doing that because you have enough air time to stop the rotation and check the landing. I think you might be favoring your ankle to the point where you don't jump as high as you could because the landing will put more pressure on your ankle.

I know it's exciting to work on doubles, but I think you might want to concentrate your time on getting your singles big and fast. I didn't see a lutz, and your flips looked a little shaky and the technique on all your jumps is inconsistent - not surprising for skating less than a year and a half. You skate better than many people who have been skating for years. I think once you got the singles nice and solid, the doubles will come even easier because of the foundation of good technique. BTW, you look and skate very much like Carolina Kostner in that video.

My flip is my best jump! That video doesn't showcase it well.. haha. There were a couple of lutzes.. not very good ones but they were there.

Thanks for all of the advice!

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