OK. This always happens when I make-up a lesson with a different instructor -- I get all confused and end up frstrated.

I had a make-up lesson last night. We worked on 3 turns and mohawks. The advice this instructor gave about the mohawks was very helpful, but the advice on the 3 turns got me completely confused.

Here's my question: Do you deliberately pre-rotate your shoulders in a 3 turn? It seems to me that this makes you look like a corkscrew. I have had more success keeping my hips and shoulders together and taking the turn from the foot with little upper body involvement except to check the turn. It seems to me that pre-rotating your shoulders and twisting your hips is an awful lot of energy expended for something that, to me, can be done more simply with my foot.

Of course, I learned this particular element from the Russian instructor and was warned that he teaches some stuff completely differently than the American instructors, but, I've gotta say -- what he says makes infintely more sense to me than what they say. Of course, I could just be having issues with the entire ISI method of instruction (crossovers and back crossovers in particular). I just don't know!

Any advice?

You really ought to be able to do your 3-turns with either shoulder forwards. I can't - I always have awful trouble going into dances that require the lady to do a 3-turn to start with, as I automatically bring my left shoulder forward and then change shoulders to initiate the 3, thus ripping my poor partner's arm right out of its socket, and in any case keeping it in the wrong place for dancing! I need to learn to do a LFO3 with my right shoulder forwards as well as with my left shoulder forwards - and, contrariwise, my RFO3 with my left shoulder forwards as well as my right shoulder.

So learn both ways, and practice both ways; you never know when they won't come in useful!

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Mrs Redboots
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Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Not a totally easy question to answer and I've been taught different techniques by different people to and it does get confusing. I've been taught and have read that your 3 turn should be in your feet, the shoulders are used to check the rotation not cause it. So I'd go with the first way you were taught but also go with what feels most comfortable and with what your primary coach teaches you. I am polite to subs but if they differ from what my primary coach has taught me I usually ask her about it next lesson and she'll explain why she thinks the other coach taught that way.

Different coaches have different ways of teaching things (e.g. I have just started with a different coach and she teaches jumps in an entirely different way to my old coach!). Anyways, if you're being taught two different ways, it won't hurt to learn both and you can just do the one that works best for you. There is usually more than one way to do something, it depends on the person which works best. As far as three turns go, I have been taught to start to rotate the shoulders/arms just before the turn. It does help to get the turn and makes it smoother and more natural instead of a jerk around. You don't pre-rotate them by very much, just a little, and then check as you finish the turn. Hope that helps!

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Also remember that a 'beginner's' way of learning an element may not be how one does it forevermore afterwards. Some things, turns especially, are learned one way, and then tweaked in all sorts of ways for the purpose in which you're using it. For example, a three-turn is generally taught to a beginner on a line--you start and end on the line, creating a half-circle with the turn at the top. (This emphasizes the various parts needed, check, swivel, edges, etc.) In actual, general use, three-turns are often straightened WAY out, especially on some jump entries. This is often incredibly confusing to the learner, especially an adult learner, who likes to 'cement' something into mind and body memory.

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My coach taught my both ways.

With little shoulder rotation, it's a snap turn.

However, if you start with rotating your shoulders, then hips, then down the leg, it becomes a transfer from one edge to the other.

A perfect 3-turn will look like a 3, but there will be a tiny gap in the ice mark where the middle point of the 3 is. The gap should be exactly as wide as the hollow of your blade. That's the point where you transfer edges.

Very hard to make them perfect, but it is a smooth, flowing maneuver when it is done right.

Back in the days when "figures" were taught and skated, this flow was extremely important.

Alternate forward outside 3 turns
For these, my coaches teaches me to turn the shoulders first.
After the turn, the check means you need to reverse the shoulders...so yes, a lot of effort but then the 3 turns are more controlled, for the purpose of the exercise.

Whereas in the 3 turn for the flip/salchow, I turn the 3 as straight as I can....I think.

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MEL
Absolute Skating

The "Russian" method is the more advanced method. Some people never get this far. You are lucky to be able to do it. You should be able to do all three turns by turning the foot (and by extension, the leg within the hip socket). If you can do this, you should also find brackets etc quite easy. Out of interest, can you do a back three (back edge, flip to forwards)? Don't worry it you can't, it is quite advanced.

You still need to be able to understand and do the other "beginner" method, because of the concepts of rotation and checking. You also eventually need to be able to do three turns just with the lower half of the body, with the top half independent. In skating, the hip on the inside of the circle always leads, and that is why people teach three turns with the inside hand/arm leading.

The "Russian" method is necessary once you start skating at speed, because of the held edge and flow.

See if you can find a coach at your rink who is really good at old-style "compulsory figures" (pick someone over thirty years old!). Ask them to show you the figure for outside threes and watch their upper body position. They start off with same arm/hand leading, rotate to face into circle, then at top of circle flip the foot (like Russian method). Free leg positions are different in figures, but the free foot is always close to the skating leg at the apex of the turn.

I don't know anything about the ISI tests, but I suspect they will pass either type of three turn (just as free leg position varies for figures, field moves, dance, free, advanced dance). But eventually (at some point in the future) you will need to show that you can do alternating three turns, and consecutive three turns in a circle.