Here's something from december 1st:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mAVdZUVneg

Thanks about the choreography thing! I hadn't noticed!

Wow - impressive hydroblades! You seem to have done fantastically well in such a short time. It took me 3 years to pluck up courage to actually jump!!!

The main thing I noticed was that you need to work on extensions. e.g try and point the toe instead of flexing the foot - sometimes it looks like your foot is coming off the ice with the heel being last to leave the ice and then your free leg is bent at the knee too. You could work on pushing with the side of blade more, turning out the hip, straightening the knee and pointing the toe(well as much as you can in skates!!!) of the free leg. It comes with continued practice and my dance coach is always on at me about turnout and extensions so I am very aware of it now! Also with your arms - try and keep themout and steady when you are stroking between elements. Getting the extensions in your basic stroking and crossovers will turn you from looking like a beginner skater with impressive jumps to looking like a good skater with impressive jumps!

The other thing is that you do a lovely entry edge into the spin but then you turn and step out of the circle. I was taught that you should step more or less back the way you came (into the circle you've just done on your entrance edge) e.g angle between entrance edge and step forward onto outside edge should be more like 30 degrees where yours look like almost 180 degrees (may just be a trick of the camera position though!). This should help with centreing the spins. Also try entering into the spin but hold your arms and free leg out for as long as you can - this is very hard to begin with but once you can do this and hold this position for a rev or two to get your centre and then bring them in it should improve your spins no end. Mine went from 3 revs to 16 after I practised this for a while! You seem to have good kneebend and you can also try staying down in the knee on the spin until you feel centred and then coming up to position.

Still I think for the short time and mainly group lessons you are doing great and should be very pleased with your progress. You appear very flexible too (I'll never be able to do a Bielman anything ) which is a great asset - and completely fearless which is an even greater asset!

Great job on the competition and carrying on after a nasty fall too!

OK not to sound like I'm making up excuses, because actually, I would very much like to fix both these problems, because I'm aware of them too. So that's why I'm saying what my problems in fixing these problems are, because maybe somebody knows how to fix those problems. Are you still with me?

When I try to point my toe through, I get cramp. Not just a bit, but like so much that as soon as I put that foot down I stumble over the toepicks. Actually I get cramp very easily all the time, even at night in bed I regularly wake up from cramp, but for some reason pointing my toes up really seems to trigger cramp every time. Not just on ice, in ballet as well. I tried taking magnesium already, it didn't do a thing. A friend of mine who's studying for professional ballet dancer says it's normal to get cramp pointing your toes but I'm a little sceptical, is it really?

With the spin, I know I'm stepping out of the circle actually. You probably don't know this, but it took me a giant time to learn to spin, I've whined about the spin for ages on messageboard, and the problem turned out to be that my left blade was curving to the inside at the forward part of the blade: I'd bent my blade! I could spin on it for a few revolutions, but of course, you can't ever spin on bent blades.

However, I've taken a lot of bad habits from that time to my new blades. Which is why I wanna work with a private teacher on those spins actually, because those bad habits need to be taken out. I started doing this stepping out of the circle thing because when I tried stepping into the circle on the new blades like I did on the old ones, I'd either fall over to the left (literally fall) on the 3-turn into the spin, or I'd grind to a halt and then do a spin from standstill. Basically I get on such deep an edge that I can't hold it if I step into the circle, and I know it's because of the way the old blades were (I can't really explain it, with the old blades, they were curving in, so you needed to have your centre of gravity left of your left blade if you wanted to be on an outside edge at all)

I just don't know how to take it out again. Because if I bring my right leg out farther to the side, or if I have my centre of gravity more to the right (which technically the leg does too, but anyway), or anything I tried to fix this, then I simply can't do a 3-turn because I'm immediately on a flat and to do a 3-turn from a flat, you go up on the toepicks and it's uncontrolled. If I just step into the circle from crossovers with speed, I fall to the left off my left outside edge. So basically after messing around, I've no idea how to fix it and I'm gonna get private lessons in the upcoming season (right now, there's no ice till september anyway).

As for the hydroblades - thanks! I just don't get why I can't go down in a sit spin. I'm sure it'll come with practice though.


However, if any of these 2 problems (cramp & falling off the edge) ring a bell with anybody, I'm very eager to hear how to solve them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know about the spin problem -- but as far as the cramping goes here are a couple of suggestions:

1) Drink plenty of water all day and eat a banana (for its potassium) before you skate.

2) If you get cramps all the time, it could be the muscles need to be stretched so point and flex your feet several times a day when you are sitting, or standing in line, or whenever you think about it. Hold each position for a count of 3 or 5 or 10, then repeat as much as you can. It's likely to cause cramping at first, but with the continued use of the muscles and the added potassium and water, it should help in a couple of weeks.

Good luck!

This is wierd about the foot cramping issue... does it happen all the time? I'm glad you are taking ballet although I would have thought this issue could be resolved in ballet class, have you considered checking with your ballet instructor about this?
Personally, I have gotten cramps when I point my toe usually when my foot is not warmed up. It helps when I use my hand to help to point my foot at times. I believe that should ease up with practise, more flexibility in the foot and also proper warmup (of the foot).

Please do work with a private instructor, if you are having trouble doing things, then as much head knowledge as you may have, it is still hard to implement, a private instructor can see what you are doing and help on the spot.

There is no ice anywhere for you until september! I'm so sorry to hear that!

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Tidesong

Just throwing out an idea since I have no idea what is causing your cramps but could it be that you are either tensing the foot too much when you point it or that you are scrunching up the toes - curling them up. I know I do this when I am trying to point my toes and it isn't comfortable!

Does it happen if you just try to point and flex your foot without skates?

Someone suggested to me that it can be easier to think of extending out through the ball of your foot rather than the toes. Keep toes relaxed. Try without skates and flex your foot up first then point down with your toes as hard as you can and see if you find your foot getting really tensed and toes curling under. Now try and just think about getting the ball of your foot (under the big toe joint) to point down while keeping the foot relaxed and see if that helps. Also work on keeping the free hip and foot turned out.

Another exercise (off-ice) that helps you to get a feel for the difference between turned out and not turned out is to stand straight with both feet facing forward. Then take one leg straight behind you and keep the foot facing forward. That foot will now be on it's toes (think toepick!bad!). Now bend the leg you are standing on a little and try to bring that foot straight forward pushing off from the toe and you will find you have to bend the knee more (this would be toepushing on skates) or you have to flex the foot to get it through - not pretty!

Now try the same thing again but this time take one leg back behind you at a 45 degree angle til you are on the toe. For examples sake try it standing on left leg and take right leg behind you. Keep weight on left leg. Now bend the knee of the left leg and see how with your foot turned out to the side, the whole of the side of your foot can drop to the floor (this is like pushing off with the side of your skating blade).

Now bring that free foot forward keeping the turnout and see how you can keep the position of the foot the same while keeping the free leg straight.

Also try standing with foot behind at the 45 degree angle as above and leg straight, and bend the supporting knee so side of free foot is on floor. Now simply straighten the supporting leg and draw in the free leg til feet are together and then change over so it mimicks the skating action. When you have ice again you can try it on the ice.

For the spins - if your 3 turns are the problem then the exercise that helped stabilize the edge before the 3 turn for me, was to get on to an outside edge and just practice holding it longer and longer trying to get it to curve more and more so you are going on an ever decreasing spiral. Eventually (once you get the balance right) you will get to a point where you really have to turn but try to let the blade do this for you - resist the temptation to force the turn, as hard as you can.

Also don't worry about the speed for a bit. More important to get the technique right and then build up the speed (says she who has a horrible habit of rushing everything and is only now realising after 7 years that good things come to those who wait and this is so true in skating.)

When you get back on ice try doing your back crossovers and then simply hold the back inside edge position for as long as you can. Just practising that and getting really stable and controlled will help with the next bit. If you are falling off when you step forward to the outside edge then you are possibly rushing it. So after practising holding the back inside edge (making sure arms (and left leg) are checked back to right side of body) , add in the step forward to outside edge. Simply step straight back the way you have just come onto a shallow outside edge (do not turn your upper body at all!)and hold this edge, and hold and hold and hold and hold - let the edge do the work. At this point the practice on holding the outside edge above kicks in and eventually you will find your circle decreasing to the point where you have to turn.

Anything that isn't working in skating can almost always be traced back to the entry so getting the entry right on any spin or jump is crucial.

NB I'm not a coach but those exercises above helped me, so maybe they can help you!

Good luck!

My feet basically cramp any time I try to do this with my feet:


Haven't talked to my ballet instructor no... Well then we don't have ballet till september either (I was SO upset at our club, I mean really, if you don't have ice you can still do ballet! Not that it'd matter for me with my anckle in current state, but still - for everybody else it matters!) I guess I should after the summer!

It also happens if I curl my toes down too.

I eat a lot of bananas and other fruit, and I mean a LOT. Nobody I know eats as much as I do. I also take vitamin and mineral supplements because I'm allergic to certain foods.

And it's always been like that. I remember as a child my mom would take me to the doctor who'd make me pick up things with my toes, but still that didn't really work. I dunno WHAT it is. But I sure wish it'd go away.
What happens with this cramp is that suddenly, the foot becomes hollow. So it automatically does the thing you're trying to do, like ballet-feet, except in the extreme. And then it doesn't go away. It's really a nightmare to get it to go away, it can totally stay on for like 15 minutes. With skates it's usually less bad because the lacing keeps the foot from doing it in extremes.
Now, I do have very flat feet or what it's really called? You know when your feet don't really have a crease. I'm really supposed to wear those inlay soles for it, but I can't because we tried several types and I couldn't walk in them even after months of getting used to. So I've never had any since I was like 10. Maybe that's somehow got to do with it. Or the nerve damage at birth (it's worst in my right leg, and I was partially paralysed over the right side of my body at birth - it went away as I grew up, except I still step on glass and nails without noticing and then run around with it for a while, until somebody asks me why my sock is bloody.) It might have to do with my problems with my veins too. I don't know. Whatever it is, it sucks.


I'm gonna add this thread to favourites to read it back in september.

If it doesn't work I'm just gonna have to do spirals on my right leg I guess. My spirals on my right leg are BAD, but at least I don't have a problem pointing the toes of my left leg.

I don't understand this. Can you explain what you mean? I don't get the English words.
I thought checking meant to push the right shoulder back? So how does one check the left arm and leg?

Sorry I should explain that the left arm is across the body towards the right and the right arm and shoulder is held a little back (i.e. the upper body is turned slightly counter to the curve you are on with the back inside edge)

The left leg is also checked back across the path of the tracing (behind the skating foot - with leg straight and toes pointed! ) (or since you are going backwards I guess it is across where the tracing will be when the blade gets there). Don't release the check til well after you've stepped forward onto the outside edge. This helps to stop any falling off the outside edge. And then you can release it as you do the actual 3 turn which gives you the snap into the spin. I'm trying to go through the motions on the floor as I write this to see if this is really what I do - it would be easier to do on ice! Husband is giving me very funny looks Unfortunately I won't be on the ice again for a week as our rink has it's 'open competition' all next week.

A couple of private lessons with a good coach would probably sort out your problems and then it's just practice.

I take 'checking' to mean basically any counter rotational position especially of the upper body and arms, since the idea of checking is to stop rotation or to prevent rotation until you want it. Therefore depending on what direction you are travelling in and what direction of rotation you need to stop, it can be arms to any side e.g for alternating outside 3's you are stopping the rotation in opposite directions each time and therefore checking to left and right sides alternately. To check the left arm and leg prior to the spin you hold them across the midline of the body to the right side.

As for the cramping - it sounds like you need the advice of a foot specialist doctor. Maybe it would be worth trying proper medically fitted insoles in your skates, though I imagine they could be expensive.

Hey there Sessy!
do tell me to get lost if you want but just another thought. Have you looked at your spins in slow motion? I just had a look at your you tube practice video and if you press 'go' then 'pause' repeatedly you get slow motion!

It really shows up where the problem is! To be honest I am amazed you can spin at all because after your lovely entry edge position which is checked just fine (just needs free leg a bit straighter! ), you then straighten up, completely release the upper body check, turn to face the opposite way and it then looks exactly like you are about to do a 3 jump (waltz jump) and not a spin at all. Your right back inside edge almost becomes a right back outside edge before you step forward with a big step on to a very steep outside edge by which time you have completely lost any advantage to doing the crossovers windup entry. There is then no possibility of holding the outside edge because the free leg is coming through already with some force so you are forced to go into the spin even if you are offcentre which means you can't hold it or control it or you fall off it. You can go into a spin very slowly and gently and produce the speed by pulling in tightly rather than going into it with a great deal of force.

Try thinking instead of a very small step onto the outside edge (logically the bigger the step you take, the harder it is to control your balance because it is a bigger change in your centre of gravity). If, from the checked position, you just take a very small step forward without changing the direction you are facing (almost just bringing free foot forward till feet are together and simply changing onto that foot (on a gentle outside edge) rather than thinking about a step at all. Then push off with the right foot and keep this new free foot (right foot) a little behind you as you go onto the edge and aim to keep shoulders over hips but keeping the check till you do the 3 turn.

You also want to turn your head a little towards the left shoulder as you go into the spin. I noticed on the sit spin that your head was looking at your free leg (right) which again takes you off your centre of balance.

Apologies if you don't want so much detail - I have discovered I quite enjoy dissecting skating movements Thanks for letting me!!!!!!

If you can find a good skater who will let you video her (or him!) sometime you can compare the positions at each stage of the entry and the spin.

What a shame you have no ice til September - you'll have to take a trip to the UK! or at least somewhere there is ice.

You can do the same with the jumps - try looking at your loop in slow mo and see if you can find someone with an excellent technique to compare it to. I'll resist the temptation to dissect it here but I will tell you that it took me ages to get this jump. I must have spent the best part of a year just sitting on that back outside edge wondering how it was possible to even move from that position let alone jump!

BTW it took me years to get a decent spin so I still think you are doing fantastically well with your skating!!!!!

Hmmm actually with my anckle, I can right now barely walk, let alone skate, so it's a good thing there is no ice. There was ice for the past 2-3 months that I skated with this very same anckle and it obviously wasn't getting better from it. So this way I'm forced to rest it and I'm glad about it. I might even see a doctor about it (spare me the preach, please).


I'm very glad you ARE dissecting the spin! I'm actually hoping to get avi's of my skating sometime soon and then be able to upload slomo video's of it all entirely like I did with my off-ice axel attempts (thank you everybody who commented on those!)

To be honest, I do understand what you're saying about almost doing a waltz jump and wondering how I spin at all. I can do inverted/hanging situps and have an 8-pack going, without having done any belly muscle exercises in the past half year, except spinning! LOL!

The part I don't understand is what you want me to do... Especially this part:
So I'm facing left with my hips, forward with my face, and I'm stepping forward? But doesn't that include completely going against ALL the speed you've built in the back crossovers? Won't you need to grind stop before you can do that?

LOL! Please, don't say the doctor word again, foot or otherwise. I've spent about half my childhood in hospitals, and then a year of my teenage years too, and I'm still spending every summer holiday in one. I'd like to avoid seeing doctors if not absolutely vitally necessary.

I'm trying to picture this in my head including letting my mind predict what the gravity and stuff would be like and I do see where checking might be keeping me from falling off the edge. In fact I'm pretty sure it will.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Wait I think I get it now. Except the just putting the left foot down part.

I know it seems like that and indeed when people start they often do grind to a halt before turning the spin but again when you look at the logic and the physics involved you will see why it's not necessary to stop and why it all works to help the spin.

Remember that you have gone in on a RBI edge with arms and left leg checked across the body to the right. All the momentum is now held in check and we need to keep it there until we need it to initiate the spin (i.e at the point of the LFO3 turn) therefore we need to keep the body position and the check until then or we lose all that momentum.

Now we are travelling backwards on that RBI edge but there is no reason why we can't step back the way we've come. Try it off ice - walk backwards a few steps, now hold the position on one leg and then step forward onto the other leg - you've changed direction of travel (backwards to forwards) but you are still facing the same way!)

Ok not quite so simple on the ice but if we keep everything back across the right side of the body we are preventing the momentum from pulling us off balance when we step forward. The small step to forward keeps the centre of gravity from moving too far and therfore we dont' need to move anything else to compensate.

As long as you step directly from the RBI to the LFO edge without any two footing in between you simply take all that momentum with you to use in the spin. (Don't worry it took me years as I said to get this and you can already spin without the windup so it should be awesome once you can use the wind up but it will take practice and you may feel it gets worse before it gets better as you will have to unlearn what you do at the moment).

You do need to practice staying on a clean RBI edge without going on to the toepicks which will slow you down, but if you do end up scraping on the toepicks at first don't worry since just about everybody does to start with.

You only release the check and therefore all the momentum when you want to initiate the spin with the 3 turn. You can hold the LFO edge for ages before you release the check and go into the spin if you want and it is good to practice holding it to start with to get comfortable with it and the step into it.


Hope this helps to explain it!

Sounds like it makes sense. I'll definately give it a try!

I watched the vids in slomo myself yesterday (set the media player to play in slomo) and you're right, my scratch spin seems to do a backward 3-turn AFTER the forward 3-turn and then only start spinning. I'm beginning to wonder myself how come I spin. I've no idea why I'm doing it but it sure is counterproductive. Explains why my "camel" was better than my scratch for a long time though. You can do a camel on a left outside edge more easily than a scratch. I wonder if that's also why it's far easyer for me to spin holding my free leg behind me than before me?

Thanks Batikat! (btw, where IS that name from?)

Well in fact for a scratch spin you are spinning on a slight back inside edge which is why it looks a bit like a back 3 turn after the forward one. It is the bit between your wind up on the back crossovers to the point where you do the LFO3 that needs work! For a back spin you spin on a back outside edge.

I wonder if your camel was better because for that you keep the free leg up and so it doesn't come round with such force and destabilise you. Havent' seen it so can't really tell.

The position of your free leg may be dependant on where the rest of your weight is - if it directly over the skate where it should be, then it should be possible to spin with free leg almost anywhere but if your upper body is not perpendicular over the skate then you may find the free leg position having to compensate.

Batikat is a joining of the two words batik and ikat and was my trading name when I was importing and selling textiles from Indonesia. I still do talks on Indonesian textiles to interested groups and have a huge personal collection of Indonesian textiles.

perpenwhat?

straight up!

But but but if your body is straight over your leg. And say the other leg is sticking out. How come you don't fall over to where the leg is sticking out? Cuz then the center of gravity isn't going to be over the skate?

1) Can I quote the passage from your original post where you talk about the biellmann->fall->lunge,jump,spin; to use in my blog? I think it really illustrates well how tough figure skating (and skaters) are.

2) Don't even *think* of using a live (sharp) dagger out on the ice. You can get practice ones made for theatre. If they are made of shiny plastic, even better, because then you can set it down on the ice without it freezing and getting stuck. If the trick that you do needs you to have a realistic weight-and-feel to the knife, you can buy practice blades from martial arts supply stores. Here's one I use in the US: http://edges2.com/ (top of the line, meant for practice, not show). If you email them (the store's staff, not the blades, lol), they might be able to tell you of a store in .NL

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OK OK I guess I was being a bit simplisitic. Obviously there are positions where your upper body is not straight up, like in a layback but the curved spine ensures the centre of gravity remains over the skate.

My physics is not quite up to the task here but from experience it is much easier to spin, in a scratch spin, if you are standing up with your weight over the skate. To gain speed you just pull in tighter - the smaller you make yourself and the more upright the faster you will spin. If you aren't upright then the spin will travel and or you will fall off the edge. Any bending at the waist will pull you off centre because your head and upper body are heavy.

When you first go into the spin you keep your skating knee bent and I would guess it is the centrifugal (centripetal?) force that keeps you there even while the other leg is held out. As long as your centre of balance is over the skate I think your own bodyweight allows you to spin even with free leg not yet pulled in. Your leg is light compared to the whole of the rest of your body. Also to start with your arms are out too and this counterbalances. Plus because you are on a slight outside edge then your weight is slightly over your left hip rather than straight down the midline of the body.

Think of it like a cantilever effect. There's enough bodyweight over the skate, that the leg's effect is negligible as far as pulling you over. Maybe a bettter physysicist could explain it....my son has aready told me my bit about momentum is not quite right. The reason you can step from backwards to forwards without slowing down is simply to do with conservation of momentum - as long as you step directly from one foot to the other, the momentum you've acquired stays with you as it has nowhere to go. People tend to lose it because they drag backwards on their toepicks or have both feet on the ice together. The movement of the arms does allow the momentum to be translated into a spin though, so I still think my reasoning was valid!!!!

Totally OT: I have a small paper mache' statue of a cat sitting on a stump, holding a fishing pole. The entire piece is a royal blue with batik decorations all over. I'll have to take a picture for you to see.

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It should be her avatar

Back when I was making costumes for medieval fair I was a total fan of batik. It's easyer than dyeing material just like that and it's easyer than finding material with the design you need/want.

I'd love to see it. I was intending to use a batiked cat as a logo but never got round to it.

Sessy - do you mean 'tye-dye' rather than batik? Batik is where you use a wax resist to make a design and then dye it. I have pieces in my collection that took the maker years to produce as they are so intricate! Though of course there are simpler versions too.

For lovely mottled effects on fabric that is extremely easy I use the jam jar dyeing method i.e just shove the piece of material in a jam jar, scrunched up tight and pour the dye over. Can then overdye in a different colour too. Or space dyeing in a cat litter tray (big deep square plastic tray). Lay fabric in and then pour different colour dyes over different parts of the fabric. Such fun!!!!

What we did was just stamp the wax on with a pattern cut out of an old car tire. It was not supposed to look tye-died or anything like that. It was supposed to look medieval, and they really loved repetitive patterns in the middle ages. For a peasant or simple folk costume, you actually want it to look rough and even amateuristically hand-made to some degree. So you get really, really coarse and thick-threaded materials and those are usually either very expensive (we didn't want to spend so much money), or they're cheap on a market in town, but then they're meant for couches and curtains and the like. So they don't come in the patterns you want.

Also, considering you usually wore it to a role playing game in some muddy field where you'd be "battling" eachother, or to an equally muddy fair, it just needed to look good from a distance. Most the costumes weren't even hemmed, but just stitched with zigzag. The advantage of that was that from the outside, it looks hand-made because of the large space between the stitches.