I dislike spinning, and do it as little as possible - not as much as I should. But last night, I was announcing at our club's Step, Spin, Spiral competition, watching young skaters do a toe loop, a forward spiral and and upright spin.

It was the latter that interested me; some of the skaters did what I do - pushed off into a 3-turn and hoped for the best, trying to force their body round. But others had obviously found what they needed to do with their bodies, and just spun with no obvious effort.

So this morning I asked the coach about it. He explained that the important thing was to bring one's hip, knee and shoulder round, and if you do that, you can spin from a standstill! And I tried, and I could - but I still can't spin from any kind of entry, even just a 3-turn, as I then throw myself round and force the turn.....

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

The tricky thing about spins is that you need to hold that entrance edge a lot longer than you think you should before starting the spin. Starting on a line, with feet in a T position (left foot front), bend your left knee and make a very small, round half circle with your left foot, looking over your left shoulder and leading gently with the left arm. Now for the hard part: Keep your free leg low and extended way behind you until you have actually completed the half circle and have come back to the line. Your free leg should actually be crossed behind the skating leg toward the end of the half circle, sort of like a tail. Only when you are back at the line should you gently bring the free leg to the front to start the spin. When you bring the leg to the front, lift the knee and hold your arms out in front of you in an open, rounded position, and focus on pressing the ball of your blade into the ice. Try to keep your shoulders and hips squared and keep your arms a little below chest level.

If you can do the entrance edge like this from a T position, the next step is just to do the same thing after either a RFI 3-turn or a RBI preparatory edge. As you transfer from the preparatory edge to the spin entrance edge, the important thing is to place the spinning foot down firmly onto the ice perpendicular to the other foot, bend the knee deeply, then look over the left shoulder and push off gently onto the spin entrance edge. Taking that extra second to transfer the weight onto the spinning foot and push off as a separate motion really 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

Took me a year to stop forcing the entry on the 3-turn, and a lot of that only happened through doubletoe's observant notes of my video's... It's a major pain in the rear. The trick is, it all has to be effortless. Then you're using the rotational forces. As soon as you're making any effort, you're fighting the forces and you go off-balance... I wish I could be better at explaining it, I haven't got it down entirely myself, it's just the best way I can describe the difference between a centered spin and an uncentered one.

But you could try getting a spinner. I swear that helps.


Also, mind you. Forcing the rotation into the 3-turn, you've developed some serious bad habits which will take 30x the effort to break than they did take the effort to learn... sorry.

I'm still trying to do the entry from a T - and I always alway get up too soon. And then I also can't seem to get my leg in front either.

j

The scratch spin took me FOREVER to learn. My sit spin and even my attitude spin are better. Even my camel didn't take me as long to learn. Standing up straight and tall without hunching shoulders, and bringing the leg and arms in at the same time, while keeping pressure on the ball of the foot, is a constant challenge.

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You miss 100% of the shots you never take.--Wayne Gretzky

Do you fall on your right side when you try to turn the free leg to your front? If so, then your body weight is not entirely on the left leg or the spinning leg.

I hope i made sense.

Ciao!

Take heart. One commentator said that it is probably the hardest spin to learn that is wy you dont get to se it on big competitions. Its really hard to center. You eithe nail it or completely explode attempting it.


But as your left leg strengthens, you will kinda get into that effortless feel that the other posters had comment on.

What helped me a lot was when I realised I FIRST needed to open up my hip and turn out my foot, then bring it around and only THEN close it and pull in. I blame the coach who told me spinning was "Just like the salchow," so I tried to kick through in the spin when around was really the idea.