Help! Help! Help!

I am getting so frustrated with this spin. No matter what i do, however i go into it i cannot get more than one revolution of it out. It doesn't matter how many things i tell myself when i go into it i ALWAYS come right up on the toe pick. even my coach laughed last night because i stayed down on a really bent knee and still pointed my toe and came up on the toe! Eventually i got a little off the toe by thinking of flexing my ankle forward rather than bending my knee and stayed off the toe but i can't figure out what to do.

With the front spin i remember spending as much as an hour at a time by the board doing the simple LFO three and trying to hold on the spin for a long as possible and building it up. It was always easy because if you fall inwards your free foot was there to catch you.

So how can i try to do this and hang on to the backspin?

I've tried from a standstill striking onto the RFI edge and "leaving" the free leg where it is - drawing the best part of a circle on the ice before turning the three and trying to spin. (usually just pop up onto the toe and kill the spin, even when i do not pop up on the toe my balance feels completely off and i can't stay in position).

I've tried doing a change foot upright but my front upright (even done slowly) is too fast to have any confidence in changing feet and pushing into that RBO.

Last night i was playing with just standing on two feet and rubbing the RBO edge around feeling where it is that i should spin and when i feel it pushing slightly into it and trying to hold it - i actually managed to get one and quarter turns doing that but then couldn't get any further.

Does anyone have any tips? I suspect that part of the problem is that right leg simply doesn't have the same strength as my left and that work in the gym should help this, but does anyone have any other hints or tips that can help with learning the feel of the rotation on this spin?

Ant

My own experiences:
I pull your hips in before the entrance to the spin. I have a naturally hollow back and I can do forward spins that way, but not the back spin, I really need to "pull my tail in" like a scared cat with the tail between the legs, topple the hips.
I pull in my bellybutton by tensing the belly muscles like on one of those machines in the gym for the front row of belly muscles. Sort of takes the hollow out of the back, in line with the hip toppling thing. This keeps my rib cage over the spinning part of the blade, preventing me from going either over the back of the blade or the toepicks.
I don't open up the free-leg hip either, and take care to have your arms level (no dropping of the arms, and no pulling them too high) so that your shoulders don't go out of whack.

One more thing: check the blade mounting on your skating skate. If the mounting is off, you won't be able to keep the edge.

And you could get a spinner trainer. I bought one and practiced on it, and the first day I tried the backspin on ice I had 9 revolutions on my best spin of that day. I've still got troubles with the spin travelling badly and other problems, but I mean, it is spinning.

Hi!

I can share your feelings about the backspin .. I remember having the same troubles when I first tried it and I am having the same issues with other backspin positions that I am trying to learn.
Here are some of my tips:
-First, practice practice practice no matter what! Even though this advice seems trivial it is the best advice for finding the spinning point and eliminating balancing back and forth on the blade!
- Strengthen your right side; this will also be associated by constantly practicing.
- Try to do a slow intro into the spin thinking all of the correct elements (position of arms, shoulders, hips) and do not rush it
- As soon as you complete the entrance (then you are starting to rotate) keep your free leg extended. It is much harder, but this is the right way to center the spin and if you manage to do it with an extended leg you will do it with a closed one.
- Very important: think of you abdominal muscles so that you do not drop or raise too high your free hip. The extended free leg should be extended from the hip and only the hip. The rest of the body should be vertical to the ice. This is how ballet dancers extend their legs.. Also, think that you are 'hanged' from your head, such that you are slightly leaning forward..

I hope this helps..

Here is an exercise that helped with my backspin:

Do a right forward inside 3 turn to a right outside back 3 turn, repeat as many times as possible without ever putting the left/free foot down. This is kind of like a twizzle, but it really helped me get the feel of turning and balancing on the right foot in the same manner as the backspin.

Good luck!

i totally feel for you! i did the exact same thing, thankfully though i made some progress and im getting now like 3 or 3 1/2 now and no more popping!. what really helped a lot were two things in the beginning. (im ccw)

1. inside spread eagle - do a deep one in the direction to the right, hold the two inside edges till you cant anymore then slowly bring up your left leg,
2. keep the right knee bent for at least 1 or 2 turns

if your still popping up, just keep bending your right knee, that should avoid you from popping up on your toes.

once you get the hang of these even if your just doing 1 or 2 revolutions, then you can begin not keeping your left leg on the ice until you spin but rather just pushing off and coming in front, also you can begin not to hold your right knee that deeply as you spin, but just gradually come up on it, think of coming up using your thigh muscles and pressing down hard on your sweet spot.

your coach will help you with the arms and posture and all that fun stuff!

good luck!

I agree that the backspin is a pain in the ***. My problem is not that I go up on my toepicks, but that I keep flipping from the outside to inside edge - ending up with a series of 3 turns. I can do about 4-5 or sometimes more 3 turns in a row, but I need to stop checking my hip and start going around in a circle. It seems like it is a bad habit now, and I can't stop doing it.

Maybe keeping the free leg out longer will help? I'll try that tonight. Any other thoughts?

keep the entrance edge nice and deep and hold it longer, then at the very last second begin the spin, don't think in your head, "3 turn and spin" rather, long and deep inside edge, press down and flip it around, then press down again on the sweet spot of your skating leg and also press down with your shouders and arms to help hold you centered rather than making traveling 3s.

i know on my fwd spins if i dont press down hard enough i end up making traveling 3s too...if only i collected mileage points on that! lol

good luck

I am also very frustrated with my backspin. No matter what I do, I end up with a series of 3 turns and my coach and I laugh about them as being twizzles.

I've tried open free leg, tried snapping in sooner. I've tried a loose, relaxed entry, and a slow, controlled entry. And they just keep getting worse!

I cannot get on the right part of my blade, I continually grind to a halt on my heel because I rock backwards and forwards. I've tried the tricks of pulling the tummy in and getting the weight further forward over the toe, I've tried lifting my toes, tried pushing down with my little toe. The more I work on them, the worse they are getting, and I don't know how to fix it.

Thank you. I feel better now.

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Karen

I skate - therefore I am

How is your camel? Might you be ready to try a back camel? IMO, the back camel really improves your upright back spin. It teaches you to keep the free leg behind, for the camel pose. If you enter your basic upright bspin as though you were doing a bcamel, then snap the hip closed as you hit the cusp of the initiating FI3, you are in backspin city.

I wrote a journal entry about it here:
www.skatejournal.com/sept01.html#paradox

Kay

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Two other exercises that might help:

RFI-RBO double 3-turn (to get you comfortable turning and staying on the ball of the blade)

Backspin from LBI pivot. This is not easy, but it will allow you to bypass the RFI edge entry that you are having so much trouble with. It's also a great exercise for mastering the transition from forward spin to backspin.

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Another skating session, another battle with backspins. If it weren't for the occasional (very occasional) spin which actually does go around in some pretty lame little loopy circles, I would blame my old blades, which are getting decidedly concave where the spinning spot should be.

All I can say is

Nah, not really. I used to be able to do them, I've just lost something and one day it will just come back again.

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Karen

I skate - therefore I am

Maybe you guys are blocking the spin with your shoulder???? I did the same thing and it kept me on the wrong edge AND gave me headaches because I could not get it. I spin ccw so to counteract blocking I have to concentrate by pushing my left shoulder back further than the right shoulder-makes me look uneven but it does work! try that and see if it helps. And don't raise up onto a straight leg until you are centered-1-2 revs.

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

I'm in the backspin hell club too

No matter what I do I cannot get this spin!! I do maybe 2-3 revs and then I start to go off the back of the blade. That freaks me out.

It always feels exactly the same when I do it (wrong) but I can't figure out what exactly it is that I'm doing wrong. Need more lessons on this.

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I think today I was only able to do them (all 2 of them) right because I was totally unblocked! I was relaxed (thank you muscle relaxer!!!) and un-rushed...thinking "spin over the right side"....plus I did lift up my left foot and tried to "spin around and catch up to the left foot" ...

not sure if that makes sense but when it finally happened, everything was just clicking into place! I was in the zen of the backspin! Of course, I only did 2 but that's 2 I didn't have before.

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

If you are going off the back of the blade then you are not doing a backspin at all. You are on the FI edge instead of the BO edge. That's the only way you could go to the back of the blade. Think about it, when skating forwards, your weight is to the back of the blade, and when skating backwards, your weight is to the front of the blade. Doing a FI edge instead of a BO edge is very common and a lot of people do not realize that they are doing it.

I described the method my skating director uses to teach the backspin in a previous thread. Here it is again:
A couple of skaters expressed interest in this method. Has anyone tried it yet? I'd like to hear how it worked for them. I've been trying myself, but never have time to really work on it. The BI pivot doesn't work for me because I can't get my weight onto the pivoting foot solidly enough.

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Coach has had me trying to work on back pivots. For some reason I never learnt these before, and I struggle with them. So now I have back pivots and backspins that aren't working

I know I hit the back outside edge going into them, I really feel for that flip from the forward inside edge to the back outside edge. Unfortunately it just keeps flipping.

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Karen

I skate - therefore I am

Yikes! Thanks, that's helpful. I've got to practice this incessantly.

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Revised Official 2010 Goals checklist
Skate __
New boots __
(lowering the bar for 2010 as I haven't skated in a year)

I heard from a coach that the L shoulder should be in front -> for CCW rotation!! She did also say to look over the L shoulder. It just seemed too counter-intuitive to be true!

Anyway, I later looked at some pictures of elite skaters, and yes, that is exactly what they do in the air - for multi-rev jumps... Then when I got that photo of my backspin in O'dorf last year, well, it wasn't so obvious, but the L shoulder is certainly a little in front.

So, rather than thinking about the L shoulder, try using the right shoulder to nudge someone standing to the right.

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Many many years ago, a coach told me that the L shoulder should be in front -> for CCW rotation!! She did also say to look over the L shoulder. It just seemed too counter-intuitive to be true!

Anyway, I later looked at some pictures of elite skaters, and yes, that is exactly what they do in the air - for multi-rev jumps... Then when I got that photo of my backspin in O'dorf last year, well, it wasn't so obvious, but the L shoulder is certainly a little in front.

So, rather than thinking about the L shoulder, try using the R shoulder to nudge someone standing to the right.

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You are right chowskates!!! Your left shoulder should be in slightly in front for CCW rotation. This is what fixed my axel and what caused me to rotate a double axel. My coach always said to lead with my left shoulder so that I rotate on my right side. And it always seemed counter-intuitive but it works. Turning the head to the left also helps for some reason. And there is no place better to practice this than in a backspin!!! I always try to rotate with my chest facing inside my circle. This causes my left shoulder to be in front and my right shoulder to be slightly back. It almost feels like my upper body is turned sideways.


BlackManSkating

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Speed up back Camel

Aw, man! Now I KNOW that I'm the oddball!!!! This confirms it! Is there any wonder my coach has me salchow out of a mohawk now????

I will say, though, I did manage 2 well-executed backspins-feet crossed at ankles and looking over shoulder (had a witness for one of them) at club skate on Sunday...both were 5 revs.

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Thank you so much for all the tips and drills. I'm going to work hard on this tomorrow. Coach is now away for a couple of weeks so i'll try to do little and often to try not to pick up nasty bad habbits while she's away.

It is quite heartening to know that this spin is giving lots of people fits and not just me!

Ant

Has anyone tried to work on a backspin in a harness? Is that possible, or do you get too tangled up? I would like to try it, as I think maybe it would help. I keep checking my hip and doing 3 turns instead of circles. The one time my coach said I was really doing it right felt really different and I bailed out because I thought I was going to fall.

Have you seen the Lussi vid? He teaches an upright bspin that starts something like a pivot, however instead of the toe pick, the skater turns on what Lussi calls "the bulge of the skate". This is the area right behind the pick. I have tried this method and find it helpful.

Kay

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Yes I have that video. Lussi is referring to what is now commonly called the sweet spot on a blade. I've tried the technique when I first learned to do a backspin. (which wasn't too long ago by the way) It was helpful to me too. It made it easier for me to find my center once I started entering the spin from the inside 3 turn. I find it very informative to check out the "old school" technique. It brings some of these elements into perspective.



BlackManSkating

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Proud to be one of the few black men out on the ice

Goals
Pass my Silver Moves Test
Finish Choreography for Silver Program
Land a Clean Double Toe and Double Lutz
Work on Double Axel and Rockers
Speed up back Camel