Today my coach put me on the harness for the first time to try the flip jump out. oh man was that a disaster i had a nasty fall on the harness that didnt even come from a jump attempt i was trying to skate back to coach and got too far out and was close to the corner and i fell hard and coach couldnt stop the fall becuase i was out from under the line the harness was on. It felt sooo weird. I had difficulty doing the flip period becuase being on the harness i couldnt even get my 3 turns i started getting the hang of it and it softened most of the falls but it was definitely a different experience and i gave the rink a comedy show it was really funny. maybe next time will be better.

The harness is a great learning tool in my opinion. I feel like I can really concentrate on the skill without the concern of possible death. Coaches do let you fall, in skating falls happen, but they do keep you from hurting yourself. I find that when I do work on the skill by myself that my body remembers my positive harness practice. I was told that what you do in the harness you can do on the ice alone. Harness work is your potential. =-)

Chico

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"I truly believe, when God created skating, he patted himself on the back."

Oh.....the first time doing anything in skating can be humorous. =-)

Chico

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"I truly believe, when God created skating, he patted himself on the back."

well what was soo funny about the fall well first of all coach couldnt break my fall becuase she wasnt expecting it i was just skating i was way away from the harness area and the harness jerked me down and i had a nasty fall which hurt worse than most of my falls off harness. It was very humourous though i will do it again i just need to get used to it. Yeah all my falls from the jump she broke the fall but this one she didint expect and at one point we were going back to were we started and she wasnt moving fast enough and i was pulling her along she said none of her students have ever done that before. I think it was a humerous experience for both of us.

harness = wedgie!

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AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

Not our one - at ours, the harness bit goes around your top half, exactly like the sort of harness you put on your baby to strap it into its pushchair (I hadn't thought of that before! Can't wait to try it out on my coach's next innocent victim, especially the one who hates it and refers to the harness as "T's Torture Time!"), and the coach's end clips into a D-ring at the back.

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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!

Before you start using a harness, it's a good idea to "pretend" you're on the line and get in some practice. It's very hard for a coach to talk you through the process while still holding the end of the cable/rope.

You need to adjust whatever maneuver you're working on so you stay under the cable/pulley setup. You'll need to arrange your jump so that the actual takeoff and landing is set where the coach can "reel you in."

We used to have "pretend" practice with the little kids. We drew a line on the ice right under the harness line, then added a line on each side two steps away. ( | | | ) The outer lines set the boundaries, and the inner-most line was the guide line.

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Does it work well? Our rink is a bit too poor to afford one. And does it really give you a wedgie? lol.

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~Best of luck in Skating~
Lauren

Too funny. +-) The harness at my rink doesn't. However, leggings with a seperate top probably is a good idea.

Chico

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"I truly believe, when God created skating, he patted himself on the back."

Ok so I haven't been in the harness myself and probably never will but I've seen some doozies of wedgies on some of the smaller kids in it - certainly makes for entertaining viewing!

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AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

Our harness doesnt give you a wedgie it just goes around your waist.

Love it. I've used it for pairs as well. We did a throw double axel and double splt twists. It's like Peter Pan.

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Recycle Love - Adopt a homeless pet

I never liked it, I felt like everything turned into slow motion. It did help me with height, but it just confuses my body timing

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Tim David's Website

I've used it on and off skating for years. I think it can be a very weird sensation, but it can sometimes be helpful. I've never experienced a wedgie from it, and the ones I have used have always gone around the waist. You can't be wearing bulky clothes with it though.
Lately it seems that my ponytail gets caught on the ropes. My coach here says she has a hat for that very reason.

Pedonskates

My daughter uses ours at the rink. She is a tiny girl, no wedges .. but she does put her hair in a bun when she is using it. Her coaches siad her ponytail could get caught.
Her coach also draws a line on the ice when she uses it

I've had mixed experiences with the harness. The first time wasn't too pleasant. Our rink had an old harness, and I was working on double axels. I would get hit in the face with the harness every time I jumped. It started making me cringe and pull in incorrectly when trying the double axel off the harness.

At a different rink with a newer harness, things were better. I worked on triple sals and toes. And just for fun my coach got me to do a quintuple salchow (where she just held me up and I spun around until she couldn't hold me anymore). I was really dizzy when I came down from that one

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"Without Vision the People Perish"
שלום לעולם תמיד

Our harness is lined up with one of the hockey lines. It's the kind with the waist belt and as long as you have a jacket on it's not so bad. I haven't done on-ice yet, just off.

I'm waiting though, my coach said she will when we get to axel attempts....

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

The harness is a love/hate relationship. You either love it or hate it, people are never ambivalent about it. Personally, I hate it. I'd rather get the bruises because the harness makes it worse for me. Let me puzzle out the timing.

Are most harness systems suspended from the ceiling? That's what I've always pictured but yesterday I saw a coach working with very small girls (doing axels, I believe, and one working on a double- but I can't tell jumps except axels) using a harness around their upper body attached to a rope that allowed them rotation while he held them on a stick.

It still let them fall, but he controlled their fall so they didn't hit the ice very hard.

Seems this system wouldn't work for adults- or really anyone over 50 pounds, since the coach, on skates, has to skate next to the jumper and hold them up- no caribenners or rings through which they belay them on.

Has anyone else seen that? Or was I confused about what a harness was?

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

I've seen harnesses like that (although not in person, I don't think). My old gymnastic coach used to 'rig' something like that for flips--just a rope around the waist and twisted in his hand.

Yeah, I too doubt it would work too well for anyone of any size.

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
--Thomas Jefferson

www.signingtime.com ~sign language fun for all!

Yep, the buoyancy the harness takes away all sense of timing and gravity so I start getting slow and limp if I stay on the harness too long. Then I try to do the jump off the harness and I suddenly feel like I'm made of putty; I can't even do a single! But I still have to say the harness was partially responsible for my landing my first axel, double sal and double toe. It's hard to really go for those jumps on the ice without having first felt what it feels like to land them on the ice, and the harness does give you that. You just need to keep telling your coach not to pull you up at all unless you start falling!

AKA "fishing pole". I saw it demonstrated at a PSA conference, with a teenaged boy who was working on quads. The presenter said it took a good deal of skill to manage the pole properly, but that when it was, it was very helpful. Both the skater and the "fisherman" were going quite fast, so it was very clear that the "fisherman" had to be an excellent skater too. The boy doing the jumps did land at least one quad while in the harness.

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There are two types of harness systems used in figure skating. The one you saw used is the "fishing pole" type and yes, your handler needs to be a strong skater with good upper-body strength.

The second type uses a cable suspended parallel to the ceiling. (It's usually attached to the walls at each end, not the ceiling itself.) The skater's harness is strung over a pulley that rides along the cable. The coach holds the other end and slows down descent to soften falls or give the skater an extra moment in the air. The problem with the cable-pulley system is that it takes practice to stay under the cable and can interfere with the entry/landings.

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I like the harness. I'm much braver and fear falls less. The best thing about the harness is that it gives me the opportunity to KNOW that I can do the jump. Knowing that I can makes me much braver when I work on it on my own in practice. I practice some jumps just under the harness and it gives me a mental boost. After a handful I venture away and skate into them. Works for me stupid as it is.

Chico

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"I truly believe, when God created skating, he patted himself on the back."

No harness at our rink, you just have to go for the jump and hope for the best! You do get used to falling though, and after a while you don't even think about it.

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The hardest thing about ice skating is the ice.