Kevin--your arms/back/torso play a huge role in making jumps work. In your video from the waist up you're kind of doing a rag doll impression--you need to be held up, & you need to use your arms/shoulders to check the 3 turn, left arm forward right arm back, then scoop w/ the right arm as the right leg comes forward to help launch yourself & create rotation for the jump.

You're also rushing a lot--You need to slow the whole thing waaaaaaaayyy down & get all the pieces lined up in the right order.

when i skated years and years ago my salchow was my worst jump. i was terrified of it. now 6 years later it's my best. checking after the 3 turn is sooo important. it just seems like you kind of "lose control" of the jump for a minute or so to me. i always count through my jump steps in my head while i do it:

1. three turn
2. check
3. jump

if it turns out to be a height issue, the more you bend yr knee the higher you will go.

Yeah, after this video was shot, I had a skater come up and tell me exactly the same. That I wasn't checking or scooping, and I was going too fast. Under her direction I managed to get two more decent salchows, but they were in between probably twenty other jumps that looked exactly like the one in the video. Usually by the time I've passed the element I know I should have done differently, that's when I realize I've done it wrong, and it's too late.

That sounds very helpful, thanks.

It also may help you to just practice the entry in isolation, without actually jumping. Do the three-turn with a strong check, and then hold and press that back inside edge. You should actually feel yourself pick up speed if this is done right. Keep that right shoulder back; don't let it swing forward.

In the video, it looks a bit like you are trying to use your free leg to swing yourself around. You want to sit on your back inside edge, and swing your free leg "in" and "up." You will push up off your skating foot, and the energy from the edge is what will cause you to rotate...you don't want to twist or swing your body in order to try and get rotation.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

And here are my other jumps for you to critique and tell me what I am not checking or scooping for. ^_~

http://www.youtube.com/?v=dkRgZlVJxuM

It's pretty much the same thing. As you start your toeloop your arms are dangling at your sides.

I always make my kids learn the arms part of a jump first. We 'walk' through the jump doing first *only* the entry, until the arms/body are coordinated and controlled. Then we add the *tap* of the pick (if it's a toe jump), then we make it a "pop-up", where you do the entrance, reach back & pick & jump, but with no rotation, & you land on your landing foot in a strong held landing position. So they're doing all the pieces of the jump, with the arms, before they ever start to rotate it. IMO it works much better to break it down like that--jumps are all about timing & having everything happen in the right sequence, & that's just too complicated for a beginner to put together all at once.

You're also turning your picking foot so you're really jumping off the blade, not the toepick. It's an easy mistake to make & you need to really focus on keeping that foot straight up & down as you reach back & pick (this is also related to the fact that you're pre-rotating--as you take off your left arm is already behind you).

Do you have a private coach, Kevin?

Two, in fact, as I've mentioned mutiple times. Tim Chilcott is my primary coach, he is a Gold Medalist in Freestyle and a British Skating Association Silver Dance Medalist. Tim is also former British professional championship medalist. Barry Kamber is my secondary coach. He's a friend of Luke Chilcott, Tim's son, who [Luke] was also the 2005 (I think, may have been 2004) British Novice National Champion. One of the Brits can correct me if my info is wrong here.

I'd sort of like to echo what some of the others have said... it looks to me like you need to spend a bit of time focusing on just good strong basic skating skills such as stroking, checking your turns (both into the turn and out of the turn).

Working on these skills will help you get your upper body under control, which will make everything else work better (jumps and spins, etc.)

FWIW, even though I'm working on my Silver dances, which are about halfway up the test ladder, I spend probably half of most lessons and all of at least 1 lesson a week working on stroking drills to improve power and flow and control.

JMO...

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American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...

I agree with Jenylon. The reason I asked you that, Kevin (and I'm sorry I forgot you mentioned having coaches before, my attention span isn't that large) is because you do not look at all ready to be doing these jumps. Obviously this is in no way criticism as you haven't been taking lessons very long and most people wouldn't be ready to do these jumps- your progress is completely adequate.

But from looking at your salchow, it's evident that you do not yet know about edges, turns, checking, and body positions to successfully do this jump. It doesn't look like a salchow attempt at all. The toe loop and waltz are a little better, but it's the same problem. The reason I thought maybe you didn't have a coach is because a responsible coach shouldn't be teaching their beginning student tricks before that student is even able to do a satisfactory three turn. Learning the basics turns off a lot of people, but it's figure skating, not figure jumping. You should enjoy doing moves and learning just basic stroking and turning, if you don't, this sport will be a nightmare for you as you will need to learn all of the basic skating moves if you should ever hope to compete successfully.

You seem eager to learn so I doubt you are refusing to learn the basis, but perhaps your coaches are not stressing them enough. I don't know. I just know from looking at those jumps that you really shouldn't be learning them yet- and THAT is your main problem, in my humble opinion. What you should be learning are good three turns, which really, are 3/4 of your jumping pass. A great coach once told me..."98 percent of errors in a jump happen at take-off. If you have a great take-off, the odds are the rest of the jump will follow." And it's true. I would learn the take-offs, and not worry about jumping until you do them correctly. Learn to do edges on the lines. Learn to check three turns (can you do an entry 3-turn as if you were going to do a salchow and then check your arms enough to glide out on that edge for a good 10-15 seconds? You really should be able to hold the back edge of the three turn until speed stops you...), learn body positions. Then, everything will come naturally.

That's what I believe. Obviously if your coach disagrees, he wins.

My fitter prefers and strongly recommends Nylon ones, as Graf provides. I've found through trial and error that I hate them, and cotton works MUCH better for me. The only thing I like more about the nylon ones is that the black color tends to be darker.

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Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

That was a lot of text, startdust_skies, so I'm not going to quote it. I don't disagree with anything you've said, although I believe it warrants some explanation.

I really need to videotape myself while I have a coach present. Believe me, the outcome is different. When I am alone, I'm lazier than I should be, and I rush a whole lot. It's not that I don't know how to check or scoop or bend my knees, it's that I get caught up in just doing (because frankly, I enjoy it, and that's the whole point, right?), that I don't do these things. However, when I have a coach around, everything gets immediately much better, because I'm aware I'm being watched, and I am aware of what that coach is looking for.

However, you are certainly correct, I do need to focus on basics, but I'm kind of... refining the basics and ;earning the jumps at the same time? It's hard to describe, because I'm not a total beginner. Another thing I've said before that you may have forgotten. I have skated before, as a hockey player, and I've done bits and pieces over the years on figure skates. It's not that I dislike basics, since if there are too many people on the ice, that's what I practice anyway, I'm just determined the cram as many concepts into my head as possible and then refine. Tim seems to agree, although he's never said that in such terms. Let me explain a typical lesson, and maybe it will become clear, and you are free to disagree with his coaching style:

1. Forward Stroking
2. Backward Stroking
3. Forward Crossovers
4. Backwards Crossovers
5. Inside Edges/Outside Edges
6. 3-turns
7. Mohawks
8. Waltz Jump
9. Toe-Loop
10. Salchow

The one thing that is missing, and we'll really, really need to start working on, is that you will see no spins. I can't spin, and Tim has only done the barest of teaching on that subject. But I've already let him know I consider this a mistake. I have a lesson with Barry the monday after the monday coming up. Perhaps he'll be able to say more about this.

As for your description of my progress as "adequate," the term is obviously subjective. You do mention that I haven't been taking lessons very long, and with that being the case, I consider my progress quite more than adequate. Besides, I have an approach, a philosophy, if you will. I'm not going to be patient, I'm not going to let the elements come to me. I know for a fact many of you will disagree with this philosophy, but if it wasn't for the decision, once again, to do, then I would not be doing at all. I'm going to charge into the sport, and if that means lots of badly executed elements prior to consistent successful elements, so be it. I already am unafraid to leave the ice battered, bruised and bleeding. I simply won't take a "No, you can't do that" for an answer.

I didn't even try to spin in a lesson until after I had a fairly decent toe loop and salchow. It's *not* an easy thing to learn - it will just take literally hundreds if not thousands of tries. Don't give up - you'll get it eventually.

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Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

I have to disagree. I started spinning before I started jumping. She showed me both, and I took up spinning much faster than jumping. It depends on the person, I guess. But for me, jumping is much harder to learn than spinning. Maybe it's the whole *crap, my feet are leaving the earth, adn the ice is hard and doesn't bend* issue. But I'm working on it, I'm even putting more speed into my jumps now.

With all due respect to your opinion, I'm afraid all you're going to end up with are a lot of bad habits, which are extremely difficult to undo. Based on the videos you showed us, I have to agree 100% with what stardust skies wrote. If you do have the opportunity to video yourself during a lesson, or even immediately afterward, it would be great for us to see the difference.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

I was wondering where you had disappeared off to, Casey!

Hi Kevin! I won't quote your text either, we're both chatty today. WARNING: Largest wall of text I have ever composed ahead. Please excuse the ridiculous length of this..I couldn't stop typing.

1. You are lucky that you actually get BETTER when your coach watches. I suck when my coach watches. I think I've got a jump or move down and then my coach watches and it sucks. But...there is a difference between not executing an element properly because of fear, and still displaying the knowledge of the element, and doing every piece of an element wrong and displaying lack of comfortability with the basics needed for the element. It may be better while your coach is watching, but the video clearly displays that you have not yet mastered the very basic things you will need for the jumps you are trying to do- and again, you started lessons not long ago (whether you skated a little before or not, without instruction it is pointless, and doing hockey isn't going to teach you 3-turns or how to stay off of your toepick...) so it's totally normal that you haven't mastered them yet. But you will at least need to do them correctly and with some ease to get those jumps, and there is no way that you can go from that video to correct basics just because your coach is there, unless he is magical.

2. I think that your philosophy is the reason it will probably take you longer than the average talented (because if your coach says you are, I am sure he is right..and it's usually how talented people think anyways, the way you are thinking, so I definitely believe it) person would to learn the elements of figure skating. You seem like a logical person, and what I don't think you get yet is that the basics ARE the jump. You cannot be trying to refine/learn the basics AND learn/refine the jumps at the same time. It's counterproductive. Let's say you're trying to master forward outside 3-turns, and a salchow. Well, you're totally wasting time here...if you are in a hurry to learn, you're making it twice as hard. Because first you are working on your 3-turns, but then you are working on trying to jump off of a 3-turn when you can't do the 3-turn right yet, confusing your body about what you just worked on with the 3-turn- because trying to jump off of a 3-turn when you can't do a correct 3-turn forces you to do really bad ones, as per your video, and muscle memory RECORDS that and stores it in the brain for next time, meaning the time you spent working on just 3-turns before working on the jumps was completely pointless because your brain will remember your 3-turn attempts in your jumps and it will cancel all the correct stuff you fixed earlier out.

3. I didn't see you skate before your lessons. To me, for someone who's been on the ice before and was a good enough skater to play hockey, has private lessons and extremely expensive advanced equipment, your progress is average/adequate. That is not a cut down, but it seems like you think it is, because you want to try and be superhuman and learn things faster than the human body is capable of doing. There is nothing wrong with progressing normally. You will find that in skating, your philosophy will greatly hinder you. Once you get mechanics into your head, they are nearly impossible to break. If you rush through things now, they'll be with you forever. You can't plan on learning things "well enough" now and then going back in later to fix them so they're better. It doesn't work that way. What you don't understand is that this sport is based off of muscle memory. You said you don't mind doing a lot of poorly executed elements before doing good ones: you will understand the secret to this sport when you understand that if you do a ton of badly executed elements...you will NEVER do good ones. NEVER. The muscle memory needs to remember good ones to do good ones. If you do bad ones, they'll stay bad. What coaches do to "trick" the mind into doing good jumps is not to allow students to do something before they are ready- to keep them from doing them badly and engraining it into their brains. Instead...they do walk throughs. So, for example, if a student is not ready for a double salchow, then instead of making them try anyway...they make them do single salchow/single loop combos, or single salchow into backspins. This is to trick the mind into thinking you are doing the jump, when you are not. But you hit all the correct positions. After a few months your brain will put everything together, and THEN you'll be able to jump. So for single jumps it's the same thing, but even less glamorous cause there is not jumping: you do the crossovers, you do the 3-turns, you hold hold hold hold hold and then you step onto your landing foot, do a backward double three-turn to simulate rotation, and then you hold the landing position. For toe jumps, you do the 3-turn, pick in, jump off of it and into the air WITHOUT rotation, to understand the concept of weight transfer (and it takes a while, you think you get it because you can do the jump without rotation but as soon as rotation comes into play it's all out the window, that's why, even if you have no problems jumping up without rotation, you need to keep doing it to engrain it in your brain) and then land. You should also be working on bunny hops for your waltz jumps- that's a jump you should definitely be doing, bunny hops. You have no idea how much they'll help you in the future.

Is all of this fun? NO. Do you need it? Yes. Do you need to do just that until you actually have mastered the very basics of this sport if you ever want to have any type of quality or skill to your skating? Yes. I think it will take you a very very long time to accept this, and in the meantime, I accept that everyone has to make their own mistakes. I just took the time to try and warn you because it's something I really believe in- taking your time in order to get ahead. The concept sounds ridiculous, but in this sport, it's anything but.

Good luck Kevin.

PS: As you can guess, I do not think it is an error for you not to be working on spins. You could try some two foot spins. But I'm sure your coach sees how you work and sees that if you get started you'll probably try one foot spins before long and since you do not have mastery over 3-turns, not only will you not get a one foot spin until you do manage to get 3-turns correctly, but you could realllllllly hurt yourself. Falling over that entry edge HURTS. Plus, the more "tricks" he gives you to work on, the least likely you are to work on the basics. Spins take longer than jumps to learn. If you got started on them you'd never get to your basics. Basics aren't fun, I know..but if you took 6 months to work on them seriously, you would be able to do all the jumps and spins you want for the rest of your life. Most people go through the Learn to Skate structure and do spend at least 6 months working on JUST moves stuff. I know you know how to skate, but so do a lot of kids in Learn to Skate. But none of you know the basics of *figure* skating, and that's what they learn, free of tricks like jumps and spins to distract them. Any jump or spin you try to do now will take you 10 times as long as they would if you did know the basics. So by bogging your training down with jump and spin attempts that you will never get so long as your basics aren't fixed, you are wasting royal amounts of time. If you had the basics, all you'd have to do is jump up. It'd be a walk in the park for you. But take the hard road if you must. I really have said everything I can possibly think of to try and dissuade you of it.

I apologize for the huge wall of text- but I wouldn't have felt right not trying to reason with you. The decision now is yours alone, but at least you have some thing to maybe think about a little.

Don't forget, of course, that you have to pass moves in the field tests before any freeskate tests, so the system will force you to work on basics anyway. If you can't do a waltz 8 or edge rolls, you'll never get to perform a program.

The basics are what ALL of skating is built upon. If you don't have strong controlled basics and good technique, you'll never have good jumps, no matter how much enthusiasm you throw into them. Get enthusiastic about being a great skater......and all great skaters will tell you the best skaters of all are the ones with great basics. That's why, while Matt Savoie was skating his LP at the Olympics, one of the commentators said, "every skater in the building is watching him and admiring him right now."

I'm working on my pre-gold & gold dances. But every lesson for more than half, we work on stroking and edges. And sometimes we never even get to dance patterns for weeks on end. But then every time we do go back, it's gotten better because of the work I've put in on the basic stuff.

Stardust Skies is doing triples, other skaters here are at high levels (sorry, I don't remember where everyone is...). Maybe they know whereof they speak......maybe they've seen this all before......

Agree with everything stardustskies said... I skated competitively as a child... Things like balance, holding a deep edge, being able to check a three-turn, having nice leg extension and form with your free leg when you land -- these are all essentials. It isn't productive to work on jumps (or spins) when you can't do the basics. I used to dread figures, but they made me a better skater--and the muscle memory is still there. I hate moves in the field, and wish they would go back to the old system.

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--
Natalie

http://www.ILoveTaB.com

Excellent post stardust skies. I agree as well. When I was younger, I took Canskate and Canfigureskate. I learned up to a loop jump, poorly. I quit Canfigureskate when I was bout 13, and only did synchro. When I was 22, I decided to take private lessons because I wanted to be a better skater, and the rules of synchro were changing so you had to be a lot more confident with your individual skating skills. I spent two years getting all my dances and skills, and then last spring I started to learn free skate. I had all my single jumps within about 2 months of skating once or twice a week. While learning salchows, toe-loops, and flips, we didn't have to spend eons working on the entrances because I could already do solid 3-turns. With the loop, it didn't take me long to be able to do it out of backwards cross-overs because my body understood the mechanics of being able to ride the edge before I popped up to do the jump. Spinning was hard, but spin entrances weren't. I had no problem riding a powerful FO edge and "hooking" it to begin the spin.

Basics are EVERYTHING. Kevin, I bet that if you quit jumping for a month and worked on nothing but edges and turns, when you went back to jumps they would improve 100%.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

ITA with everything Stardust Skies has said, and the others also. The fact that you can do whatever you can at this stage, no matter the quality, speaks to your innate ability and talent. However, no matter how talented one is, there is a point where serious, and many times boring, work is necessary to progress. You are at that point. Take a very good look at your posture in the videos. Then watch any of the Olympic competitors. Look only at their posture: the positions of their head, shoulders, arms, hands, free leg. Compare. You really need to fix those things before you can continue. Skating begins with the head. When you get your head right, and your shoulders and arms right, your legs and feet will be able to do what you ask of them. There is only so much your lower body can do without the cooperation of your upper body first.

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I'll just add...

Think of skating like playing a musical instrument. If you want to play concertos or solo works you have to have really strong basics. For example, playing the flute. Now, you need insane breath control. This doesn't happen overnight...it takes years and years. If you don't develop it, then when you go to play a concerto or some other difficult piece of music, you won't make it through the runs nor will you be able to hold the note steady with a pure and consistant tone. Then look at the tone of the instrument..perhaps the violin. In order to achieve a lovely tone, which is VERY important when playing in an orchestra or doing solo works. it takes many many years. If you don't really learn how to create a proper tone then people won't be so intranced by your playing. Thing of Yo-Yo Ma. His tone is incredible!

If you neglect the basics, your overall performance in the future will suffer. You will learn bad habits that never go away. When you move onto a new teacher, they will make sure you know of your habits and try to fix it..by then it might be too late.

I predict you will get frustrated with the sport within the next couple of years and quit if you don't learn how to be patient. Yes, its fun to try new things but you can't brush over the old stuff sayings you've done a great job.

You have a fiery attitude which is good, but I think you'll be in for a rude awakening if you aren't careful.

A. Assuming your lesson is 1/2 hour, that's an average of 3 minutes per element. During one particularly horrid stretch in my skating career last year, we spent 6 WEEKS on forward outside edges. Plus every practice on my own in between. I used to have assignments like, 100 3-turns on each foot, before the next lesson.

B. I hope you don't feel like we're all ganging up on you here. I think your attitude & energy is great--I'm just trying to encourage you to direct it in a different direction--slowing down adding to your list of "tricks", and throwing yourself into getting stronger & controlled. I'm especially saying this because I know you want to be a competitive skater. If all you wanted to do was play around & have fun, I'd be more likely to say, fine, go for it, go have some fun. But for a serious skater, which I know you want to be, it takes knock down drag out hard work (and don't be fooled, the basics of skating are NOT as simple or easy as they appear!).

C. I know you're very encouraged by your progress, and you probably should be (I don't remember how long you've been skating). But I would like to point out that there are probably others of us on the boards who were "prodigies" as beginners too....maybe that's why we're trying to caution you. Natural talent will get you to a certain point, and after that you have to put in the work. I've seen skaters zoom through to intermediate very fast & then plateau for quite awhile. I did it when I hit my silver dances. So when you're saying to us, "look how far I've come!" We're saying to ourselves, "yeah, you have no idea yet...."

To give you an example, I started skating with group classes (having never skated before) in January when I was 27. In April I started private lessons w/ an ice dance coach. In August I tested my first 6 dances, the next 3 in November, the next 2 in February, & the 3rd pre-silver in May. So in just over a year (from the start of private lessons), I was through my pre-silver dances. I don't know of anyone else who's done that (though they're probably out there).....but then my coach moved away, I wallowed for a few years, went through a couple of coaches, passed 2 silvers, went back & tested standard track (2 dances) for a little while, then quit altogether for 5 years & did freestyle.

Now I've been back to dancing for 3 years, with my current (and LAST, I swear!!) coach for almost 2 years, and I just recently am feeling like I'm starting to really *get it*. And that's mainly because my coach makes me work endlessly on....basics.

Anyway....I applaud your fire & ambition, just hope you will approach it w/ a little humility & respect for the process, & will listen to those who have gone before, who are trying to help you see the best place to put your energies.

No, I've never heard that it sets them to walk mode instead of skate mode. This may be fallout from the new heat-molding recommendations that you NOT walk around while the skates are cooling on your feet. The motion affects the molding process, which makes sense.

Wearing skates around the house with guards is a tried-and-true method that's been around for years. In addition, damp socks are usually worn with them. Realize that this advice is from BEFORE heat-molding came on the scene.

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Different strokes...I had never in my life heard of the damp socks method before visiting SkatingForums. *shrug*

When I got my skates, I did wear them in the house with guards on. However, I was careful not to "walk" in them, and instead only do skating movements. I would stand in front of a full-length mirror and just bend in them, "stroke" in them, do chasses, extensions, mohawks...simple skating moves that can be done off-ice in skates very close to how they are done on-ice.

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~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~