^ This is so true...one day I had a total brain fart and I could NOT do a lutz, even cheated. Then he asked why I was leaning so far away from the jump and I didn't have an answer other than "fear". Once I realized what I was doing, I made the correction and the lutz was back. Imagine that!

I've always found that the key to learning the flip is to do the half flip correctly, which IMO, is the method where you land forward on your usual landing foot. So for CCW jumpers, pick in with right toe, turn half rotation, land forward on right toe pick, then step to LFO edge.

When you do this enough times, get the feel of using your arms for the right amount of height, and learn to lift the free knee and cross the foot in front, then you are *so* close to the real thing.

Tim

YES!! So glad to hear someone else uses this "correct" half-flip. Makes SO much more sense to me!

That makes total sense, as far as learning to keep the weight over the right hip. I wonder why we are all taught the half flip landing forward on the left toe? Is it for the purpose of working up to the split jump?

Hmmm, trying to understand how to do a 1/2 flip the above way....I have never done that. I'll ask my coach if I can remember.....

I was taught the 1/2 flip landing forward on L toe, then pushing to RFI edge. Which I have found of absolutely NO HELP with the "real" flip. Oh, and Doubletoe, I thought of you today (in addition to keeping my coach's words in my head). I landed three flips in a row. They weren't great, but it's an improvement for me over what I was doing. I was thinking "magnet, magnet, magnet"

I was told it is to work up to a split jump (oh, right......not for me in this lifetime!).

Hey, that's great about your flips! But don't count out the split jump. It's all a matter of timing and technique; you can get a good-looking split jump even if you can't do the splits. (I'm proof!).

Oh, as for the right toe landing on the 1/2 flip, have you ever done a ballet jump? It's basically a ballet jump on the right toe instead of the left, i.e., you pick with the right toe facing backwards, do a little 1/2-turn hop onto the same toe facing forwards, then push off onto the left forward outside edge. The point is to jump up, not forward, and to stay over the right side instead of switching your weight over to the left side in the air. But having said that, most of us never actually learned it so it's clearly possible to land a fully-rotated flip without it.

I have flip issues, it's a jump that take about five or six tries before they click. Then I mess them up by trying to do them at more speed.

In my progression the things I think about on each try are:

3 turn, do the turn, check and hold, (which is why doing them on a line works, to make sure you hold) build the power and start to....

Bend my non-picking knee. Bend it more. Bend the ankle too. This makes me pick back further with the other leg.

Arm. oh yeah, there's arms. Make sure my arm is back in line with my glide, other arm in front, the back arm HAS to come across.

Bend-pick-arms are my mental words for the flip.

What starts to blow apart when I do them faster is the check on the 3 turn, and getting down enough fast enough to get my leg back FAR for the pick. So mostly I cheatrotate and kick myself in the foot a lot. Sigh. Get up, do it again.

Yes, yes! I love ballet jumps! And, I was messing around on the floor after I posted, trying to understand this other version of the 1/2 flip, and I kinda thought it *was* like a ballet jump, so I wasn't too far off! I'll have to try this as a practice item (the "correct 1/2 flip") and see if it translates for me.....great explanation, thank you.

Thanks for all of your advice! I have been forcing myself to get through the mental block. I may have done 10 today, maybe 5 really clean ones.

Now I hope I can repeat this at 7 a.m. on Friday in front of the coach

Great!!