Sounds like great fun Sessy. I'd never really thought of batik as being a particularly quick process before but I love the idea of stamping on the wax with old car tyres.

Where on earth did you find car tyres to cut up and what did you cut them up with? I am curious because I recently completed a 4 year part time college course in creative textiles but never did anything quite like that! That was a brilliant idea.

Eh, we call them stanleymessen, stanley knives or something? They're the sort of knives that you usually use to cut cardboard and thin wood with precision, the kind you cut on zink plates with, the kind you never EVER put your fingers in the cutting path of just in case you slip because they're so razor sharp. They're like the extremely sturdy, heavy-metal, undestroyable twin brothers of hobby knives.

I'm not even sure they were car tires actually but they did look like big versions of the inside of bike tires so I think they were car tires. Our crafts teacher at middle school had them in huge amounts, I just "borrowed" some, I don't know where he got it. It's as big a mistery as where he got human sculls and 900 empty glass bottles of coca cola. I think he just collected whatever the students would bring him. Cuz I brought him a fazant without a tail once and he took that too. But I think you can make stamps out of clay just as easily, we did that in basic school and I'm guessing that would work too.

BTW, in school we did something like that as well. We used wax crayons, with those you'd write on paper, then you'd dye the paper with watercolors. I don't know if that would work on material though.

Here's the promised slomo's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MJ2CGxxPhQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-Ed0i5rJNo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuBqeLb0-84

OK I can't resist but do bear in mind that I am not claiming I can do any of these jumps! (at least not well) and also that almost everyone does them like this to start with. I am just telling you what I see and things to work on.

Firstly you have great attack and speed! For the toeloop (I haven't looked at the salchow) if you slow it down even further to stop motion effect (i.e press pause and then play/pause alternately and stop at the point just after you have picked in, you will notice that just after picking in, both feet (and body) are pointing to the left. This means that you are turning on your toepick before you jump. Also the right foot should actually be pointing to the right and drawn in towards the picking foot on a back outside edge (took me years to get this down and still can't always do it right) (like a back pivot). If you continue on you will see that you are turned almost completely around 180 degrees, before the picking foot leaves the ice which essentially means the jump itself is more of a 3 jump. This is often called a toe-waltz.

If you look at other people's video's you will see this is very common, (but not correct!)

You have great speed and power and attitude so once you are back on ice I think you will get a really good toe-loop pretty fast. Practising back pivots really helps to get the feel of what the right foot should be doing on the entry.

Unfortunately, Batikat is right about the toeloops. I didn't realize my toeloop takeoff was cheated until I was landing doubles, and boy was it painful to be told that they weren't going to count! As a matter of fact, at Adult Nationals two weeks ago, all 3 of my *single* toeloops were downgraded due to pre-rotation and given zero credit! This happened even though I knew it was an issue and I was focusing very hard on not letting my foot turn on the pick. So yeah, better to fix the technique now, before it gets too deeply ingrained in muscle memory.

__________________
"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

I've never done a pivot
how do you do a pivot? we don't get them in class


doubletoe, but how can it be that you can do a 2toe (although cheated) and not a 1toe?


I didn't realize HOW ugly they were. It actually seems they got worse since december, which is probably true, cuz at some point I actually lost the toeloop. BTW our group teacher picks, then rotates on her toepick a half, then steps over on her right foot when she demonstrates a toe-loop. I've actually argued with a girl from my class a few weeks ago whether or not the toeloop was a half-rotation jump or a whole rotation one.
Anyway at least now I know why I lost the toeloop back then and what to do to fix it. Draw it on on an outside edge, yiiikes that's gonna feel very off.

And I've been trying to find a video of a good, uncheated double toeloop or single toeloop but they're NOWHERE! So PLEASE IF ANYBODY CAN HELP ME GET ONE!!!! Even Joubert cheats a half off his toeloops in combination...
I've got the full collection of jumps in avi from different sources, but only a triple toeloop. And the timing of that is just very off compared to a single. Not on youtube please, I'd like to be able to see it frame by frame, so downloadable...

This is a common controversy in skatefan discussions....many will argue that EVERYONE turns some on the ice, it's just a matter of not being egregious. And the same two people will look at the same slow mo and argue whether or not it is cheated.

I think it is safe to say if someone can notice the turn on the ice in real life - that's a bad cheat ;-)

j

Ok, I'll take a cheated one too. Just a double or single one, not a triple.



(BAD Sessy! Get back to work!)

not sure it's possible to explain - you need to ask a coach to demo one. However you can just practice the toeloop entry. Do it as a walkthrough first.
Do the RFI 3 real slow then pick in but not too far behind or too agressively and DONT JUMP. Instead keep facing the same way and ease your weight back onto the picking foot. Now look at your right foot (still in front of you) and turn the foot so your toes are to your right and you are on the outside edge of the blade. Now try and draw this foot to the left, (heel leading), keeping on the outside edge, til the whole foot has passed the midline of your body. This is about the point at which you would want to kick through (heel leading) if you were actually jumping!

It will feel very odd at first!


As for the half or full rev jump. I think many people would say it's not a half rev like 3 jump, nor a whole rev like loop but something a little in between. The point being that while most people probably do turn a little on their toepick and the front foot may be a little to the left (heel leading!) before leaving the ground, you should ensure your body is not prerotated.

If your whole body is facing your direction of travel before you take off then it is a half rev jump and it is not a toeloop.

Having said that I think some coaches do teach it a bit like that just to get students jumping and then work on the finer points later.

That used to be enough, and it's what my coach always told me, so I got good at keeping my torso facing backwards for takeoff. But now they look at your foot to make sure it doesn't pivot to face forward before takeoff, so I don't get away with that anymore! Interestingly, Amber Corwin (U.S. competitive skater who retired last year) turns her head to face forward on her triple toeloop takeoffs, but her picking foot does not turn forward so she did not have them downgraded. Weird, huh?!

__________________
"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

Ah-ha! Thanks for that info. I will take extra care over my foot now. I'm still not sure if I manage to keep it turned the right way before take off. I guess I need someone to video me!

Uh, sure, if you tell me what it is called in Dutch...
I'll just ask on a dutch forum.


What's a midline?

I just asked on a dutch skating forum yesterday and people have no idea what a pivot is so far...
could you maybe post a video? pretty please?

The only video I had of me doing a pivot was in my camcorder when it was nicked during a competition (I trust not by a skater but more probably from the public session afterwards).

It's basically where you stick the toepick of one skate in the ice and the other skate circles around.

So back outside pivot - stick left toepick in the ice. Place right skate on an outside edge and move it anticlockwise around you. (like the entry to a toeloop ) Yes, the right foot really does have to be turned out that much!

If you have ever watched pairs skaters doing a 'death spiral' the guy is (usually) doing a back outside pivot as the girl goes into it.

Ahhhh I get what you mean now. Gee I'm not sure I can get that much of a turnout. I've not got any turnout at all to be honest...

I tried the pivot on rollers. Completely impossible for me to turn out my foot that way. Maybe it'll be better on ice skates, I don't know, sometimes things like that are.

Oh yeah I filmed myself roller skating today. My mohawks on rollers have all the errors my mohawks on ice used to have when I just started doing them (like staring at the ice). Funny how bad habits come back to bite you in the rear even when you thought you killed 'em. But other than that, I thought I rollerskated worse than I do.

As you'll notice, I got rid of most of the "bouncy" thing I had in my crossovers at the competition!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v35Glf3HV20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls_l9MLy6lM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzMeciUwj2Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbXW3oHsVKU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyWrYuj_E-w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O7QTmUV6v4
(that 3-turn is jumped cuz the wheels don't do the pivoting or whatever thing cuz the skates are cheap)

Since you have your knees bent, you don't really need open hips for the pivot. The deeper you can bend the right knee, and the more you can open out your left shoulder and look over your left shoulder, the easier it will be. It's a fun move!

__________________
"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

I've got no turnout either - not a hope of ever doing a spreadeagle - but as double toe says, for a pivot it is only the foot that needs to turn out and the knee bend makes it possible. In fact knee bend makes almost everything possible. If you ever find you can't do something in skating - try a deeper kneebend!

To restate the old adage about trying again, just for skating:- 'if at first you don't succeed - try a deeper kneebend!'

It's just not working on rollers. I imagine the big rubber stop at the front is generating much more friction than a toepick though.

Anyway it's a good description nonetheless, I think I got what you mean. I did three toeloops on rollers this way and I landed 2 clean. On rollers! I mean really. I could probably over-rotate them even if I wanted. They were SOOO much easyer to do this way. Thanks! I'm thinking this will be a piece of cake on ice with the much lighter figure skates on.
Still picking to the side is weird. I'm doing the toeloop from a mohawk now, it's kind of okay that way, but from a 3-turn I just know I won't be able to pick to the side - I can do some semblance of a 3-turn on rollers (non-pivoting), jumping the turn a bit, but I just can't imagine how to pick to the side after a 3-turn.
But then there's no rule that says I've gotta do the toeloop from a 3-turn right?