Right now, I sympathise with anybody learning 3-turns for the first time, as I'm just having my first lessons on back 3-turns, never having really needed them before. But with this eeeeeeeeevil exercise on the new Level 3 skating moves (mind you, if I'd passed my test I'd be working on even more evil exercises, so perhaps it's as well I didn't), which my coach thinks is absolutely perfect for level 3 skaters (and as I'm the only one on his books right now, that means ME!). It's more-or-less the same as the USFSA 3s in the Field exercise, and tests all 8 3-turns.

Right now I have 3 decent 3-turns and 1 half-decent one.

Very deep sigh - BI3s are SCARY! I can do them holding my coach's hands, of course, but only then. And my weight goes all over the place like I don't-know-what.

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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!

Oh my gosh - back 3 turns. Let me tell you my back 3 turns story. I took basic skills back in the old days when it only went up to basic 6 and in basic 5 you had to do outside and inside back 3 turns. I thought that was the most ridiculis thing to have in basic skills. And the club I was in - you couldn't take dance until you passed basics...but when do you have to do a back 3 turn in dance? International level???

I started taking private lessons just so I could pass those darn 3 turns.

Fast forward a few years later I'm taking a Learn to Skate Freestyle class with a bunch of little kids who are out jumping me. Then come the back 3 turns. The old lady can do back 3 turns. "Hey, how do you do those?" they ask the old lady. Hehehe.


I haven't done a back inside 3 since then, but I do outsides once in a blue moon.

j

Thank you so much to everyone who has left me advice

I think it really has helped. It was my first lesson back today after a two week break, and I remembered some (not everything, I apologise - but there is so much here!) of your tips.

Mostly, the tight abdominals / free leg and hip up, keeping my free foot close to my skating foot, bending my skating knee more and lots of other things running through my head, including articulated lorries! I was also told not to "spot" my head, which is contrary to years of dancing for me, but to keep my head centred and only move it with my shoulders. This seems to help too.

The turns actually were going pretty well, just not gliding out of them. In fact, I think I managed a microsecond glide out of one! Nobody would have noticed it, but I felt it and know it was there

I will just have to keep practicing and practicing and practicing . . . .

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Amanda

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance . . . "

My Skating Journal

To practice getting a nice curve, shoulder check and up-down knee rhythm on your 3-turns, it might help to do 2-footed 3-turns first. Keep your shoulders in the same place and just rotate your hips and feet together, so that your chest faces the inside of the curve you are on from the 3-turn entrance through the exit and there's no swinging around.
As you get comfortable with the deep ankle bend, deeper edges and rising to the ball of the blade for the turn, start to focus more on one foot than the other. Eventually, focus so much on that one foot that you actually lift the other one and keep it at the ankle of your skating foot, extending it behind you only on the exit of the 3-turn. If you are turning CCW, the left foot will be your outside 3-turn foot and your right foot will be your inside 3-turn foot. You'll need both turns in frestyle skating so it's good to practice them together, then seperately.

Also, on a 3-turn, you shouldn't turn your head. When I start doing that, I just tell myself I'm in a neck brace and can only face the same direction as my chest is facing! That is true for the whole 3-turn, from the entrance through the exit.

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

That's exactly what my coach was telling me today, and it does feel better when I do the neckbrace thing

I think I will carry on practicing the two footed 3-turns. I can do this smoothly on one side (turning CCW), not quite so smoothly on the other.

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Amanda

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance . . . "

My Skating Journal

You know I was taught that in a 3-turn you keep looking in the direction you're travelling. Which means - and I specifically asked to check to be sure because it felt awkward at first - you do turn your head and pretty bigtime too... Are my trainers insane or am I?

(but then everybody says the lutz has a blind jumpoff and I'm actually looking behind me before I take off too lol... maybe because it's so crowded on the ice whenever our club or I skate, that they teach us things differently?)

You may rotate your head to face the direction of travel on a back 3-turn, but it's generally not something you do on a forward 3-turn. Take a look at some skating videos on YouTube and you will see that on forward 3-turns, the skater's head is always facing the same direction as the chest and hips. A good example of this is a flip or toeloop entrance. On the 3-turn entrance, the skater is facing the direction of travel, but on the 3-turn exit, the skater's hips, chest and face are all facing away from the direction of travel (they are facing the direction she came from).

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

I don't think so! We were taught that this was how you checked a 3-turn - you looked in the direction of travel until the last possible moment, and only turned your head to face where you'd been when you would have screwed it off if you'd left it there. Which, in practice, meant that you rotated underneath your neck.

"If you want to spin", said that coach, "your head moves with the rest of you!" (I wish mine did!).

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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!

As a LEARNING EXERCISE, I have students turn their heads before the turn. I use it when a student isn't using their shoulders/arms because it forces them to turn the upper body more before the turn.

Normally, I have the skaters "look where they're going."

It could be the crowd, I know I double-check the lutz takeoff for clearance. When I'm practicing on empty ice or skating in a program, I NEVER look and I don't teach my students to look, either. (During lessons, that's part of my job.)

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I just re-read my post, and wanted to make the down-up-down clearer.

For a standard forward outside three turn, when you sink back down after the turn, you do not sink very much - ie. not back down to the level you rose up from. You wait until next back push to sink right back down again.

To get a good backward glide out of the turn, keep your head up, and don't hunch over. The subtle general direction of the bodyweight can be used to progress the turn backwards and onwards. You should "float" backwards, with weight on sole of foot.

while we're at it, if anyone has any tips for inside threes I'd be very grateful, I can't seem to get the motion correct and it feels so uncontrolled. thanks in advance.

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Level one Field Moves......PASSED 05.06.08
Level one Free dance.....PASSED 02.10.08

GOALS FOR 2009

• Level One Compulsary dances.......PASSED 19.02.09
• Level One Elements.....................PASSED 10.07.09
• Level Two Free dance.................PASSED 19.02.09
• Level One Free...........................
• Level Two compulsory dances.......

Loving it, Loving it, Loving it!!!!!

I find these hard, not having had to learn them when I was in the classes, but in fact, what you do is exactly the same as what you do on an outside 3. So set up for a left forward outside 3, and maybe turn it. Now, with exactly the same set up, strike a right forward inside edge, and do the exact same thing with your upper body.

You might want to practice by doing 2-footed 3-turns and lifting one or other foot up just before you turn! Hmmm, might try that myself..... I'm working my socks off on 3-turns at the moment, and although my FO 3s are fine, and possibly one of my FI 3s, the rest are.... not fine!

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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!