HI. I am an adult skater and is now working on my FS5 elements. As you can guess, I am having trouble with my axel. My lutz is pretty decent. Has height and revolution is complete. Axel however is another story.

Aside from the need to strengthen my left leg for a stronger take off, i m having trouble clipping my self in teh air and thus, I cant get more rev than the half rev of waltz. it beats me.

During off ice, i cant seem to control or atleast keep track of the rotation. i get disoriented.

Any tips.

waltz/loop jumps. Lots of them

Backspins...lots

waltz/backspin...lots

focus on driving your knee up

Waltz-backspins in which your backspin in approximately one revolution on the ice followed by a strong checkout and landing will help with your disorientation. For instance, if you land your mini-waltz jump facing the boards, your backspin should checkout facing the boards as well. If you find your body rotated toward anything else, you likely under--or over--rotated for this particular exercise.

If you are feeling disoriented, you are probably turning your head and twisting your torso to try to force the rotation. I also recommend waltz-loop-loops and waltz-backspins.

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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

Thanks. when you say, driving the knee up, you meant the free leg knee, right? also, i am learning to center the back spin as well. my friend said, i tend to arch my back. but they say, i have to straighten up. well my idea of straightening includes arching the back. i guess, i just have to decode this aspect of back spin before i proceed to axel

i think so too. i think i am over - rotating my upper body. i have to master the transfer of weight from the left leg to the right leg while still on air as well as match my lower body with the upper body rotation.

recently, i have been doing high waltz jump as well as salchows (which i have not done in awhile since i learned flip and lutz which primarily use the right foot for take off) to strengthen my left foot/leg which is take off foot/leg in axel.

Hopefully, the lots and lots of waltz-loop/waltz-backspin that i will be attempting from here on will do the trick before i loose heart. hehehe.

I read somewhere that they tried back scratch then jump and do a somewhat loop jump right off the back scratch spin. is this safe? the thing is after you land, it is so hard to exit.

Although tricky, as this exercise requires a great deal of control and [correct] body alignment, the "back spin-hop out" is completely safe and also a great exercise. Just don't think of doing an actual loop. It's more of a mini hop backwards out of your back spin, so if you were spinning on your right leg, you will hop off the right leg and land on it as well.

Remember to stay over your right side/hip and to use a quick landing action with your left leg as you bring it back to a landing position. Checking out correctly with the left arm in front and right arm to the side will ensure that you don't keep rotating upon landing, which is why this exercise can be helpful with one-foot landings [of axels and doubles] as well.

You sound like me! I have the same problems with the axel. I haven't yet gotten the hang of snapping in fast enough. My coach recently had me start the take off with my left arm in front, right arm in back (rather than both arms back). That's seemed to help my body alignment a lot because my shoulders are already in the position they need to be in during the jump. Now if I could only pull in that left leg faster...

We need to start a club!!! I have the same issues...plus, I tend to take off of the middle of my blade and not my toe

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

You seem to be very focused on strength, but the axel doesn't really require that much strength; it's mostly timing and technique.

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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 is what helped me finally get this jump. If I don't concentrate on keeping my right shoulder and arm forward and my left shoulder and arm back on then entrance (I'm a CW skater), my left shoulder wanders around forward and the jump is lost. The "snap" only happens for me if I take my time and don't rush the takeoff. The longer I hold the takeoff edge, the quicker the "snap". Unfortunately, I tend to rush the entrance a lot, especially when doing the jump in a program, so I do a lot of open, underrotated clunkers when the music is playing.

Don't sweat this mistake. It's actually very common with skaters learning axels.

It seems you both already know what is causing you problems, for the most part, so continue to focus on leading in with the left shoulder (if you're a CCW skater) or the right (for those of you who are CW skaters). I sometimes tell my skaters to think of "bowling" into this jump--mimicking like rolling a bowling ball since that motion requires keeping one side behind and leading with the other. Perhaps that idea will help you two.

the axel is so unbelievably frustrating! the only thing that has got me somewhat closer to landing it was deciding to just try one revolution, instead of throwing myself in aimlessly.

I got better control of the jump, and could then concentrate on doing 1 1/4.. 1 1/2... and so far I've done a few 1 1/2 rotations (just not landed). So maybe step back a little before moving on..

Also, countless and countless waltz/loops and waltz/backspins and waltz/loop/loop/backspin (etc you get the point) to get that muscle memory..

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I like that bowling image, LOL! BTW, my coach always used to talk about leading with the left shoulder but it messed me up because I would take it too literally and push my left shoulder forward. I finally figured out that I actually need to lead with the left breast, so that if I were to stay on my takeoff edge until I ran into the wall, the first thing to hit the wall would be my left breast. It worked like a charm! (It makes me arch my back on the takeoff edge and keep the chest over the knee over the toe. That keeps me on the ball of the takeoff foot so I don't waxel.)

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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 landed the axel today!!!!

What finally got me there was aiming to do an axel/loop combination. it got my legs crossed and I started doing it (but falling), and after that it was just a question of staying up.

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CONGRATULATIONS!

Hope it's still there when you go back down to try again (and even if it's wandered off you know that you can do it now).

Awesome!!!!! Going for axel-loop was a brilliant idea! A big congratulations to you!!

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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