Don't want to start a new thread, so I'll just ask in here. Is there any way to stop my left foot from going way up my right leg when I jump up? I think my brain is trying to use that foot as a way to get height, but my left leg ends up making a triangle with my other leg, so that if you were looking at my legs, it would look like a four. With my left leg parallel and my foot way up by my knee. My group instructor keeps telling me not to lift my leg so high, but no matter how hard I try keep my foot pointed and lifting the knee and not the foot, it still goes up. I don't want to develop a wrap! Can anyone help?

Actually, the wrap comes from squeezing the thighs together instead of lifting the knee, so you won't have to worry about a wrap problem. But I would advise just focusing more on your jumping leg and foot. When you are on the takeoff edge for the loop, get a deep bend in both your knee and your ankle so that your skating knee is lined up directly over your toes. When you take off, focus on pointing the toes of your jumping foot really hard. That will give you more height on the jump and you might not feel like you need to lift the free knee so much to get height. If that doesn't work, just think about keeping both feet close to the ice when you leave the ice. I had a habit of lifting my free knee too much on my double toeloop takeoff, but thinking about keeping both feet close to the ice actually helped me break the habit.

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So you don't think I'll have a wrap issue? Did my explanation make sense to you? Insane. I wouldn't have understood what I was saying. But when I go to skate again, I will definitely keep that in mind, and I'll let you know if it helps. Oh yeah, I also have an issue apparently jumping around instead of up. Even though I'm positive that I'm focusing on up, my coach tells me otherwise. And she thinks the reason I hurt my ankle was because I was trying to jump around and that twisted the ankle. I have sort of the same issue, but not as bad, with the flip, so any advice on that would be very much appreciated as I don't want my tendonitis to keep flaring up.

Tell me, do they stick to singles or do they tell about doubles too?

What's a wrap?

My teacher also keeps getting pissed at me for what I'm doing with my legs in the jumps. Apparently, halfway through the jump I have my legs in a position that all I'd need to do is pull my feet a little closer together and I'd have a perfect air position. At that moment, my free leg is already crossed over my landing leg. And that's exactly the moment when I suddenly lift my knee almost up to my stomach. It makes her blood boil LOL!

Although I finally stopped doing it on my toeloop, so maybe the other jumps will follow.

That's a wrap!

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Well in that case it makes no sense, what's the deal with it that it's so bad? The girl who's the best jumper of our club and came in second at nationals (skating a level up and only being 12 years old!) also jumps like that.
I'm not saying I won't be working to improve it considering that in my case it's apparently really unneccessary as I found out (though I find it harder to get a full rotation without wrapping), but, it just makes no sense to get upset over it... Apparently, it doesn't inhibit one's ability to jump?

In a proper rotational position, you want a little space between the lower thighs and you want the calf of the free leg right in front of the shin of the landing leg. In a wrapped air position, your thighs and knees are stuck together and the shin of the free leg is crossed over the landing leg and is actually perpindicular to the thigh. A perfect example of a wrapped air position is Yukari Nakano's position on all of the jumps where she takes off and lands on the same foot, in other words, her triple loop, triple flip and triple lutz (her position is better on the jumps that take off from the left foot and change axis in the air, like the triple toe, triple salchow and double axel). You'll see the wrap on her first two jump passes here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSYst...elated&search=

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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

Well, you never really jump "around". You always jump UP and then just pull IN. The rotational momentum is already there because of your takeoff edge (that's why we never takeoff from a straight edge; we're always on a curve) and all you have to do to increase that rotational speed is to pull UP and IN once you're in the air. To get height, get down low before takeoff, point the toes hard to give yourself more spring, then straighten up your legs and torso in the air (think of how a frog looks when it jumps), then pull your arms and free leg in. That will be enough to increase your rotational speed and give you all the rotation you need. So your job is just to focus on UP and then IN. Does that make sense?

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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 think that's what I'm doing.

Another thing about wraps--on some skaters, the wrap seems to involve the free hip dropping or the free leg being turned out (forming a triangle that would be visible if you were facing the skater head on).

I haven't seen this in skaters who do triples with a wrap, but I've seen some skaters at the Intermediate level and lower do a single loop in which the free leg seems to be turned out a little and their leg consequently has a wrap. It almost seems like that is a problem with checking--the free hip and leg are opening out toward the rotation before and during the jump rather than staying checked.

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It's not what I'm doing though and not what I've seen Jaimie and Crissy do... It's more like what mikawendy says it is actually, even though they are jumping doubles and I think Jaimie even has her 2A, I'm not sure.
Anyway so you think this is a checking issue huh? Gotta try checking harder then! Any tips?

V, how does the lutz happen then? I mean the rotation from the edge should take you clockwise for counterclockwise skaters, and ccw for cw skaters? And yet, it doesn't at all.
Or does the rotation bounce back like a ball from a wall from the pick or something? Cuz I think I'm using my arms to rotate the most of any of my jumps on the lutz. Is that wrong?