Now, my salchow is very pretty and high, and works fine when I'm doing it alone. But now I'm supposed to be doing a salchow-toeloop and I can't seem to land and keep my free leg in the front. And when I do, I curve around a lot and lose my balance. Is there supposed to be a consious movement of my feet/legs so that they're crossed, during this jump? Like, should I be thinking about crossing my right foot under the left once I take off? This has just been frustrating me for the past couple of weeks.

Okay, here's what I do, (and I'm not sure this is correct so if anyone more experienced says different listen to them not me!)

I found the secret is to not put too much 'mmph' into the Salchow. I don't mean do a wimpy one, just a slightly-lower-and-gentler than usual. That way, when you land, the free leg is already extended behind you but your not going to fast, so you can simply simply lower the pick into the ice and jump off.

S xx

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I'm not sure I understand...do you mean a loop not a toeloop???
if you were doing a salchow-loop then yes you need your free leg in front, but if it's just a toeloop your free leg will be extended back ready to pick.

I haven't landed a loop yet so I can't really offer too much advice on it, but I would recommend practicing loop-loop combinations, or even just waltz-loop, to help with controlling the free leg in front after a jump and then going into the next in those combos.

I think I meant the loop.. Now that I think about it, I don't really remember what I'm supposed to be doing. Wow. It's probably the salchow-loop that I'm thinking about.

For the salchow-loop, make the salchow small and controlled, and once you reach the top of the jump, point your landing toes and turn your landing hip in to face the free leg (rather than swinging the free leg around to get backwards for the landing). If you just turn the landing hip in to face the free leg, you will find that you are already backwards and checked and now you have the choice of passing the free leg straight back and doing a toeloop or leaving it in front and landing in loop takeoff position.
If you have a decent waltz-loop, then warm up with those first, since it's the exact same air position and landing position as the salchow-loop.

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