Hi, for Skate UK level 9 i have to do continuous BO curves

coach showed me them last thurs and i tried to practice them today however i have a few questions

where should the free leg be? side by side with the skating foot?, extended behind or in front of the skating foot?......

what is the correct arm position?

i am doing them on the red lines which go across the rink at the top and bottom of the rink.

i can do the actual curves on the outside edge and i have enough power its just i want to have them perfect with correct arm and free leg position before my thursday lesson becuase i am hoping to test level 9 on thursday.

I don't know if this is supposed to look like our USFSA BO edges, but if it is...

1) Free leg in front of the skating leg at the beginning of the lobe and moving smoothly to behind the skating leg after the top of the lobe

2) skating hand/arm leading at the beginning of the lobe and swapping smoothly at the top of the lobe.

But, you are probably best off talking to a coach familiar with your requirements!

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Gordon Zaft
http://sk8rboi.blogspot.com
School figures are skating's equivalent of the Latin Mass.

that sounds similar to our BO curves

would the knee of the free leg be bent or straight at the beginning of the lobe when it is infront of the skating leg?

Although I am now doing them as Gordon described, I did them in a simpler way for my SkateUK 9.

Push back, and keep the free leg extended in front for the duration of the curve.

Keep the same arm in front as the free leg - I remember my coach telling me this after me trying to change them halfway through, and it felt a lot more secure after that!

So more or less (for this level anyway), I stayed in the same position throughout the curve, before coming back to the main axis and pushing off on the other foot, keeping the same arm in front as the free leg.

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Amanda

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

My Skating Journal

hi airyfairy

it does feel weird trying to change the arms in the middle of the lobe , i was moving the arms clockwise but it felt like they should be going anti clockwise! confused much?!

You will need to change your arms halfway when you start taking the free leg through from front to back, which I think is why it is a lot easier at this stage to keep the leg extended at the front and not change arms.

BO curves quite scared me for a while, and the less I had to think about (ie. changing position), the better!

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Amanda

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

My Skating Journal

i have managed to get the hang of them pretty well in less than a week just the niggly bits e.g. arms that still need sorting

i completeley forgot that i need continuous BI curves aswell if i want to test Level 9 on thursday......so dont know if thats going to happen now.

do you have any tips for continuous BI curves?

I was always taught to do back outside edge rolls with the change of arms at the top of the lobe. For me this helped me to stay on my edge and to "finish" the lobe where I was supposed to. Plus, too many of my early coaches LOVED school figures, so doing edges and such exactly right was imperative. And learning how to change my arms has helped me now on my Moves in the Field (US) so that I am in control of my edges.

oh, so its worth learning to do it right at the beginning?

Personally, I am a big advocate of learning things the proper way the first time around, even if it is more difficult at the time...this is because sometimes those bad habits can be hard to break later....

very true

ill try it the proper way on thursday then!

There's nothing worth knowing how to do in skating or life that should be learned badly at first.

In skating, it always pays to take a little longer to learn the right way from the start.
It may take longer to land this jump or hold that spin, but in the end more difficult things take less time to master with the proper foundation.

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Isk8NYC, I was JUST talking about this with some folks at the rink and with my mom We were talking about my lessons when I was a kid and how the basics were stressed, even with jumps...I have noticed, where I am skating now, there are some younger students who cannot quite land single revolution jumps cleanly (1/2 rotation, spinning the other half on the ice) who are working on axels.

It is sooooo important to have a good foundation to build upon! Solid edges, comfortable turns, powerful crossovers, etc. You will be able to progress much farther if you have this, as I think some of the skaters at my rink might find out the hard way....

Push off really horizontal to the travel line (if you push off in the direction of travel you end up going to the curve too soon) and keep the thighs together, don't spread your legs like at the gynecologist's.

That is, assuming we're talking about the same back inside edges we do here in swamp land...

Getting it right from the beginning is 100% worth it. Didn't get why my teachers were so big on 3-turns until I started doing jumps, then I discovered a perfect and consistent 3-turn made it possible to isolate the problem in the jump. If you can't do a consistent 3 turn you can't do a consistent jump either, cuz then every time will be different. Good solid edges really help stuff like hydroblades, spirals and that sort of stuff too!

Ahhh I'm doing these soon - 'they're a lot harder than forward ones, and more confusing, so we'll leave those for now' - reeeally reassuring!

helen88 lol thats encouraging!!

skating the acutal backwards curve is ok the arm and leg position confuses me tho lol!

Do you mean perpendicular?

Yes, I do.
Also, keep the position until you're halfway (don't start turning your arms and shoulders right away) in the curve - this seems hard at first but makes it easier later on.
And on the second half of the curve, point your toe to where you want to be going. And look where you're going all the time on the back curves, outside of the circle on first half and inside of the circle on second half for back inside edges: that's the hardest part if you're practicing on public ice because of the large blind spot, but if you don't, at least for me, the entire position goes out of whack.

Also I discovered I get a cleaner back inside edge if I lift my little toes in the skate, pull them up sorta, next to pressing on the inside.