Hello!

I don't know why I cannot do a flip. It drives me crazy! I think I'm on the verge of an axel, but I actually have some sort of psychological block about the flip. For some reason it freaks out my 38 year old skater brain.

This has been going on for years!

So when you reach back and plant your toepick into the ice, your weight should transfer to that toepick and you are really taking off from that toepick?

My coach said the toepick is pulling you back, but then it seems like you're taking off from the other blade.

It's so weird that I just can't process this since I can do a toe loop and a loop, and a half flip. I think I have a fear of it and I have no idea why.

Thanks! I need to conquer this.

I worked on the flip today in lesson - well, to put it more accurately, I worked on the setup for the flip - can't do the actual jump yet. What your coach is saying is correct. Assuming you jump CCW, when you reach back with your toe pick, your weight should transfer to your right side, just like with the loop. It's your toe pick that you are leaning on and jumping off of - your free foot gets pulled back toward your toe and you are turning and jumping off of your toe pick.

You should be transferring all of your weight to your picking foot. My keys for the flip:

1. Arms must be strongly checked. L arm straight in front and R arm straight back. I make sure I can see my L hand the whole time. My flips stink when I move my arm before I jump.

2. Reach waaaaay back with your R foot.

3. When you pick in, don't slam your foot into the ice. Pick in and push yourself up off the pick. Once the pick is in, you need to bend your knee to get the push-off. Lift your L knee at the same time to make sure your weight is on your R foot.

4. When you pull in, be sure not to rotate your upper body. Pull straight in from your checked position.

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And when you reach back, don't stand up again before you pick.

A common error is to have a nice deep knee bend and reach right back, but to virtually stand up straight again before you actually pick.

I don't know, some people like toe assisted jumps, others like the edge jumps.
Me, I love the picks.

How is it I can do a Flip and I can't get the feel of a Toe Loop? I get good height from the Flip....about 1 foot off the ice according to observers. But I get freaked out about using the left pick to launch.

Got any confidence building excersizes for using the other pick?

About vaulting off of the pick...on the Flip it seems efortless, like I just pop into the air. My Toe Loop just wants to stay on the ice.

Ah yes... flip mental block. Had that, and now have a lutz mental block.

The technique you are taught sounds right. I still don't do it correctly (jump off two feet instead of fully transfering weight to the picking leg), but what helped me land my first flips were two things: making sure to pick directly behind and not to the side, and then thinking "loop". Even now when my flip gets wonky, picking too much to the side is the most common reason.

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--renatele

Have you ever tried practicing it on a line? It really helps to get it all aligned...so that you aren't picking way out to the side or anything! Also, checking your arms really helps.

Yes all the weight gets shifted to the toepick....you do not not not take off from the other blade, if you do it's a "toe salchow" which is wrong (even though I think the flip IS called a toe salchow in England, isn't it?).

The way you'll know if you're doing it right is that if you do NOT take off from the forward foot, the gliding foot with draw a line, and then there will be a toepick mark and a landing curve mark. If you are keeping any weight on your front foot and if you take off on it at ALL, that glide back will have a little checkmark at the end, a little "V" shape, right before the gap between the end of the glide and the toepick mark. That means you're pre-rotating and are jumping off your front foot, not your picking foot. This is wrong wrong wrong. I know this because I have ALWAYS done it, and have spent my entire skating career fixing. It's fixed, then it comes back. Fixed, comes back. It's horrid, a nightmare. I don't do it on the lutz much, but way too often on the flip. So learn it correctly...because I didn't, and I suspect the result will always remain my battle.

Sometimes for me, practicing the loop before I start working on flip helps--helps me get the feeling of having the weight committed to the landing side.

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Hopefully, this isn't completely repetitive and there's something that hasn't been said yet. . .

1. Before pushing off onto LFO 3-turn, check your right arm back and have your left arm forward.

2. Using a line on the ice for a visual cue, push off slightly to the right of the line and do your LFO 3-turn to the right of the line. Make sure you stay on the right side of the line on the exit of the 3-turn (if you cross to the other side of the line, your 3-turn is too round).

3. On the 3-turn exit, make sure your edge has straightened out and you are not curving around. Have your left arm in front of you and your right arm pulled back. Also arch your back and pull your shoulder blades together and try to feel like a big magnet is pulling your whole body back. If you are even slightly leaned forward, you'll never be able to transfer your weight to your picking foot when you pick.

4. As you reach back to pick, keep your picking foot low and still, and pointed straight down to the ice. The faster you're going, the farther back you have to reach. Never lift teh picking foot just before picking and never bang it down hard. Instead, lock the knee out and point hard, keep it a few inches above the ice, then dig it in and pull yourself back and up in one sweeping motion. Again, your shoulders must be back (squeeze your shoulder blades together) and your back must be rigid as you do this; otherwise you'll be leaned forward and will never get the weight onto your right toe.

5. The faster you're going, the less time between the pick and the takeoff. You leave the ice just as your skating foot is catching up with your picking foot. If your left foot is still ahead and your picking foot still behind, it's impossible to get up in the air and you won't be over your right hip.

6. As you take off right over your right toe, remember that your upper body stays backward, even turned a tiny bit to the right. The rotation comes from twisting your hips as you take off. Your upper body never turns to face forward.

I have a flip mental block too!

Okay, I should ask...I know that your flip entry should be pretty straight. How straight should it be? (I have it slightly off the blue line...but it's not a big stinkin' curve.)

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jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
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Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

As straight as humanly possible, really. It should be on the shallowest outside edge going in, so you go into it straight, and then once you three turn, you're on the shallowest inside edge possible...then you glide back, reach back, and tap in, all while maintaining a straight line. If you curve that's where the problems happen. You *should* be able to remain completely on the blue line while doing it, cause the blue line is thick and there's enough room to allow for the shallow 3-turn on it. I always used to practice on the blue line, and by the end it would all fit within its width.

Maybe after this thread I should change my name to fliplover!

Well, I haven't been back to the rink yet.

I think I was still leaning forward though and couldn't transfer my weight to the picking foot. I will work on this Friday, thanks for your replies

I have trouble with the 3-turn going into the flip - the ice tracing shows a broad swoosh instead of a sharp 3. Is it that I'm not bending my knee enough at the right point? I know I have trouble keeping my hip open and that is part of the problem.

I feel the same way about the 1/2 flip (luv it!) vs. toe-loop (hate that !!!) I'm almost ready to do a full flip but I just hate the toe-loop.

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Okay.... the next question is how to get your 3turn "as shallow as humanly possible." Right now, my 3 turns is probably about a couple of inches short of staying on the blue line entirely and it's goes outside only on the actually FO3. The only method I know of that I've tried is this: Go on FO edge on a deep knee bend (which I suspect is probably what causing the 3turn to go outside the blue line, free leg behind me, then bring free foot to the skating foot as I go into the 3turn, come out of FO3 on a BI edge and then bring my free foot behind me. [1]

[1] Of course, I think the free foot is straight behind me...I haven't filmed myself doing the flip as of late.

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Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Exactly. Try to keep the 3-turn long and straight, but I would also suggest that you try pushing off slightly to the RIGHT of the line and aiming the 3-turn a little to the right of the line (this is the trick my coach taught me when I was having trouble with my flip). If you try to enter the 3-turn straight on the line instead of a little to the right, it will be more difficult to keep from over-rotating your 3-turn exit/jump entrance edge. Check your ice marks and make sure your LBI edge isn't crossing over to the other side of the line before you pick.

P.S. If your arms/shoulders are swinging you around, try doing the 3-turn only moving your body, but with your right arm facing the direction of the jump and your left arm facing the direction your coming from. Basically, this keeps your upper body rotation to a bare minimum and automatically checks your rotation on the 3-turn exit.

Before the 3-turn, I like to start with my my left arm in front and my right arm pulled back to prepare me for the pushoff to the right of the line. Then, as I push off for the LFO 3-turn, I scissor my arms so that the right arm is in front (facing the direction of travel) and the left arm is in back (facing the direction I'm coming from) for the 3-turn. When I do the 3-turn, I only rotate my body, keeping the arms exactly where they are, so that I end up turning to face my left arm, which is still facing the direction I'm coming from, and my right arm is now behind me (still extended in the direction of travel).

Okay, what I do may not work for you, but it's the only way I ever fixed mine so here it goes:

What I do is when I go into the three turn, this is while I'm still gliding on one foot going forwards, right before the push of the other leg into the three turn...I start to curve in the opposite direction than what my body wants to do. This means that if you are a CCW jumper like me...you are gliding on your left foot with the right foot in front of you, and when you push with the right foot, before you turn to go backwards, start arching towards the right, that way it'll counteract any curving or "swooshing" motion during the 3 turn itself and put you on a pretty much flat edge once you go backwards. Now of course when I say curve to the right, I don't mean go full on inside edge to your right, but when you push, push towards the right, go in that direction, because typically when people push, they push out towards the left which gives the 3-turn too much swing and ends up throwing you wayyyyy too far out to the left.

This is what works for me, give it a go and see how it works. I haven't tried this on the blue line or anything, and I go pretty fast, so I'm not sure it would have the same effect if you are trying it on the blue line, but once you're ready to go full speed with it, give it a go and see if it can't help straighten out your 3-turn like it did mine.

Otherwise, there is always the mohawk position!!! One of my coaches made me do double flips from mohawks, and only when I got them clean did he let me switch back to 3-turns, and I realized that spending so long doing them from mohawks had REALLY straightened out my whole entrance. It's really hard to do at first, but it'll help in the long run, so you could try and do it that way for a while too. just do right inside to left inside mohawk and pick in!

What do you mean by broad swoosh? Maybe the mohawk approach I wrote to Jazzpants above would help you out?

I'm working on this jump as well. We started up again today during lesson, after a while off. The first two were kind of ok, but the third one was actually "good" according to my coach. Then I could not get another one to save my life. Once I started thinking...

I have multiple probs in this jump. The worst is the lack of weight xfer to R side. Though I can do a loop fairly well. It doesn't seem to help me in the flip. The probs begin with no weight xfer, plus a strong check, essentially stopping the jump, THEN trying to jump from that point. And dragging my free foot toe pick on what little pull back I have. Though I am getting my free leg crossed in front now, as opposed to having it right next to my R leg.

I understand the jump the same way you describe. I hope these suggestions that work for me aren't already somewhere in this thread, I don't think I saw them.

When the jump works for me (not too often), I find I've thought of only two things.....

First it's the timing, which for me is a "1, 2, 'and' 3" thing:

1. front part of 3
2. back part of 3, held equally long as front part
3. "and" (bend L knee more, reach back)
4. pick and jump

Second, during the timing part, I think RIGHT SIDE when I reach back, which encourages me to xfer my weight by the time I pick in.

FWIW to anyone.

I told my instructor last night that I wanted to get a good toe loop. He had me practicing Mazurkas. Really reaching to way inside of the arc with the picking foot. It's helping me get better at vaulting off of the pick.

If you aren't getting enough weight transferred onto your picking foot and you also find that your free foot toe pick is dragging and scraping, you are probably leaning forward instead of pulling your torso back on the entrance edge (achieved by arching your back and pulling your shoulders back).

Question....have you been talking to my coach? Thanks for the tips.....hmmm, where have I heard that before?!

I think my technique is improving, very slowly. The few I got the other day were better than before. But then I lose it again. For days. For all the reasons you mention.

LOL! I think it's very psychological. When you are afraid of a jump, your torso pulls away from in instead of reaching toward it. On an axel, that means the torso leans back because you're approaching it forward, but on a flip and a lutz, it means you lean forward, since you're approaching it backward. All I can tell you is that on the flip and lutz, you want to feel like your entire body is trying to reach backward like a big magnet is pulling you back. You need to embrace the backward momentum, so to speak. Oh, speed helps. And trust. And confidence.