I hear a lot about your jumps and spins...it may not be as much fun but do not neglect your crossovers, edges, 3 turns, mohawks...these will help your jumps and spins and they are essential to skating. If you should decide to test or compete, your jumps and spins will be worth nothing without those basic skills.

j

Get privates and less ice time!
The only thing the surplus ice time is doing at this point is enforcing bad habits.

Oh yeah and yes, those edges and 3-turns - it really is a good advice to pay attention to them. Consistent 3-turns will mean that you have at least 1 consistent factor in your jump takeoffs for the salchow and toe-loop which will mean you won't have to worry about THAT at least when working on those jumps! Inconsistent 3-turns could prove a serious problem learning those jumps.
Good edges (especially forward outisde) will help you majorly with your waltz take-off (I discussed not too long ago in the parents&coaches subforum what I've seen bad edges do to somebody's waltz take-off) and they'll help on the spins and other jumps (such as the lutz and loop further down the line) as well.

I hate doing them too which is why I often do them as a warm up or cooling down



Why are your spins holding you back? I had the lutz (inconsistent, but landed each 2-3 attempts in practice) and everything up to the loop consistent before I was able to get more than 3 revolutions out of my scratch spin... Is this holding back happening due to the set-up of the group class levels? If so then you definitely need privates! You could just be a natural jumper instead of a natural spinner. I've seen 1 girl who had her axel struggle with her backspin and camel to NO end...

It doesn't sound silly, it sounds potentially very bad for your skating. It may not be, it may help. But, if you aren't having luck with your spins on ice, and you're not getting instruction to tell you why you're having trouble, all a skate spinner is going to do is make any bad habits worse or create new ones. I absolutely agree that less ice-time and more instructions is the way to go. Once a bad-habit is learned, it takes months or more to un-learn it.

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"Without a struggle, there can be no progress" ~ Frederick Douglass

My spins are holding me back, because my teacher told me that I cannot learn more advanced jumps until I master my spin, because I will be in the "spinning position" when I do more advanced jumps. And really, all I can work on lately have been edges, 3-turns, lunges, crossovers, and the waltz jump. I reallllly want to learn that power-pull excercise (any advice on this?) As for the spins...urg. I've lost hope for now. Maybe later I will come back with new motivation, but yes, it really feels that I am reinforcing bad habits...my group teacher told me my spins looked better two weeks ago!!!!!! I have gotten some advice from teachers, but I get sooo frustrated that it is hard to practice now.

Wait until you have good edges, 3-turns and crossovers? Seriously, power pulls are on the Pre-Juv MIF test - there's a reason you have to pass the first 2 tests before you work on those. Everything in skating builds on what you have learned before. If you don't master the basics, you won't get the advanced stuff. I strongly suggest you get a coach, b/c you're really trying to learn things out of order. The "spinning position" the instructor was referring to is the backspin (which you learn after the forward upright) - and the "advanced jumps" are the loop and all jumps after that - flip, lutz, axel, doubles, etc. But you are nowhere near ready to work on that. I suspect your instructor was just giving you info about skating for future reference.

Yes, learning the basics is boring, but you won't be able to learn the harder stuff until you do. As others here have said, this sport requires patience.

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Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

Guess what, if you want good jumps you need good edges! Edges are the fundamentals of skating. You can't expect to skate like an Olympic champion after 4 months (well you can hope but I seriously doubt it will happen).

If I were you I'd find a couple of friends from your group classes and go skate public sessions with them. Then at least you can skate around chatting with them (as they'll be equally frustrated about their progress) and you're practicing your crossovers and stroking without thinking about it that way. You're also not pushing yourself to learn things that you're not ready for.

And pay attention when you're in class. Coaches have the habit of dropping in little exercises which are there to help you progress towards harder things like power pulls and back spins. If you pay attention for when those little exercises are dropped in, you collect other things to practice.

I came out of group lessons with stronger edges than those who dropped out earlier, mainly because I picked up on the little exercises and I worked on those. And I also didn't rush to learn to jump and spin. The sport's about SKATING not jumping (otherwise they'd have called it that). So just work on the basics. There are multiple exercises with crossovers to help improve them and also for three turns. One I've done on three turns and edges, is firstly, how many turns does it take to complete a hockey circle? Then reduce the number of turns. This means you've got to learn control of your forward and back edges. It's possible to get to one. And then just how far can you go on an edge around the circle? Or rather how many circles? And remember there are two feet with two edges... It's a challenge to do and if you can find someone at your level to work with, you can have a competition...

Not really... For the more advanced jumps, you'll need to have a solid *backspin* position, not so much a solid 1 foot spin position, and besides that only becomes a big issue with the loop and flip and above... Although I could definitely see why a coach would want spins and jumps to be more or less at the same level due to testing issues, group lessons issue etc.
Difference is that for a 1 foot spin, your centre of gravity goes over your left hip for ccw skaters (right hip for cw), and for the back spin and the in-air position on jumps, it's over the right hip for ccw skaters (left hip for cw) - in short, over the same hip as is your landing hip for jumps.

Of course you can't exactly go argue with your skating class policy in group class so yeah well...

if you work w/ a private coach, you may very well find that she won't hold you back until your spins are mastered. I don't work that way & frankly it surprises me---as others have said, it's the backspin position that is necessary for higher jumps, but even that really doesn't matter a whole heck of a lot until you're working on an axel. It helps w/ loop & flip & lutz, but you can do them w/o it.

I have a student that had jumps through lutz before she finally got a good sit spin. It just took her a long time, & the jumps were easier for her.

I remember when I was first being taught the salchow...my coach told me to not work on these without her around because she didn't want me to develop any bad habits. It also took me about a year and a half to have a passable one foot spin, and the private lessons really helped. I used to have group lessons with 1 15 minute private lesson afterwards, but ever since last summer I just completely switched to private lessons. I just found out that I need more attention and have my mistakes pointed out to me, and get more personalized feedback. Also, it didn't help to see my classmates get their one foot spin while I was still struggling (it made me feel more discouraged). I am learning the back spin part now for the change foot spin, and it is just NOT happening...but I know better now than to just up and quit...I just think of the moves that got me discouraged and almost made me want to quit, and how I overcame them eventually: Freestyle 1: backward outside edges, Freestyle 2: one foot spin. and I just think that this backspin will just be one of those things I'll get eventually with time and effort Also to tell you the truth, my 1 foot spin still needs finetuning as my coach says, and there are some lessons where they look bad again..and i would be like "OMG i'm regressing!" and she said to look at the overall picture...just compare to what it was evne just months ago, where every spin was a bad spin, while now I have good ones with a few bad ones every now and then.

Also have you had your blades checked? That could be a factor also. It might be time to upgrade to better boots/blades. When i was learning the waltz jump, I kept going on my toe and scraping instead of the backward edge. same thing wtih the two foot spin, i had no rocker at all. and my coach examined my blades (i was still using cheap beginnner skates then)...and she told me if i wanted to progress further i'll have to upgrade my skates which I did.