flying spins - least to most difficult

[leap of faith]

How do these rate in difficulty?
just a curiosity question.

[Skatingsarah]

Okay I'll give it a go

1-Flying camel is probably the easiest
2-Flying Sit (no change of foot) Its actually easy to do it not properly with a tiny hop. But OMG to get the flying postition and the snap thats another mission
3-Death Drop I'm not a big death drop person but it definetly isn't all its cracked up to be. Its hard to get the suspended feeling before you actaully hit the ice.
4Butterfly-Finally I would have to say this is pretty hard. I'm sure once you get the hang of the preparation its not that bad. I personally think its not all that easy.....at all.

Thats all thats coming to mind now. I'm sure some of you dissagree but personally thats exactly how I find em.

[icenut84]

This is just a guess, but I would have said the order was:
1) flying camel (I'm pretty sure this is the easiest)
2) flying sit (I've seen a skater at my rink try those, but I'm pretty sure she didn't have a death drop or butterfly). I don't know about this one though.
3) Butterfly
4) Death drop

That's just what I would have said though. I'd have said the death drop was harder than the butterfly because that's what most of the top skaters do in the SP (where they usually do the hardest elements). I'm likely wrong though :)

[Dustin]

Well this is from my experience, I never bothered to find out which is considered the 'hardest' by the judges:

Easiest to Hardest:
1. Flying Camel - by far the most basic.
2. Death Drop
3. Butterfly
4. Flying sit - it is much harder than it looks to get the sit spin position in the air and then land in a fast and low sit spin.

[tidesong]

well in isi, if you go by level,
flying camel (fs7)
flying sit (fs8)
death drop or butterflys in a row (fs10)

[leap of faith]

Does the choice of flying spin factor into the basemark for the SP?

I wish we would see more flying sits. They seem to be a rareity these days.

[Louis]

The choice of flying spin does factor in to the basemark in the short program, but doing the flying spin properly is of the utmost importance. Even top skaters have difficulty achieving the correct air position in the deathdrop, flying sit, and flying reverse sit. Lack of the proper air position can be a deduction of up to 0.3.

Flying sits are very, very hard to perform with the correct air position. Every other year, the flying sit is required for junior-level skaters, and I can guarantee that in any given competition more skaters will receive deductions on the flying sit spin than for any jump mistake.

When Sasha Cohen competed at Junior Worlds, she did a beautiful flying sit spin. I wish she'd consider bringing it back.

[rjblue]

A good flying sit seems to be the hardest. A few years ago it was a required element for the pre-novice short, and none of the ladies at our rink could do one, but some of them could do butterflies. Flying camel seems to be a lot easier, and I have seen a few death drops too.

[Lee]

Brat Daughter learned how to do a flying sit (and had one of the best in even the Novice category in our section) first, but still finds the deathdrop/back-sit easier. She said she's afraid to try to Arabians, which I find a little weird because she has no problem flinging herself into the death drop. Am I missing some differences is what's being done there? She's never really explained it to me... She does include a deathdrop in every program she does, including interpretives.

[Skatingsarah]

Just to make everything more interesting the element in this years Novice and Pre-novice Short programs is the...
FLYING SIT
So now everyone will be able to see the success or the unsuccessful attempts.. So not looking forward to it personally!

[kayskate]

I have worked on all of these spins (except the flying reverse sit) as an adult skater, so IMO, none of them are very hard to do. However, doing them *well* is another story. The flying camel is definitely the easiest. Achieving a good position in the flying sit is very hard to do. Getting the extreme height in a death drop that Boitano achieves is also extremely hard. However, doing a basic death drop is not too bad. Butterflies are very easy to attempt. However, getting a good high scissoring of the legs is tough. My guess is the flying reverse sit may be the hardest for the developing skater to attempt b/c a high jump is req'd to change axes in the air. The others may all be attempted as small safe versions until the skater gets comfortable w/ the skill and really goes for it.

For those who skate, the Lussi tapes offer excellent instruction for the flying camel and sit. The Magic of Style (v2) has an excellent section on learning butterflies.

Kay

[hoptoad]

Kayskate, can you give a brief adult skater version of the difference between the butterfly and deathdrop and how each is entered? I'm not aspiring to try it anytime soon, but I'd like to know what to look for.

[kayskate]

A death drop is aka a "flying camel sit spin" or an "open axel sit spin". The entrance when done more impressively is a higher jump than a flying camel and drops to a bsit. A butterfly involves scissoring of the legs in the air (resembles wings fluttering) and does not necessrily land in a spin. Can be done in a series. For instructional info, the tapes I mentioned previously are excellent.

Kay

[Ellyn]

Originally posted by kayskate
My guess is the flying reverse sit may be the hardest for the developing skater to attempt b/c a high jump is req'd to change axes in the air. The others may all be attempted as small safe versions until the skater gets comfortable w/ the skill and really goes for it.

Actually, I can do better with the change-foot flying sitspin (or axel flying sit, but I don't go around 1.5 times in the air!) than forward flying sit. That is what you mean by "flying reverse sit," isn't it?

The forward flying sit was actually the first flying spin I learned as a kid, but at the preliminary level it's more like a little hop than actually flying. And I still can't do it as more than a hop or get the bottom leg tucked up in the air. Most of the time my blade probably doesn't clear the ice by more than an inch!

At least with the change-foot version, it's easier to get both feet up off the ice at the same time by a significant amount, even if my center of gravity as a whole doesn't noticeably go up.

I haven't attempted deathdrops or butterflies.

So I would say forward flying sit is one of the easiest flying spins to attempt a beinner version of, but possibly the hardest to get a really good air position in. For me, change-foot/reverse flying sit is second easiest after flying camel.

[icenut84]

Originally posted by hoptoad
Kayskate, can you give a brief adult skater version of the difference between the butterfly and deathdrop and how each is entered? I'm not aspiring to try it anytime soon, but I'd like to know what to look for.

Do you want to know what to look for when watching skating on TV? A death drop takes off on a forward edge. The free leg swings up and round, and they seem to rotate in the air before landing in a back sit spin. They are usually bigger than butterflies. For a butterfly, the skater almost stops before doing it, they kick their legs up behind them in a scissoring motion. It is usually landed in a back sit spin, but not always. (Do you have Elvis Stojko's 97 LP on tape? He does a series of seven butterflies in a row near the end). (BTW, those descriptions are not technical, as I can't do either, but might help you identify them). Some other examples - Sasha Cohen's SP at the Olympics contained a death drop. Irina Slutskaya did a butterfly following the 3 loop in her LP.

[hoptoad]

Thanks :) I'm a member of the love to jump but don't care to spin club. Someday if I start skating again, maybe the prospect of a deathdrop will help me focus on the spins.