Any tips on helping me improve my spins, jumps and extensions?

Question

Hi,

I have a problem w/ my waltz jump. Ever since I got confined *for dengue* I cant jump as high as I normally did. Any tips on helping me improve the height? Also, I have a hard time w/ doing split jumps. I cant really split, so its hard for me. this is how my split jump looks like --> ^ <-- those are my legs. So, any tips on helping me split? In spins, I cant do a proper sit spin. I can get a bit low, but not very low, and my free leg is always wrapped around the other leg *try to picture that because its hard to describe*. My coach has tried different techniques to help me lower the spin and straighten the leg. Tips on helping me lower the spin and straighten the leg? Also, how can I make my back spin faster and get more rotations? I can do about 4 or 5 rotations, 6 the most, but its rather slow. I cant exit it, because I always loose my balance before I have the chance to exit. Now, extensions. I want, well actually, my Mom wants, me to have a "Sasha Cohen" spiral. I can get my

Answer 1

WALTZ JUMP:  When you step into your waltz jump do you think about momentum?  When you take off for your waltz jump, really think about bending your left leg, like you&#039;re sinking into your knee.  Then, also think about the right leg behind you.  Some coaches will hate me for saying this but... When you take off, really bend your right leg behind you, then SNAP it through.  Really kick with it, point your toe.  And that&#039;s another thing, when you take off for your waltz jump, jump off your left foot&#039;s toepick.  If you jump off a flat blade, you won&#039;t get as much height.

SPLIT JUMPS: I have a huge problem with these too!  My coach laughs at me and says that split jumps don&#039;t JUST take flexibility.  He says you have to build up the muscles on your inner thigh, and when you go into a split jump, as your feet go up, you should flex those muscles and your legs will go higher.  I know it&#039;s a lot to think about.  My coach tells me to hold out my arms in a V in front of me, and practicing kicking my hands with my feet.  That way I&#039;ll build up the muscles needed to really kick in the split.

SIT SPIN: Oh boy.  I was horrible at these.  I still am, but I got a much nicer coach who says I can do &quot;great&quot; spins, haha.  His secret is to start low on a sit spin.  When you step in on your left foot, already have the knee bent.  It&#039;ll help because then you don&#039;t have to press down in a sit spin.  I step into the spin on a REALLY bent knee, and bring my right leg around and then press a little to go lower.  Also, I was wrapping my leg, it&#039;s a horrible habit.  My coach would make me practice holding a fist in between my knees when I was spinning.  It was hard, but it broke my habit.

BACK SPIN: These are tricky!  The deeper edges you get in the entrance of the spin, the faster you&#039;ll go.  Focus on your hips and shoulders, snapping them into the spin at the same time.  My coach only lets me practice back spins from an absolute standstill because he says it&#039;ll make my spin from edges even faster.  So just stand in the ice, bend your left leg with your right foot in the ice.  Have your left arm in front, right arm in back.  Then pull your arms in tight at the same time with your right leg and hopefully you&#039;ll get a good spin soon!

SPIRAL: Spirals are like split jumps.  You just have to work those muscles.  The more you work your muscles, the higher your spiral! But if your leg is hurting and you can&#039;t straighten it I would work on stretching first!

SPREAD EAGLE: You and me are opposites.  I straighten my legs SO much that my heels get caught in the ice and I get stuck, but that&#039;s exactly what you have to think about: heels.  Really press into your heels.  If you can&#039;t unbend your knees, your ankles aren&#039;t flexible enough.  Practice stretching your ankles by pressing your feet against anything in the same position you would for a spread eagle.  I normally stand in a door way and press my feet against the bottom of the frame.

Hopefully these will help!

Answer 2

okk sounds like you need a lot of help with these things. but i&#039;m sorry to tell you that you can&#039;t just be told how to do something and it will be fixed. you just need to work with your coach and train yourself to do things the right way. and for hight (which you don&#039;t really need for a waltz jump, (i&#039;m working on my axel and you need hight for that)) just bend your knees and put a lot of pressure into the ice, also pull your arms up, like they&#039;re trying to push you up in the air. good luck with that.

Answer 3

I think you should work on doing stregth training and flexibility.  For your waltz jump, practice doing it off ice.  For your split jump, practice doing the splits off the ice, this really helped me.  Doing strength training, such as squats, lunges, squat jumps, leg presses, and those types of exercises will help strengthen your leg muscles and you&#039;ll find it much easier to jump.  If you&#039;re able to jump higher, you&#039;ll have more time in the air to get to a full split position.  I think I can picture how your sit spin looks.  Practice doing a sit position on the ice without spinning and off the ice.  It may help not to go too low at first and just work on straightening your leg and then working your way to a lower sit position.  Again, doin stregthening exercises will help.  For your back spin, make sure you get a good deep entry edge and good hip snap into the spin.  Working on stregthening your core mucles will help with your balance.  You could do cruches and pilates to work these muscles.  For your spiral, work on doing simple floor streches since they really help.  Just doing floor streches (like dance streches) for just five minutes a day everyday really helped me.  Another good exercise is to hold your leg up in a spiral position off ice with a light ankle weight on your foot.  For your spred eagle, work on stregthening your hip flexer muscles.  I don&#039;t really know any exercies for this cause I&#039;ve always been naturally able to do spred eagles.  You may also want to try adjusting the width of your feet.  I think you should just work on getting stronger and more flexible overall and you&#039;ll find that this will help improve your skating.  It may be a good idea to also take a few dance classes if you don&#039;t take any already.

Answer 4

Heya,

For maxium height waltz jump, sometimes called the splitz waltz because they&#039;re so pretty (and your legs split  in a way, but don&#039;t go as fast as a split jump/stag), think of kicking up your leg. Really get your arms into it. Thrust them up then to your chest and then squeeze tightly. You want your backward crossovers to be up to speed for more power and make sure your entry doesn&#039;t last to long (or else the speed will just go away).

Split jumps/falling leaf jumps are somewhat a pain for me too. You don&#039;t have to be able to do the splits to do a split jump, but I&#039;m sure being able to do them helps. A split jump is basically kicking up your leg really high after a mohawk , I&#039;m sure you know. So focus on kicking up your leg really high. (but not as high as an extension) My coach always tells me to think of a &quot;freeze moment&quot; or like when someone took a photograph of you in the air with your legs split. Like I said before, they don&#039;t have to be parallel, but you want to think of that moment when your legs are split while you&#039;re jumping.

Sit spins are also annoying, but once you get it really well, you&#039;ll never forget it. Even though it&#039;s so blatantly obvious, practice both forward and backward shoot the ducks going really low, but not with your gluteus maximus sliding on the ice. Try not to hold your leg. This improves your calves and will help with the sit spin because it&#039;s better not to hold your leg while you&#039;re spinning.

As for the spinning part: always start at center, and don&#039;t rush to go down too fast. When you do your backward crossovers wind up, hold one cross for about 5- 10 seconds and then put a lot of power into the entry. Speed in the backward crossovers will help. Wait until you&#039;ve made a complete circle when you&#039;re in entry and then spin. If you only do a semicircle, chances are you will do a three turn and end up going into your spin backwards. That&#039;s definitely not good. Don&#039;t bend down in entry, if you&#039;re doing this, chances are you&#039;re trying too hard to go down low.

Start in center then little by little lower your self. Make sure your hands are clasped tightly and you don&#039;t let go. This may be very hard at first, so you just need to perservere and practice practice practice. I know this sounds like something your coach would say, and maybe you&#039;ve done this before, but sit spins are STUBBORN. To straighten the leg, keep doing those shoot the ducks. To lower, lean forward (not too much). and kind of hold your body real tight.

I&#039;m sure you know all spins need to be on the sweet spot, or the ball of your foot. For the backspin, you might want to try a change foot spin first because the regular forward one foot spin gives you more power and speed. If that doesn&#039;t work bend low and summon all the power in your body to wind up. Hold your arms and legs VERY VERY tight. Sometimes it helps to think of holding your legs and arms tighter than you think is reasonable, becuase air pockets in the arms and legs makes you go slower. Believe me, your back spin sounds a lot better than mine!

For exiting, when you stop spinning, finish it off, don&#039;t try to do more rotations. Sometimes you might want to end your spin earlier in order to get your check out nice and even. It&#039;s better to end your spin nicely than have a long one that just stops abruptly.

Extensions, do lots of stretches before and arch your back. Keep your arms behind you and look up. Your spiral sounds good to me, and I&#039;m not that flexible. I would focus more on your other stuff before you try to make your spiral even better.

Now, the spread eagle. Make sure you really bend your knees. If you have taken ballet, think of doing the best second position ever. (Bent legs, feet turned out, but spread apart from each other).

If you keep on doing the same wrong thing, stop, skate around, or even stop for a snack break. This will prevent bad habits.

You may want to take some power stroking and strength/endurance/flexibility classes. Practice everything off ice in fuzzy socks on stone floor. I know it sounds really silly, but it helps me a lot!!!

Good luck and I hope this helps!

Always,

MeowMeow