When my coach was finally satisfied with the status of my building block skills, he began instruction for the axel: granddaddy of all jumps, the big enchilada, the Holy Grail.
Our work began on the central hockey circle in slow motion. We started with the typical combination exercises before Preston finally encouraged me to jump upward and complete the backspin in the air. Not much of consequence happened during that first attempt. My legs remained open, I hunched my torso, and landed on both feet facing forward. The quest had begun.
Coaches use many analogies to describe the action of the axel jump to their students. I have heard all of them. One that Preston especially liked involved skipping two steps on a staircase. This meant the skater had to raise his bent knee and reach up, thus lifting into the air. He walked through this motion then performed a different version in which he stepped up while turning backward on the target step. My attempts involved swinging the free leg in an arc and committing the sin of “jumping around myself” as opposed to pivoting on the rotational axis of a backspin.
After a couple of weeks of these exercises, Preston strung me up in a jump harness. A skating harness resembles a skydiver’s parachute gear. A belt buckles around the rib cage and straps hug the shoulders preventing the skater from twisting in the harness. Hooks secure a rope to each shoulder. A pulley mechanism allows the instructor to lift the student as the entire assembly moves along a cable track like a dog on a running line.
Opinions vary on the utility of the harness. Some coaches and students love it; others think it is not worthwhile. Those who oppose harness training often claim a jump in a harness does not feel like a jump performed independently. This is probably true. However, the objective of the harness is not necessarily to duplicate the sensations experienced by a veteran athlete performing a multi-revolution stunt. In many cases, the harness allows a pupil to experiment with aerial movement, providing ample airtime to achieve the elusive backspin position. It also quells fear, particularly in more mature skaters. Fear limits the performance of many adult participants. Grown people are often afraid to leave the safety of the ice and try to do something while helplessly airborne for a fraction of a second. The harness allows a relative harmless format for exploring flight.
It can also function as a psychological spotter. The coach gradually lifts the student less and less until she performs the skill alone. However, the instructor is always on hand to break a potentially dangerous fall. This approach works well for adults as well as young people, particularly when younger athletes learn the most difficult jumps including the double axel and triples. It can also help cautious adults learn the basic singles.
Admittedly, I felt a little ridiculous the first time Preston held the harness out and encouraged me to strap myself in. He scratched a line across the width of the rink with the heel of his blade and showed me how to approach a jump using this contraption. Since the skater’s mobility is limited by the overhead track, entrances are similarly curtailed. We started with waltz jumps, which gave me an opportunity to conform to the appropriate preparatory pattern and become accustomed to being lifted as I jumped. In order for a harness lesson to have value, the skater must participate in the jumping process. The coach does not simply lift the student off the ice; the student must initiate the jump and rotation himself.
The first time Preston actually lifted me, I felt as though I should have been wearing a Peter Pan costume and sprinkling fairy dust all over the arena. The artificial sensation of assisted flight disoriented me. I had too much time in the air. Of course, I was supposed to use this contrived moment to cross my legs and discover the backspin position. After a few attempts, I understood the process and achieved the proper pose. Soon, I jumped more aggressively than I would have by myself on the hockey circle, always trusting my Australian coach to save my body from certain peril. A secure environment permitted sincere effort. I did not feel limited by fear, lack of experience, or other restrictions. I made the most of each trial. However, as soon as Preston removed the harness, my bravery evaporated. This is one of the problems students face in the harness and why some pundits consider it a waste. It can be too safe, making a hesitant pupil even more nervous when working independently.
Although conditions are generally nonideal over the summer due to crowds, odd hours, and training camps, I persevered with the axel. Morning sessions were not available, so I signed up for a couple of early afternoon low freestyles. A couple dozen children, ranging in age from about six to thirteen years old, usually occupied the ice. Several adults also joined this group. Since most people, young or older, possessed roughly the same skills, the session did not deteriorate into a “survival of the fittest” contest with the most aggressive advanced athletes driving the meeker beginners into the corners. For summer ice, the conditions could have been much worse, and they did get worse as the season progressed. Eventually, the management allowed higher-level skaters to rehearse for the summer talent show on this otherwise pleasant session. I complained to Preston, but he told me to take my concerns to the skating school office, though nothing was likely to happen. In order to get results, parents of the other children would have to object. Complaints from a few adult skaters rarely demand action. Adults simply do not constitute enough of a rink’s business to force change.
Before the inevitable demise of the acceptable low freestyle session, I practiced my axels whenever I came to the rink. Preston put me in the harness almost every week. We had a weekly forty-minute lesson, a fraction of which was spent in the training contraption bolstering my confidence. We worked through axel drills, building up to the coveted jump. For variety, Preston included spin exercises in each lesson, which also developed my self-assurance. While pressing myself for the most difficult of the basic jumps, I performed better spins. Trying something harder made the skills I already owned seem much simpler and more intuitive. My body was in excellent condition and my courage grew continuously.
Midway through the summer, Preston added the double salchow to my list of challenges. I had attempted double salchows with Orville, and probably rotated better from this take-off than the treacherous forward edge leading to the axel. Preston immediately declared the salchow superior to the axel, and predicted it would be the first multi-rotation jump I would land successfully.
The theoretical hierarchy of skating skills suggests the axel is a simpler jump than a double of any sort; the salchow and toe loop are usually identified as the easiest doubles. However, many skaters find these first doubles less problematic than the axel. The preparation for a salchow or toe loop usually incorporates a three-turn. Although other options are possible, the traditional entrance for a salchow requires a forward outside three-turn, while a forward inside three-turn initiates the toe loop. The momentum generated from the turn can be carried directly into the jump. In contrast, the axel demands solid, square placement of hips and shoulders during the forward preparatory edge. All rotational momentum occurs in the take-off itself and subsequent snap into the backspin position. The axel is the most technical of all jumps, commanding the greatest precision and timing as well as flawless body position.
When people commit to the sport of figure skating, they usually formulate an axel goal. This is true for both children and adults. The axel represents a barrier, a glass ceiling of sorts. One of the skating mothers at the Arctic Circle decided not to entrust family resources to her child’s skating until the girl surpassed the axel. Achieving that standard confirmed that the youngster possessed some level of ability worthy of further exploration. Shortly after breaking the axel barrier, that young girl learned all of the doubles and began tackle the next yardstick skill, the double axel. Therefore, the axel serves as the criterion that separates beginner from intermediate. It is a stopcock through which only the promising can pass. I have never met anyone whose goal was to learn a double salchow.
To simulate the fluidity of motion in an axel that I gained from a three-turn entrance into a double salchow, Preston suggested performing a series of at least two waltz jumps into an axel. The waltzes lowered my inhibition and focused my concentration on jumping straight out. For the final jump, I would step up on the imaginary staircase and pivot into rotation. Compounded with all of Preston’s other little training exercises, this one produced the best results.
During the last minutes of a summertime low freestyle session, after practicing axel drills interspersed with other goodies for about two hours, I did a couple of waltz jumps and lifted into the air for a familiar moment. Instead of landing clumsily on both feet (or my derriere) one blade contacted the ice while the other leg instinctively stretched into landing extension. No one witnessed the feat. Preston was long gone, and the ice had cleared except for an older adult skater stepping through a basic dance pattern. The Zamboni revved its engine in the garage, about to overtake the arena and force dawdlers off the ice.
I had managed to land an axel-thing. It was not perfect. It was not even good. The paramount achievement in my adult skating career to that point, it remains the most memorable. I have completed far greater spins, combinations, and flying variations; many senior competitive quality. However, I doubt any of them meant as much to me as that one remedial, sloppy axel. The axel is figure skating’s Holy Grail. No one enters the sport hoping to someday land a flying camel. Once involved, a flying camel is always nice, but the axel remains the ultimate prize. And I had completed one; my first axel after the age of thirty.
Gloved hands wiped my face, and I inhaled a sob. Overwhelmed with emotion, tears of joy spilled out of my eyes and rolled down my cold cheeks. I had not cried when I earned my doctorate, passing the final oral examination and being called “Doctor Northcott” by my advisor. Somehow that triumph did not ignite the same passion as one ugly axel in an empty rink. The axel was personal; the degree was not. The axel came from my soul, from my deepest aspirations. It fulfilled a childhood dream. I did what no one believed I could do. I was an adult who could land an axel.
If I thought my first legitimate axel attempt earlier that spring initiated the quest, I was completely unprepared for the task ahead. My first axel was under-rotated, small, and unsightly. It represented a beginning, not a victory. Creating a respectable jump from this raw material would be more difficult than landing that first primordial axel. I had not found the Holy Grail, but I thought I knew where to look.
That spring, after Preston Reece and I had been together for about a year, I began to work on the illustrious axel. He evaluated my waltz jump, fine-tuning it for evolution. He drilled me on waltz-loop combinations and waltz-loop-loop combinations as well as waltz jumps that landed in a backspin. These traditional exercises teach the student to jump straight out and up before rotating. They also reinforce the correct rotational position with the free hip lifted, and the free leg ideally crossed over the skating leg in a backspin posture. We stalled for a few weeks at the waltz stage. Apparently, I had been influenced by Arctic Circle Pete’s “jump over the fence” philosophy and tended to throw my leading leg around in the simple waltz jump. Preston wanted to see a straight entrance before proceeding to the next step. Old habits die hard, but once I mastered the proper technique, my basic waltz jump achieved greater vertical and longitudinal displacement.
Chapter 79 posted 9/5/03
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