Figure Skating Journal, Reflections of an Adult Figure Skater

March 2005

Week of March 1, 2005
Axel Lessons Again

For months, I have threatened to try the axel again. This week Eileen and I met for a short lesson during which we focused entirely on the axel. The only reason I decided to tackle this jump once more is because Eileen’s teaching technique is different from others I have seen. After so many years of skating, I must overturn every stone. Where all else has failed, maybe her method will work for me.

Recently Eileen commented on another adult skater learning the axel under the tutelage of the skating director. This person lands about 70% of his axel attempts. Some of them are hopped or completed with a wild free leg. However, the other 30% are train wrecks. The poor fellow crashes to the ice in a miserable mound of flesh and warm clothing. Seeing and hearing his unfortunate body splatting on the ice makes me wince. In generally, this guy is not a remarkable skater. He is roughly a mediocre silver-level adult with weak spins. If he can do an axel, I should be able to do one. Eileen noticed that this person tends to jump around himself. She said he would not take such dramatic falls using her method. She also thinks his axel will vanish intermittently because of inconsistent technique.

Eileen teaches a two-foot stepwise method. She said she learned all of her jumps according to this formula. As a self-proclaimed nervous jumper, she describes this approach as ‘safe’. The progression is as follows:

Each step must be thoroughly mastered before continuing to the next. All take-offs are executed on a very straight trajectory. The leading leg kicks out; not around. The two-foot landings glide either backward or forward (as required); not on a curve. Each version must be perfectly controlled and secure. Eileen believes an axel jump demands absolute control and confidence. While this technique may require more time to learn; it yields a reliable, permanent product. Additionally, the two-foot landings are physically comfortable and reduce the probability of falling, allowing the skater freedom to jump without fear. Elevating the skill to a one-foot axel does not occur until the skater has demonstrated control and complete rotation on both feet.

I graduated from the waltz step quickly and moved on to the full turn jump. Initially, I over-rotated this maneuver. However, I began to restrain myself and come out forward, as desired. A residual bit of rotation had to be dissipated by stepping into a spread eagle position. I will continue to work on this stage until I can check the rotation properly. During my lesson and independent practice, I never experienced the ominous risk of a dangerous wipeout. I felt perfectly content to experiment with this exercise and did not worry about shattering my body. Since the jumps land on both feet, a single knee did not absorb extraneous rotation by twisting. My shin did not quake from rough saves that should have been allowed to perish in a heap on the ice. I left the rink pleasantly sore from exercise; not aching from axel disasters.

I am excited about Eileen’s axel training. I might have a real chance at getting my very own axel out of this technique. Wouldn’t that be incredible after all of these years of trying, failing, and abandoning the mission? No promises, though; only hope and willingness to work.

Week of March 13, 2005
Axel Stuff

Last week, I did not have a lesson because I had to cancel again with the moves in the field guy due to another meeting at work. We may have to find another day to meet. This week, I took a lesson with Eileen, who caught me warming up. I had already completed several two-foot waltz jump exercises and had preceded to full rotation jumps. She immediately announced that I was kicking around. When she identified my take-off tracing on the ice, we found it to be deeply curved, such that I was no longer jumping in the intended direction. Back to the straight, two-footed waltz.

I am reasonably good at step one of the axel formula. Everything collapses when I try to complete a full turn. These are simply old habits, born primarily of doing axels incorrectly for many years, not that Geoff (my former coach) did not try to fix these problems. Jumping around one’s self is a common failing among axel beginners. Eileen’s method is designed to prevent or correct this error. A little girl at the time, Eileen learned to jump in the 1940s, Dick Button’s era. According to her, people achieved rotation in those days by creating a tight outside edge to initiate the jump, swinging the free leg around, and whipping the arms. As a young woman, another coach forced a frustrated old-school Eileen to relearn all of her jumps from scratch. Although I am not half the skater Eileen apparently was in her competitive youth, I face the same challenge.

Eileen noticed several other shortcomings in my technique. First, I tend to swing my arms forward before pulling them back. This drops the body forward when it should remain erect entering the jump. I remedied that one quickly. Second, I pull my arms in as though spinning, which naturally results from my talent for spinning. Once the arms pull around, the body begins to spin on the ice. Imagine that. Instead, the arms should draw close to the torso and up creating lift and tightness. This habit is a little harder to break. The most annoying of all my troubles is the misguided tendency to kick my leg in an arc rather than straight out. Eileen told me to choose a spot on the wall and aim for it. Once in the air for the waltz, I must pull in to generate rotation for the single turn pre-axel exercise. Logically, this makes sense. I perform it quite well in my driveway wearing sneakers. With ice under my feet, it is another story. Subconsciously, every horrifying past fall resurfaces and I do something familiar, no matter how wrong it might be.

In spite of poor technique, I complete full axel rotation. Eileen suggested I try to land it on one foot. However, that is not the objective of resuming axel training years after abandoning the ill-fated quest. I do not want to do what I did before. I want to learn a better method that might produce safer, more secure results. I told Eileen I am prepared to take my time, and learn the right way.

Our fifteen minutes over, I continued to practice on my own. After several more waltz drills, I sincerely attempted the full-rotation version. Admittedly, I felt a twinge of fear. Fear destroys adult skaters. Uncommitted to the jump, I ‘waxelled’ (my take-off edge slipped out from under me) and sprawled on my backside, embarrassed and shaken. Back to waltz jumps on the ice and axels in the driveway.

Week of March 20, 2005
Clumsy Lefty

I cannot help but notice the skaters around me. Sometimes I notice them because they are good or perform certain elements admirably, but I also notice those who skate poorly. By “poorly”, I do not mean to indicate beginners. In fact, beginners represent untapped potential. While I can usually identify talent, it is hard to distinguish how much beginners can achieve given sufficient time and instruction. Poor quality skating can occur at any level beyond the first steps of a beginner. Poor skating can be as apparent in a senior lady as a preliminary girl. It can be grossly obvious among adults. However, it is most apparent among those who carry themselves loftily without the goods to back up the attitude. While my current subject does not possess an extreme attitude, she is quite confident and aggressive. As a low freestyle skater, she has plenty of room to polish her skills and create a more attractive presentation.

Observing this individual forced me to take note of several important details. Like me, the girl is a clockwise skater (commonly categorized as a “lefty”, though this designation is often not accurate). She is also about thirteen years old. The pubescent condition of her body contributes to the awkwardness of her skating. She is strangely tall with long gangly limbs divided by knobby knees and elbows. Once her growth spurt subsides and the child’s body fills to normal proportions she may be quite lovely. For now, these long flailing arms and legs oppose the potential beauty of her movement. This leads me to my first important observation: control thy limbs. During my brief interlude as a roller dancer last year, my instructor strictly insisted upon specific arm and free leg positions. These were standard poses for basic dancing. I have applied them to my ice skating.

As a lefty, I am particularly interested in the technique of others of my minority. I suspect some of our peculiarities may result from constantly fighting traffic. I blame my unusual spin prowess on this problem. As a beginner, I was afraid to get out into the commotion and skate head-on into the throng. Therefore, I remained contentedly in the center of the rink becoming an excellent spinner. This left me with a deficiency that has taken years to overcome. The teenage lefty does not seem to possess extraordinary spins; spins beyond the quality of her other skills. However, she is guilty of some of the jumping technical errors Eileen has identified my skating. She picks to the side to initiate flip jumps. Ideally, the free leg should extend straight back while riding a very shallow (almost straight backward inside edge) and tap the ice in line with the direction of travel. This yields more height and distance in the jump. I never noticed how unsightly parting of the legs appears when picking off to the side. I shall never willingly do that again. After watching this kid, I worked flips until they were almost perfectly straight.

The girl also jumps around herself to create rotation in a waltz jump. Eileen has preached sternly about the inappropriateness of this technique, which essentially precludes ever learning a decent axel. Possibly lefties do this to truncate their jumps in the face of on-comers. Best not to jump too far and glide out too straight; might have a head-on collision. I don’t worry about that anymore. Pick a spot in front of you on the wall and kick it. Hold the landing.

Then there’s the butt-ugly sit spin. Fortunately, I never suffered from this afflication. The long clumsy free leg wraps needlessly around the skating leg, opening an unattractive gap between the thighs. Pull those legs together! My first coaches preferred a straight extended free leg with the foot turned out. Thankfully, I learned that method from the beginning.

I could list several more problems, most having to do with leg separation and wide-stepping, two cardinal sins of the freestyle skating world. Leg separation works for split jumps, spirals, eagles and camels. It looks like crap for most everything else. Wide-stepping may simplify dance and moves steps, creating a wider base for balance and reducing the probability of a heart-stopping blade click, but the price in terms of aesthetics is simply too high. I will analyze my skills and eliminate this handicap.

The young skater may learn to correct these deficiencies in her own skating. I appreciated the opportunity to observe someone else and learn from her mistakes. I can become a better skater by taking example from better skaters as well as those who are less accomplished.

Week of March 27, 2005
Eagle Droppings

A few weeks ago I wrote about a teenage coach named “Johnny”. Well, Johnny is omnipresent. He apparently comes to the rink straight from school and practices, which is perfectly admirable. I wish I had that opportunity as a young person. Johnny also has the good fortune to earn money teaching group classes and private lessons. He gets free ice time, as do all of the pros. Here’s the caveat: like many teenage skaters, he is not nearly as good as he thinks. Johnny recently passed preliminary moves in the field. I have not noticed him working on a program, or if I have, it is so sketchy that it cannot recognize it as such. That summarizes Johnny’s level of ability. He is not much different from a couple of other younger “pros” at the rink. This place caters to locals, which is also good, but buyer beware of teenage instructors possessing little expertise.

This is one of my primary motivations for resuming regular lessons and testing next season. I want to distinguish myself on paper from these bozos. On the ice, there is no comparison. I take pride in reporting that I am a good skater. I have been skating as an adult for thirteen years. I have spent a lot of money, invested a lot of time, made sacrifices, and worked hard. At last count, I have taken lessons from a total of eight different coaches of various backgrounds and have skated regularly at six different rinks (not to mention the dozens more I have visited while traveling). I have been kicking around this sport for a long time and have no shortage of anecdotes to share. As an analytically trained person, I understand the physics of skating movement. As an educator, I know how to communicate technique to others. I may not have a laundry list of tests to cover a resume, but I am experienced.

Enter Johnny. I was teaching a student how to do an inside spread eagle, at the student’s request. I mastered this skill years ago. As a teen myself, I owned a lovely assortment of eagle skills performed on quad roller skates. I had an Ina Bauer to drop jaws; an ability I never reclaimed on the ice. However, my inside eagle is very good and covers a respectably large curve. One of my former instructors taught eagles by having the student start with bent legs in a Besti squat pose. His technique predates the namesake of the now common move. The Besti facilitates opening the hips and enlarges the edge of travel. As the student becomes more confident, s/he gradually straightens the legs while maintaining turnout. And voilà! The student has a beautiful eagle. At the end of our lesson, my student told Johnny, who apparently taught this girl in the past, that she was learning an inside eagle. Johnny enthusiastically asked to see it.

Allow me to clarify. The child did not master the skill in a thirty-minute group lesson. Her eagle rode a tight curve. I showed her the Besti exercise to help her extend the glide over a larger radius of curvature. She did her little eagle, and Johnny praised her politely. No, it was not an impressive display, but the kid had the gist of the skill and could build upon it. Then she showed Johnny the Besti drill while I reminded her about straightening her path. Johnny quickly jumped in: “You really need to straighten the knees!” I told him this exercise trains turnout and lengthens the path of travel. Johnny looked at me like I did not deserve to teach ice skating. I was furious first because he contradicted me in front of a student, and second because he is not half the skater I am. I could kick his ass on the ice with two broken legs. As a young person, I never would have had the nerve to question an adult professional. These kids have balls! I guess that’s what it takes in ice skating.

I made a comment about this technique effectively teaching outside eagles as well and glided away to my next class, allowing the matter to drop with a thud. I had to escape Johnny before I said something unprofessional. So, instead, I am venting my frustrations here. Sometimes, I don’t know how I swallow my pride and tolerate all of the nonsense in that rink. I really want to teach skating. I love it. I gain great satisfaction from the triumphs of my students. That kid literally jumped for joy when she managed to turn out her hips and hit even a tight spread position. Johnny squashed it, the jerk, for me and the child. Johnny is a prime example of why rink management should be very cautious about hiring under-skilled youths to teach skating classes. Many lack the experience to behave professionally, whether that means calling a client to cancel a lesson or interacting appropriately with other instructors.

Furthermore, who does Johnny think he is with his measly preliminary test? The coach who taught me that eagle technique is a former World Professional Champion and show skater. He did gorgeous delayed axels well into his fifties. He is a skating director and coach to advanced freestyle competitors. This guy is no slouch. Maybe Johnny should send him an email and tell him his eagle method is a bunch of hogwash. I’m sure he would appreciate the input.

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