Coach K's Evil Axel/Double Sal Exercise
Awhile ago, I was having a truly horrendous double salchow day. It was so bad that Coach K called me over during a lesson with a different student to tell me to stop working on them b/c I wasn't fixing anything. She wanted me to do a FO double 3turn into an axel instead. After about 20 miserably failed attempts, I eeked one out. I then left it alone.
Today, my axels were feeling very spinny. Bad news. I decided to play with the LFO double three turn exercise and see if it would help straighten me out. Well, I couldn't do it at all. The 3turns were fine, but after the back 3turn, I couldn't control the FO edge to take off for an axel. After the double 3turn, I was checking my left arm in front, and I kept spinning around in a tight circle when I tried to bring it back to prep for the axel take-off.
Luckily, today was lesson day. Coach K seemed excited that I asked to work on this drill right off the bat. It turns out that I should have been bringing my arms back during the back 3turn and using my shoulders and hips to check in stead of my arm. I succeeded in fixing my arms, and consequently started leaning waaay forward on the FO take-off edge. I fixed that by pushing my hips forward. After about 20 failed attempts, I managed to land the axel, and it was so easy! I want to really work on this and maybe include it in my Adult Gold program. It's also a great exercise for double sals because it teaches control and awareness of the shoulders and hips through the three turns. I did a double salchow right after the axel that Coach K said was excellent :)
In other news, Nick Perna is coming back next week, and I'll probably be having two lessons with him. Coach K wants to work on double toes when Nick's here because despite both of our best efforts, it's still only getting about one blade length of distance. To put that in perspective, my axel gets 4.5-5 blade lengths and is about right. My double sal gets about 3 blade lengths and should get up to 4.5-5 like my axel, but is decent as it is.
I'm also supposed to work on double lutzes with Nick. Gulp. Those are haaard.
Today, my axels were feeling very spinny. Bad news. I decided to play with the LFO double three turn exercise and see if it would help straighten me out. Well, I couldn't do it at all. The 3turns were fine, but after the back 3turn, I couldn't control the FO edge to take off for an axel. After the double 3turn, I was checking my left arm in front, and I kept spinning around in a tight circle when I tried to bring it back to prep for the axel take-off.
Luckily, today was lesson day. Coach K seemed excited that I asked to work on this drill right off the bat. It turns out that I should have been bringing my arms back during the back 3turn and using my shoulders and hips to check in stead of my arm. I succeeded in fixing my arms, and consequently started leaning waaay forward on the FO take-off edge. I fixed that by pushing my hips forward. After about 20 failed attempts, I managed to land the axel, and it was so easy! I want to really work on this and maybe include it in my Adult Gold program. It's also a great exercise for double sals because it teaches control and awareness of the shoulders and hips through the three turns. I did a double salchow right after the axel that Coach K said was excellent :)
In other news, Nick Perna is coming back next week, and I'll probably be having two lessons with him. Coach K wants to work on double toes when Nick's here because despite both of our best efforts, it's still only getting about one blade length of distance. To put that in perspective, my axel gets 4.5-5 blade lengths and is about right. My double sal gets about 3 blade lengths and should get up to 4.5-5 like my axel, but is decent as it is.
I'm also supposed to work on double lutzes with Nick. Gulp. Those are haaard.
posted by Jennifer @ 3:48 PM
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