Don’t Give Figure Skating Jumps Power over Your Skater

Here’s what I tell my students when they’re having trouble mastering something: If someone can do it, it’s possible, and if it’s possible, then *you* can do it.

I’m not at the axel stage in skating by any means but I can tell you that six months ago 3-turns were evil! The way that I looked at it was that I wasn’t the type of person to stand back and let evil win and I was prepared to lose plenty of battles in order to win the war. That strategy happens to work with my personality because a) I’m naturally stubborn with a highly developed sense of justice and right and wrong and b) this way I look at it as a quest which means that it is going to happen in stages over time. Realizing that it is going to be a journey with bumps and bruises and disappointments and triumphs prepares me for the highs and the lows. It also prepares me for the lulls- those days and weeks of consistent practice when it doesn’t feel like anything productive is happening (but it is, it’s just happening on a root rather than a twig level).

I make it a point not to practice a skill for more than a few minutes at a time without taking a break and working on something else in between. For instance, I’ll practice power pulls along the length of the rink, spins and 3-turns at the ends, then spirals and lunges down the length, bunny hops and waltz jumps at the ends, etc. It limits the scary to a time frame that I can usually manage even when I’m chicken, it helps to keep me fresh and focused, and by using different muscles every few minutes I don’t tend to get locked up and hurt like some of my friends have even when we have ultimately spent the same amount of time working on the skill that session. You can break any skill up into parts: entries, edges, landings, extending, balance, speed, arms, posture… often by isolating or tweaking one part you are struggling with independent of the rest it can help overall. For instance, I realized my posture was part of my problem with 3-turns. I read that one coach had her students clasp their hands behind their back, pulling their shoulders up and back (for the slouchers) and had them practice moves that were easy for them that way. I started doing that as I stroked around the rink (it’s harder than it looks). Now I can do power pulls and some turns that way. Coming back to 3-turns after that, I usually did better.

Other things that helped me:

Talking to other skaters and asking them how they learned how to do a move and how they handled their frustration in the meantime. Skaters are unique and often have different ways of thinking about what they are doing. Ask enough people and you are bound to find a perspective that helps.

Practicing moves with a friend who is also learning them can help.

Learning the skill in a different combination can help because it forces your brain to think differently.

Something else to think about: the best chemistry tutors my mom and my sister had were the ones who had failed a chemistry class the first time. They knew what it was like not to understand something. They also learned by trial and error how to make the incomprehensible comprehensible to them. Then they would share that knowledge with a comforting dose of, “If I can do it, you can do it.” Learning about people who achieved their goals and passions with difficulty can help give you courage and hope. Most achievements aren’t so much a race as they are a process. Sometimes slower turns out to be smarter and stronger in the long run.

Well, perhaps you can help me with this. If I see dd skating around the rink doing nothing other than just skating (no, not stroking but just skating lazily around the rink with no worries in the world) and I tell her she’s not focusing and working hard, am I getting her to believe that she’s not working hard so she won’t work hard? Hmmm, could be something there. As for jumps, spins, etc.? I don’t watch dd skate most of the time. Mainly because she feels this need to have an audience. If I watch her then she normally doesn’t work hard. If I step away from the window and let her be, she usually works better. So periodically I look over and see improvement with each move which makes me happy. I don’t see the lack of improvement.

My skater started working on axel early this year and landed this early summer. Now she has 2 of them in her program and is somewhat consistence. Her coach said the axel jump is so over rated on the level of difficulty. Yes it’s a difficult jump, but it’s just a jump. Now we are trying to do the same with the double jumps.

Great comment!

This is very true – I do think we need to be careful about what we say about any jump or spin. You can make it quite a big hurdle in their mind which is not good! My daughter took 9 months to learn her axel – although I don’t remember “demonizing” that jump, I tried to be positive… However I will admit that when she was trying to learn a change of edge camel spin it looked REALLY hopeless – I thought she was going to crack her head open every time. I think I said something like – don’t work on that, it’s too hard, work on your other spins…. (yeah, that was not too encouraging was it? bad mom…) Well, low and behold she – like most teens – didn’t listen to me and she eventually learned how to do a really good change of edge camel spin. She has gotten credit in her spin levels for it in USFS competitions. :~) Then…. she wanted to learn a camel spin in the opposite direction. (super-hard!) This also looked crappy in the beginning… I again said “why are you trying to learn this?”….. she again proved me wrong, she learned to do an opposite camel for 3 to 4 rotations, granted she isn’t super consistant with it and may not be able to do it at this moment because she hasn’t been practicing, but a few months ago she could do it! She was at a USFS comp in April and there was a semi-big name Colorado Springs coach there who was amazed that an intermediate had learned an opposite camel. :~) Anyway, I guess it just goes to show that we should have faith in our kids when it comes to jumps and spins and just keep our doubting “mom” mouths shut, unless it is to say something encouraging!

Remembering the axel struggle has really helped me to help jumpingbean stay positive. She has learned double sal through double lutz between February and May or so of this year. So now, when she competes, she does the axel like she has been doing it her whole life…the doubles, not so much– she does them, but you can see she is working for them if you KWIM….I remember her axel being like that and I remind her that many of the girls she is now competing against in Juv, have been doing their doubles as long or longer than she has been doing axel and I assure her that soon enough, those doubles will be as ‘second nature’ as the axel.

If doing an axel (or whatever jump, spin, turn, etc it may be), everyone could do everything and there would be no challenge. That’s what makes skating enjoyable – a challenge.

And 8 months? It took my almost 3 years to get an axel…my mom always calls it my million dollar axel

Ooh! Ooh! My Affirmation Quote Stash! I print them out and tape them up on the rink wall next to Skater Grrrl’s water bottle.

“IImpossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“Slow down, calm down, don’t worry, don’t hurry, trust the process.” Alexandra Stoddard

“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” -Michael Jordan

“Your body hears everything your mind says.” – Naomi Judd

“When anyone tells me I can’t do anything…I’m just not listening anymore.” – Florence Griffith-Joyner

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it good” – Tom Hanks

It is unbelievable what can be achieved if you only try. Aim for the impossible. Failure is always easiest to
bear when you know in yourself that you have given your best, and maybe a little extra. ~ Nadia Comaneci

Don’t be afraid if things seem difficult in the beginning. That’s only the initial impression. The important thing is not to retreat; you have to master yourself. Olga Korbut

And my favorite…

“Anyone can be cool, but “awesome” takes practice.

Oooohh…I have tons! Someday, I should read them all myself.

Mind over matter! You control your body, you control your brain = you control the jump. Don’t let the jump/spin/3 turn control you.
Sometimes easier said then done. Asking skaters to imagine themsevles doing it correctly in their head and showing them video of when they did land that jump works, too.

Scariest thing I ever did in skating? Getting back on the ice in my own skates after a bad fall when I’d just be learning a couple of months.

I’m a slow learner. I know that and I accept it. I push myself and I know I’ll get there eventually. Backards one foot glides took me months to learn, but now I can do a backwards spiral and hold landing positions for field moves.

My current demon jump is salchow, although I have a reasonable toe loop and I’ve started learning loop. Loop isn’t so bad, cause I’ve only just started, but I hate salchow, I pull faces when my coach asks me to do it (only joking though, as I appreciate the chance to get her feedback on it). Luckily, as an adult skater, neither parent has seen me attempt any jump or would even know what a salchow is, so no chance for them to demonise it for me lol!

My IceBoy does really well with a checklist. Before the check list, we started with planning the session (loosely) 15 min moves, 15 min spins etc. He always worked better when he had a plan. His coach would tell him the order of what to work on. Moves had a certain order, spins go from easy to hard and of course jumps have a progression as well. The kids usually know this whether they are aware of it or not.

Maybe DD doesn’t know what to do next after she has completed something. Now that he is in the serious competitive training mode, he haves a check list and it sure helps to frame the practice. He actively keeps track on the list, calculates percentages, and then coach goes over it occasionally so it’s not just busy work.

I don’t know if any of these suggestions might work, but it’s something that might help her understand what “focused and hard working” mean. Maybe she doesn’t really understand what that might mean to her in the context of skating.

I often forget that my teenager is still a child and still learning. There are many things I think he should know already, but he doesn’t. So I have to step back and teach him. Just like good high school teachers go through the steps to good note taking and organization skills, it’s a process.
HTH.

BTW, there is a mom at our rink that often peeks through the window because her DD doesn’t do as well when she watches. LOL. Your comment made me think of her. Guess there’s a lot of it going around…;)

Yes, that was my comment. We haven’t demonized jumps in our family. But guess what…

“if” is another of those words that is best avoided. Tonight my skater told his coach “if I land my first jump, I’ll be fine”. Well, um no, that should be “when I land my first jump”… But actually, that whole sentence is not good either…the fate of your whole program shouldn’t rest on if you land your first jump or not. That’s superstitious. BTW, he didn’t land his first jump and it’s his best and easiest one (the axel LOL). So guess what happened to the rest of the program… he and I will talk about that later. Tonight I just want him to digest what happened. We’ll tackle the rest later. He already said that he needs to start doing his relaxation routine again. Yay! minor victory…

Moral of the story, our skaters can find many ways to create their own mental blocks, they really don’t need us to demonize jumps for them as well. LOL Ah well… back to the drawing board.

Thank you so much, sk8rmomp! I thought it was your comment that inspired this post!

I dont want to brag or anything but I got my axel in 3 and a half months and my double sal in 10 min.no joke.hahah im a fast learner

When I start to question our commitment (time, money, energy, etc..) to our daughter’s skating, I often remind myself that “she learns a lot of life lessons (in HD – LOL) from figure skating.” Would that really be true if it weren’t for those exceptionally challenging skills (axel, double axel, triple axel…)?

me too! haha, i still dont have it though
my coach says he will like go crazy if i land it or something because he will be so relived haha

Woah. You are one fast learner, kid.

omg i hate u. now. so much. realy. how long have u been figure skating??? what level are u in? what kind of skates so u have? do you have any advice for passing levels and doing hard moves? PS AT YOUR NEXT LESSON DONT BE SUPPRISED IF YOU CANT FIND YOUR SKATES…