Skating technique: Spiral or Arabesque

The spiral is another skating element that you learn as a beginner but you will make it better as you progress. The definitions is: gliding on one foot while raising the free leg above hip level. I will sound like a broken record, but I'll have to say again that when I learned this in group lessons it was a "monkey sees monkey does" approach. One side was working fine for me, including later when I had to do them on edges. The other side was not, and it was puzzling because my flexibility is the same on both sides.

My private coach's instruction was:
- take a regular stroke (read about it here) extending the free foot just as high as comfortable. So you'll have the skating foot bent, upper body erect but lower back curved and the free leg extended back. The hips should be squared, the free leg is turned out from the hip, tense, pointed and straight.
- keeping your core and lower back engaged and the skating hip as the balancing point, simultaneously lower the torso until parallel with the ice while looking up and lift the skating leg. Slowly! You will feel the weight on the blade on the back part of the arch of your foot, or just back of the middle of the blade and as you lower your torso forward move that balancing point on the blade to more back. Keep the free leg tense, pointed, turned out from the hip, hips square. Lift the chest and head and pull the shoulders back. Straiten the skating leg. I don't remember the instruction in group classes, but when I started the lessons with my private coach I wasn't keeping my hips squared, but I wast lifting the hip of the free leg, or stacking the hips. I think is important to have the hips and upper body squared for doing consecutive spirals on edges on lobes, so you can control the change of edge. Corrections that I've got: push back into your hip (that's what fixed my bad side spiral) and lock the skating knee to make sure it's straight. Beginners worry that they'll catch the toe pick and fall forward. One reason for this is if you lower the upper body first, you move your balancing point forward on the blade (near the toe pick...) and as you lift the free leg it's hard to re balance. So I'll repeat myself, lower the upper body at the same time as lifting the free leg, and push back into the hip to move the balancing point back on the blade.
- hold for at least 3 counts.
- lower the free foot simultaneously with rising the torso, in a controlled manner, with the core and lower back engaged and using the inner thighs to bring the feet together, while keeping the balance on your hip. Don't just drop the skating hip...

I found that the most important point in learning the spiral is figuring out the balancing point, the hip. Comparing the good side spiral with the bad side spiral, the correction to push back in my hip made total sense. On my good side I was settled in my hip, on my bad side I wasn't, and I wasn't on the right point on my blade. It felt like I was reaching forward. To help bring awareness of that balancing point I like putting on leg up on the board and playing with where the weight is on my hip. Then, skating, I find that it's easier to established that balancing point on the stroke, on a bent skating foot, before lifting the free foot.