I've worked on the Swing Rolls (both forward and backward) very little since I've hurt my hip (a year and a half ago), because I feel that when I hold the extensions I put more strain on the hip muscles. But I need the Backward Swing Roll in the Ten Fox, so I have to work at it a little.
I've wrote a post about the Backward Swing Rolls not long ago, here, but I feel I've got enough corrections for an update:
- Push straight back, find a good edge with a good, high extension of the free foot forward.
- After the push, the free leg ending a little away from skating knee (free foot is 6 inches away from the edge's tracing)
- Level shoulders, don't drop the free hip back, pointing the free foot's toes forward, helps keeping the free hep forward.
- Rise over skating shoulder, draw free foot towards the skating foot.
- Don't swing too late, swing at middle and quickly
- Press into the ice, straighten the skating leg and push the hips forward
- Free shoulder very back over skating hip
- Feel the weight over skating side
- Free leg very back, don't let the hip open
I've written here about
how I plan to work more on my backward skating and I'm doing it...
Every single day I'm on ice, I do these (boring and frustrating)
backward exercises as much as my patience allows me. Some days it is not
much, but some days I've stuck with them for half hour. My coach's
wisdom (all coaches' wisdom) is that after you've understood how to do
something correctly (and that can take a while), do it a thousand times
(yes this can take a long, long time), so it becomes body memory. To bring my backward skating to an intermediate level I feel I need to look and feel more confident and that implies finding my balance quickly, good erect posture, high extension on the free leg forward, no wide stepping, comfortable speed.
Backward stroking concentrating on:
- going slowly
- look up and straight posture
- re bending before pushing (my coach asked me to actually stay few seconds in the bend position). If I rush, I bend forward as I push back, then I loose the press into the ice as I straighten and I don't have a strong push.
- holding the core engaged. I think I'm overdoing this, I feel tense and I think I look tense, but generally it seems it helps me to overcompensate for a while and then pull back to a more balanced approach so after the push the whole body moves like a block, doesn't twist
- not allowing the pushing foot hip to go back after the push, pointing the toes forward help too
- not allowing the upper body to twist after the push, hold it square
- press into ice as I rise (on the front of the arch foot, or just back of the ball of the foot)
- bring the free foot in tense, as I would have an obstacle in it's way, like the arms of a scissor
- feel the boots touching
- re bend
I think my biggest problem is the rise while pressing into the ice and holding the balance and posture... and that will affect the re bend so the push, so, everything....
Backward Chasses on a circle:
- posture (straight, almost back, with the shoulders rolled back)
- pushing the heals back (to the direction of traveling) to balance the shoulders rolled back
- touching the boots
- pressing into ice and pushing from the ankles. For the chasse you push just from the foot outside of the circle you are creating, the foot that is towards the inside just lifts of the ice and goes back on it. The pushing foot is always on an inside edge, and the foot that does the chasse is on an outside edge. It is a good exercise to train this push from the pushing leg that is on an inside edge to the other leg that is on the outside edge. That includes holding the boots pressed together so you can place the foot towards the inside of the circle on an outside edge.
This is a good exercise to teach your body to push from an Backward Outside Edge to an Backward Outside Edge as you have to do to change the lobes on Backward Chasses on alternating lobes exercise that I described here. And the secret is that as you rise to finish one lobe on the BO edge, you flip that foot on an inside edge just before pushing on the other foot BO. Holding the boots together while flipping the pushing foot on the inside edge, puts the other boot in the perfect position to be placed on the outside edge on ice. Again I think I'm not always balanced as I rise, and that makes re bending hesitant so I rush and I put the free foot down. That inevitably is a wide step and an inside edge. It's gonna be a long road to do this correctly.
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