As someone who came to the sport of skating as an adult, I have a distinct advantage because of my strong dance background. A lot of good things, like posture and carriage, carry over from my many years of ballet. Sometimes I explain my ballet background to others when they ask about how long I've been skating, but sometimes I feel like I have to couch it a little bit and say, yes, I have many years of dance training, but that doesn't mean it all stuck! And it doesn't mean I didn't have bad habits as a ballet student that are still with me! For example, I had notoriously floppy feet, even in dance!
Some people think that skaters don't need to point their feet (or at least that's what dancers think about skaters) but it's not really true. Skaters do point their feet, but the effect is not quite the same as it would be without skates. And so now, my floppy feet have carried over into skating, except now they look like club feet. I'm embarrassed to admit how many times I've caught my heel in the ice on a sit spin. The other day, it caught me so much by surprise, and I had enough speed that the effect was much like a pole vault. My spin suddenly stopped and I catapulted sideways over my foot and onto the ice.
Coach is always yelling at me to point my toes. A week or so ago, he told me that for the next 6 months, I should work on developing the habit of pointing my toes all the time when I skate. He also wants me to extend my free leg 3-6 inches higher on all my jump landings and spin exits. And he wants me to focus on looking up. I agree that I should do this, because I think it will improve the overall effect of my skating.
And I've added one more self-identified habit I want to break. This one didn't transfer over from ballet, it's new to me in skating. It's hand droop. I think I extend my arms and carry them well through the wrist, but then my hands just kind of hang off the end of them. Well, not both my hands. Primarily my right hand. In case you're wondering what that looks like, here's two examples of my right hand caught in the act of drooping.
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| Spread Eagle with Right Hand Droop |
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| Solo ChaCha with Right Hand Droop |
That's why I wear black gloves - so nobody can see my hands very clearly! Ha! I have a tendency to want to kick my leg up on 3-turns. Gosh, if I had a nickel for every bad habit I needed to break, I'd be rich. :)
ReplyDeleteOh, the 3-turn habits! I always skid my 3-turn going into a flip! And when I see my 3-turns on video, I hitch my free hip! Bad bad bad! I'm having to work on dance 3s a little more now, for the bronze dances--maybe that will help!
DeleteI drop my elbows. I never realised until I saw it back on video and thought the whole thing looked like a mess! I either need ballerina arms or irish-dancer-arms and keep them straight down by my side but not in between! I'm also a victim of the droop and flop...
ReplyDeleteO gosh, too many bad habits to count. I'm glad you have that great dance background, I could really see it in your competition video (which looked far beyond pre-bronze). I think your arms look fantastic! I need to work on getting better posture- always- better lift and extension. I do point my toes, recently had a dance coach say that I must have had ballet because I point my toes all the time. But actually I only have had a very little ballet. Interestingly, this particular coach was trying to get me not point my toes on certain footwork.
ReplyDeleteThat's so great that you're good at pointing your toes! Interesting about the footwork, though. I found that I had to really think about flexing my foot for the back cross-strokes on the silver moves test, but it was difficult to coordinate it. I wanted to point it when it was the free foot and then flex it right before putting it on the ice as the skating foot again and the timing never really felt natural. Thank you for your kind words about my competition. I'll be moving up to bronze for my next one.
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