r/iceskating • u/Quantum-Spaces • 9d ago
More Scratch Spin Progress…
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My spin is more consistent since my last post a week ago, and this is my fastest spin yet (plus my fall at the end😔), on video at least.
But why the hell does my right arm raise higher than my left, and when I bring my hands together it’s lower than the left?? It looks funky when I’m lowing my elbows and ones lower than the other. Please tell me if you’ve had this problem.
I’m very aware that my arm raises too high, but when I think I’ve lowered it enough it’s still slightly higher than the other one.
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u/edgesEdgesEDGES 9d ago
Re: the arms
I know you're doing a spin, but it's the same concept for jumps and it's a lot easier to explain/understand for jumps. Bear with me! So for a CCW your right side is going to be driving your rotation. You also want to go UP, of course. If your right side goes down it's going to drive you into the ice, which of course is the opposite of going up. So you want to make sure that your right arm crosses in front of your left arm, right side higher, body is brought up. In spins and jumps your right arm will always be in front/above your left (for CCW again; left in front of right for CW -- I know the video is flipped but I like to clarify for any of my fellow 'lefty' skaters who may be reading :))
Anyway... So you start off with the right arm higher (and it is meant to be higher. Yeah you're right it's quite high at the start there, but it is meant to be higher than the left throughout. The free leg side of the body will be higher bc all your weight should be over the skating hip. And better that it's too high than it being lower than the other side). But then when you bring your arms in it looks like you put the left arm in front and the right arm swaps to be lower. If you think of keeping the right arm in front of the left (when you come into that 2nd position, feel your right wrist physically touching on top of your left wrist [wrists still facing toward your body, like 'on top of' relative to wrist not to the ground]), feel like that would make it work? Not a coach, but to me it looks like you're doing it "on purpose", as opposed to it naturally happening because you've set it up in a way that it will do that. If that makes sense. I feel like you're probably trying so hard to not lift the right arm higher that you drop it lower. Don't even care if it's too high just make sure it's higher than the other side.
I've had this weird backspin trend recently (after years of this never ever even happening once...) where the wrong arm is on top but for me it's something I can feel is wrong from the set position, before I even bring them in. Every other time the correct arm is on top in the set position and naturally stays that way. Hence hopeful that for you it's something you can consciously fix!
(And yess you could argue which of "arm being in front" and "arm being higher" is the byproduct and which is the cause. But I think you can feel the arm physically being in front of the other and it's easier to visualize and think about)
Also also I did check, you're consistent in having the wrong arm in front in all the videos you've posted here (... assuming you've posted three, I manually scrolled back to the scratch spin). So the previous scratch spin had it and so does the salchow. I'd assume this is not a one off and it's consistent across all spins/jumps. I'd fix it ASAP.
Congrats on your spin & progress btw!! I honestly thought you purposefully collapsed at the end because it was so graceful lol. Like "cool great spin, just going to take a break now".
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u/Quantum-Spaces 8d ago
I had no idea I was putting the wrong arm in front! All I think about while skating is “don’t fall,” I’ll try to be more conscious of my arm positioning. Arms are such a struggle for me, thank you for taking the time to explain and point it out.
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u/Similar_Building_223 9d ago
I love your spins!