Spin entrance practice

Today I had a full hour on the ice, no lesson, just practice. There was a younger crowd on the ice which was less fun than Friday when it had been an older crowd and less crowded overall. A younger crowd means far more divas on the ice doing their fancy spins and jumps and generally not paying attention to skaters who are not at their level. There’s a sort of expectation that if you claim the ice as yours, it is yours. More advanced skaters feel this right moreso than less advanced skaters, and since more advanced skaters are younger, I tend to be wary of a lot of younger skaters.

By younger, I mean college age kids who have been on the ice since age 4 and are advanced as heck but no longer qualify for the children’s session and must go to the adult sessions where they terrorize more cautious skaters who began skating in adulthood. With that ran out of the way, I can get down to talking about my actual skating practice!

I was practicing the spin entry today. The spin entry I’m practising begins with a T position with my right foot as the center line of the T. I skate out onto a right outer edge and force that circle to diminish in width, so the pattern ends up being a spiral rather than a semi-cirle. When you hit the smallest part of the spiral, you force your foot into doing a 3 turn, so you end up on the inner edge of your right foot, and it starts spinng backward, while you draw your left foot in and force the spins force to increase. At the same time you suck in your core and push your head up like a top. Your body becomes very taught and you are a spinning top.

I spent the full hour practising this. I can now make the entry no problem, but I am unable to sustain the spin. Also the point at which I’m supposed to suck in my whole body into one long piece of spinning top-iness, I keep losing my center and I end up a top that stumbles slightly to the side and falling over.

Gotta ask Coach next time about what I’m doing wrong!

I found these videos very helpful:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWmNKqOEmGA: Her explanation of using a heart shape to create a hooked entrance helped me visualize what the pattern on the ice should look like. (My coach had demonstrated last lesson, but this video was good at reminding me what I was aiming for)
• http://iceskatingworld.com/centering-spins/: The image of the spin entry was also helpful to visualize

After coming home I did some more reading and one of the exercises that reddit skating suggested was to find the part of the blade, the rocker, the gavies you the smoothest motion while skating. They suggested a couple of exercises to find it and to pracite staying on that spot for the spin to work well. Have to give that a try!