Chapter 6
Let's Go for a Spin

In This Chapter

• Breaking down the types of spins
• Spinning at ground level
• Flying through the air
• Changing feet during spins
• Changing positions during spins
• Staying focused after spinning
• Staying on your feet

With spins, you're getting into some serious skating. You're no longer talking about the various methods of moving across the ice, accelerating and stopping, or turning. Spins are one of the skating elements.

Spins and jumps are the heart of the technical part of your program. Other elements, such as footwork and edges (discussed in Chapter 5), are important, but spins (and jumps-- see Chapter 7) impress the judges and bring fans to their feet.

All Spins Come in Two Types

How's that for false advertising? Spins are spins are spins. (As a physicist might say, they are rotations of the body around a central axis while standing on a skate.) The two types I'm referring to here are the same once the spin has begun. The difference is that some spins have a jump at the beginning, which is why they're called flying spins (sometimes called jump spins), and other spins don't. They're called non-flying spins.

"Spins are judged on speed, position, and centering -- that is, maintaining your spin on one place in the ice as opposed to traveling. But speed is the most important thing because it's spectacular. You can't have great speed if you're traveling, and your speed won't last very long. If you have to choose between an interesting position or speed, go for speed. Don't try to do too many positions and slow down."

• Speed is how fast a skater rotates. Blur is beautiful in the judges' eyes.
• Position is the body position of a skater during a spin. There are three basic positions, which I cover later: the upright spin, in which the skater stands upright; the sit spin, which is done in a sitting position; and the camel spin, in which the skater bends forward at the waist parallel to the ice and extends one leg behind so that his body is in a T shape.
• Centering means keeping the spin over one spot on the ice, without moving or traveling.

Spinning is, again, balancing on the blade. Your blade has a sweet spot -- see Figure 6-1 -- that you want to maintain. It's just back from the toe pick on the ball of the foot, but not too far back. It's forward on the blade without hitting the toe pick. If you hit that toe pick too much, you're going to slow down. You should practice finding your sweet spot every day.

I refer to the free leg or free foot and the skating leg or skating foot frequently in this chapter. Free means the leg or foot that's not touching the ice and skating means the leg or foot that you're standing on.

Keeping your feet on the ground, I'll start with the non-flying spins. Master those, and you'll be ready to get your pilot's license and go solo.

Non-Flying Spins

This group of spins is named for the basic body position of each: the upright spin, the sit spin, and the camel spin. They can be done forward, on a back inside edge reached from a three turn, or backward, on a back outside edge from a three turn, which I discuss in the section "Getting Turned Around" in Chapter 5.

• The upright spin (also known as a scratch spin or, particularly in Canada, a corkscrew), is performed standing upright.
• A variation of the upright spin, called a layback spin (see Figure 6-2), is done by arching the back and tilting the head backward and down. The position is considered feminine, and usually only women do laybacks.
• The sit spin is done in a sitting position.
• The camel, or parallel spin, is done with the torso and free leg stretched parallel to the ice and the skating leg straight.

These basic spins have as many variations as there are skaters to create them.

When arms or legs are spread away from the body so that their mass is a greater distance from the axis of the spin, the rotations are slower. You'll notice that camel spins are generally the slowest spins, which is because of the body position. The upright spin is the fastest, and some variation of it is often used to end a program and give it a big finish.

Upright spin

The position of the skater's body in a fully developed upright spin is quite compact, which is why this spin is so fast. Follow these steps to complete an upright spin:

1. Enter the spin from a forward outside edge -- as your circle tightens, you begin a three turn (see Chapter 5).

   You're then on a back inside edge with your arms spread and the thigh of your free leg parallel to the ice and out to the side, skating knee slightly bent, as in Figure 6-3a.

2. Skate backward in small circles.
3. Gradually straighten your skating leg and the circles will tighten.
4. To increase the turns into a full spin, pull your free foot in toward your skating knee while folding your hands in toward your chest and clasp your hands together as if you were hugging a beach ball, as in Figure 6-3b.

   As your body contracts, the rotation accelerates.

5. To spin even faster, push your free leg down, heel first, along your skating leg at the same time that you push your hands up above your head as in Figure 6-3c.

   The rotation accelerates as your body elongates.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Balancing on the skate and keeping your body centered is very important.
• If you're off-balance slightly, your spin will travel across the ice.
• The more tightly you contract your body, the better the spin.

"The edge into the spin is the most important. You have to maintain pressure on the skating knee so that the outside edge has a firm grip on the ice and doesn't slip away from you."

Sit spin

The sit spin is one of the most difficult spins to learn because the position is difficult for many skaters. What skaters look for is a figure 4 position, the knee of the skating leg deeply bent, the back straight and tilted forward for balance, and the free leg extended straight forward and slightly turned out, as shown in Figure 6-4.

These steps will help you get started:

1. Start with the same basic forward outside edge as for the upright spin.
2. As you turn, swing your free leg around, as shown in Figure 6-4a.
3. Bend your skating leg and lower yourself so that your buttocks are lower than your knee, as in Figure 6-4b.

   Be sure your back is straight, but tilted forward. Some skaters don't get low enough in the spin because their calf muscles are too tight (see Chapter 4 for how to stretch your calves). If the skater sits upright too much, I call that a granny spin.

4. After you bring the free leg around, don't release it.

   You maintain the speed on spins by maintaining a very balanced, tight position. Once you're in your spin, hold your position and don't adjust.

Camel spin

When you're first starting a camel (or parallel) spin, you can think of it kind of as a lunge. Here's how:

1. Wind up for the spin on your right back inside edge with your upper body twisted to the right, as in Figure 6-5a.
2. Push off with your right foot, as shown in Figure 6-5b.
3. Glide forward on the outside edge of your skating foot, with your skating knee bent, left arm pointed forward, and free leg extended behind.
4. Keeping your skating knee bent, swing your left arm backward in a counterclockwise arc while raising your extended free leg behind you and arching your back as shown in Figure 6-5c.

   Raising your free leg tilts your balance forward slightly so that your left toe pick bites into the ice. The arm swing provides the rotational force to start the spin.

5. Maintain your balance on the ball of your skating foot so that the toe pick no longer scrapes the ice.

   About three-fourths of the way through the first rotation, begin to slowly straighten your skating knee so that you rise into the camel position, which I demonstrate in Figure 6-5d.

"Look straight ahead, not down at the ice, when you do a camel spin. And take care to maintain your balance on the sweet spot of your blade as you straighten the left knee. You don't want the straightening action to tilt you forward onto the toe pick, which would slow down the spin."

Flying Spins

Leaping into a spin provides drama. It seems to magnify the spin, and it obviously adds an extra element of uncertainty that makes judges sit up and take notice. After all, you're trying to get them to focus on your fantastic ability, right? So now that you know how to spin merrily out of your three turns, you're ready to take a flying leap into one.

Flying sit spin

Dick Button, the two-time Olympic Champion-turned-television commentator, made the flying sit spin famous because of the tremendous height he could achieve on the jump.

This spin can be murder on the landing knee because with your landing leg tucked up under your buttocks as in Figure 6-6, there is little room for it to bend more to absorb the shock of landing.

To successfully complete a flying sit spin, do the following:

1. To do this spin on your left leg, enter the jump from a right back crossover (see Chapter 5).
2. Take off from a left forward outside edge, as in Figure 6-6a.
3. Swing your free leg up and around as you start the jump.

   This provides the rotational force for the spin. In Figure 6-6b my free leg has already swung forward, and I'm in midair.

4. Tuck your left leg under your buttocks, as shown in Figure 6-6c.
5. Land on the toe pick of your left foot and settle onto the sweet spot of your blade as you start to spin in the sitting position as in Figure 6-6d.

   The sitting position is described earlier in this chapter, in the section called "Sit spin."

"You see very few women doing flying sit spins because it's considered such an acrobatic move. Kristi did one in her Olympic program just because she hadn't used one in so many years and because she was pretty good at it. She was going for it, and because it's hard, it earns respect from the judges."

Flying camel

Take a moment here to consider the absurdity of that literal thought. 5 -- 4 -- 3 -- 2 -- 1, liftoff. "Houston, the camel has landed. That's one small step for dromedaries, one giant leap for animal-kind." And now back to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

The camel's leap into sports, shown in Figure 6-7, is as follows:

1. Begin from a forward outside edge just as you do a flying sit spin, as I'm doing in Figure 6-7a.
2. Swing your free leg up and around as you start the jump, as in Figure 6-7b.

   This provides the rotational force for the spin.

   In this jump, in contrast to the flying sit spin, you are going more for horizontal distance than height.

3. Use the rotational force from the free leg and the push-off from the toe pick of the skating foot (Figure 6-7c) to pull the flight of the jump across the edge tracing going into your takeoff.

   The tracing and flight path are shown in Figure 6-8.

4. You fly through the air in the spread-eagle position shown in Figure 6-7d.
5. Land on the toe pick of the opposite foot from your takeoff foot, which is the same foot you swung in Step 2.
6. Settle onto the sweet spot of your blade as you start to spin in the camel position shown in Figure 6-7e.

"It's a big deduction to do a three turn, turn backwards, and jump. That's a big, big no-no. You have to push up on the toe while going forward on takeoff."

The death drop

Camel up, sit spin down pretty much describes this jump. The takeoff is slightly different from the flying camel because you jump more vertically. Ideally, you have both feet up and back and at the same time you have both hands up -- like you're spread out flat on a table. Brian Boitano has one of the most impressive death drops I've ever seen.

Don't confuse this jump with a Hamill camel. Dorothy Hamill's spin was a flying camel -- she landed in the camel position -- and then she switched from the camel to the sit spin position. In the death drop, the takeoff is like the flying camel takeoff, but the transition to the sit spin comes in midair.

"You can give an extra illusion of height on this jump if you give an extra kick with the trailing leg (the free leg) before you go down on the sit spin. It also gives you a little added time."

Combination Spins

Combination spin means a spin with one or more changes of foot and/or one or more changes in position. For example, you can change from an upright spin to a sit spin, you can change from right foot to left, or you can do both.

At Olympic level competition, a combination spin must include all three positions: the sit spin, camel spin, and upright spin.

Transitions on two feet

These transitions take you from one foot to another as well as changing position. You may be in a camel spin and then jump over into a sit spin on the opposite foot. But once you go down into a sit spin, jumping over into anything else is very difficult.

Transitions on one foot

These involve just changing feet in mid-spin. In the short program, which has required elements, you can change feet only once in a combination spin, but you do have to show all three positions. At the Senior and Junior levels, six revolutions are required on each foot, and skaters balance the number of revolutions between their feet, completing an equal number of revolutions on each.

"It usually doesn't help a skater to do more than the three required positions in a combination spin because position changes often cut into the speed of the spin. While extra positions are interesting, if they decrease the speed or quality of the spin, they aren't worth doing."

Keeping Your Head about You

Doing so takes practice, because all figure skaters get dizzy from spins. Except when slowing down at the end of some spins, skaters don't spot, or face their heads in one direction while their bodies spin most of the way around, like ballet dancers do. Figure skating spins are much too fast.

Getting dizzy is simply part of the game, but figure skaters do get used to the sensation after awhile and learn to cope with it. For every spin, the rotational speed is different. Sometimes I can recover fairly fast, in five seconds or so, and sometimes I take longer, depending on the length of the spin, how many rotations, and how fast I'm going. So usually I don't plan a jump immediately after a spin. As soon as I stop, I try to focus on a spot in the crowd or on the rail to regain my senses.

Skaters do fall in spins, but falls during spins are rare compared to falls on jumps. A balanced spin stabilizes itself from gyroscopic action. But if you lose your balance in one direction, just the force of the rotation takes you off your feet fairly easily. Once you lose your balance in a spin, it's very hard to recover.