Skating Fridays

One of the required elements for the Adult Gold Freestyle test is the axel jump.  If you wanted to take a look at one of my landed jumps, check it out (this video was taken one month ago):



Since we've exclusively been working on Gold Moves, Coach B has never worked on the axel with me until now. She's seen the video above, and immediately saw a few a bunch of things that needed improvement:

1. My back is slightly hunched over in the take-off.
2. I do not get enough height since I am not jumping off my top toe pick.
3. My ankles do not make full contact with each other in the air.
4. And another 5638 other things.

So, Coach B has given me a variety of axel preparation exercises to improve my jump. Note that we are not working in the harness yet. That will come later, after I've gotten some of the fundamentals down.  Things like:

• Split waltz jump
• Waltz jump with ankle taps mid-air
• Waltz jump with crossed legs mid-air
• Once-arounds, or bell jumps
• Other exercises at the board

Here is a video of the split waltz, waltz with ankle taps and waltz with crossed legs. These are amazingly hard to do. There isn't much time to do the ankle tap or leg cross on a waltz jump. But if can't do any of these, then I wouldn't be able to successfully land an axel. The axel jump is only 0.3 seconds of airtime from takeoff to landing so there isn't time to do much at all.


I'm anxious to get in the harness soon and see if I can make some good improvement on the jump. I'll be curious to see if the differences in my jump before and after Coach B's axel prep exercises.

One of the required elements for the Adult Gold Freestyle test is the axel jump.  If you wanted to take a look at one of my landed jumps, check it out (this video was taken one month ago):



Since we've exclusively been working on Gold Moves, Coach B has never worked on the axel with me until now. She's seen the video above, and immediately saw a few a bunch of things that needed improvement:

1. My back is slightly hunched over in the take-off.
2. I do not get enough height since I am not jumping off my top toe pick.
3. My ankles do not make full contact with each other in the air.
4. And another 5638 other things.

So, Coach B has given me a variety of axel preparation exercises to improve my jump. Note that we are not working in the harness yet. That will come later, after I've gotten some of the fundamentals down.  Things like:

• Split waltz jump
• Waltz jump with ankle taps mid-air
• Waltz jump with crossed legs mid-air
• Once-arounds, or bell jumps
• Other exercises at the board

Here is a video of the split waltz, waltz with ankle taps and waltz with crossed legs. These are amazingly hard to do. There isn't much time to do the ankle tap or leg cross on a waltz jump. But if can't do any of these, then I wouldn't be able to successfully land an axel. The axel jump is only 0.3 seconds of airtime from takeoff to landing so there isn't time to do much at all.


I'm anxious to get in the harness soon and see if I can make some good improvement on the jump. I'll be curious to see if the differences in my jump before and after Coach B's axel prep exercises.