HP #11 - Jason's reign

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See my first HP post for the full notes on these.

Background: Jason's now taken over the beginner group class following Ashley's departure.

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I didn't stay in Jason's group very long after he confirmed he would be taking over. Not because I didn't like him (in fact, I liked his teaching style a lot) and not because someone else replaced him (they didn't, at time of writing he's actually still teaching that class), it was for a much simpler reason. After about a month of lessons with him, Jason showed up with the register to check off our skills.

"Hey up," he said, "some of you guys aren't on this list." He tapped around on the tablet for a bit. "Ohhhh, you guys are meant to be in the 5-8 class. Well, I'd be happy for you guys to stay here if you wanted, I like teaching you, but you're meant to be in the other class."

How silly of us! We should all have remembered that Ashley had passed us ages ago, but in the coaching changeover then it had all been forgotten. So, next week I moved up to 5-8 alongside some of my peers and that was the end of our time with Jason.

As I was only with Jason briefly, in which we mostly worked on skills we'd started with Ashley, I actually don't have any specific moments that I can remember other than just refining a lot of the stuff I had learned up to that point (which was valuable too). I did really enjoy Jason's lessons and he was generously complimentary of my developing skating skills (who doesn't love a compliment?), but it was all over so fast!

So instead, I've collected the skill highlights that I remember from his time into some bullet points as follows:

• Style. Jason's preferred skating discipline is ice dance so we focused on adjusting our skating styles in line with that. For instance, basic stroking added appropriate edge gliding and matching hip rotation for each push, as well as increased attention to proper extension and hold of the free leg. As a former gymnast (not seriously, just casual when I was 9-13) then I could approve of working on my leg extension!
• Slaloms. I had only a hazy idea of how to do these and many of the people in my class favoured a gentle, snakelike movement of both feet as they weaved across the ice. Jason demanded POWER. We got into the habit of bending our knees more fully and pushing into the ice with the heels of the blades to get a real ripping sound off while swinging our body into the direction of the push so that we zigzagged in a much more pronounced manner. I was a big fan. Lots of knee bend required.
• Backward crossovers. We started doing these and it's honestly a very similar mechanism to forward crossovers even though it looks like a very different stance to an outside observer. Essentially push off and glide backwards on one leg, then step the free leg over the skating leg. Once the free leg has stepped over onto the ice then it takes over holding you up, meanwhile the former skating leg slides back under the free leg (which is, confusingly, now the skating leg) and, once under, you step wide back out onto it thus making it the skating leg once more. Repeat. There's obviously more finesse to it than that as you progress, but that's the basic gist. Have to say they were confusing as heck at first but I quickly found them much more comfortable than forward crossovers... Speaking of which...
• Forward crossover adjustment. Ashley had taught us the free skating method of crossovers, whereby you twist your upper body and stretch your arms out in front and behind you while crossing over, as if holding the curve you're travelling along (there's a diagram below). Because of the upper body twist, it's, frankly, a hellish-to-maintain position while focusing on crossing your legs without falling. In Jason's ice dance fashion, we changed the position of arms in crossovers so, instead of hugging the curve, the arms are almost turned outwards from the curve. If you were crossing-over anti-clockwise then your left arm would lead your left skating leg along the curve while the right arm juts out perpendicular to the other arm. It gives, in my opinion, a more graceful appearance compared to free skating's aggressively twisted over arm configuration, it's also, I found, a good deal easier to maintain.
• There are, obviously, reasons for both styles. The only problem with this retraining of crossovers was this led to some longer term confusion among the adult group as to "which style was correct?" To which the answer is: "it depends on what you're doing." But this wasn't made clear until, many months later, head coach Jane covered a lesson and explained the difference.
• I tried to find some pictures of the difference in arm posture but failed miserably so had to make my own diagrams instead. Enjoy!

Top-down perspective - Free skate crossovers.
Note the red arms held wrapped around the curve. Imagine twisting your top half into the circle to achieve this.
Green arrow is the skater's direction of travel.

Top-down perspective - Ice dance crossovers.
Note the blue arms held perpendicular.
Green arrow is the skater's direction of travel.

With all that confusion out of the way, I then moved into the era of David and the 5-8 class...