Spins



That is all.

But seriously, a while back, I wrote that "the first rule about my spins is that we don't talk about my spins", but I can't hide from them forever so it's time to write something about them.

When I first started skating, I would watch the little girls practising their beautiful spins - so many dazzling rotations - and I would dream of one day being able to do the same. Alas, that day has still not come.

With everything else I've learned in skating I've seen even the smallest amount of improvement almost week on week as long as I make sure I give it a go for even just a few minutes each time I go to practise. But spins? Nah. I've been at this a year and a half and my rate of progress has been sloooooooow.

For the uninitiated, there're a ton of exercises to get you going on a basic upright spin (which is the most primitive of the spin variations), I know because I've had a million thrown at me in an attempt to get me to improve (I refer you to the GIF above). The simplest is to just stand with your feet about shoulder width apart, rotate both arms and torso around to either the left or right (depending on which way you want to spin) and then fling your arms back in the other direction, bringing them into your chest as your pull your feet together underneath you. It'll feel clunky as all hell, but it should give you just enough rotational momentum to go a little way round while still on two feet. Obviously spins get a lot more complicated than that, but that's a way of getting started.

I don't think I can say I've ever truly "progressed" to a consistent and well-developed one-foot upright spin, but the somewhat limited progression I have made is aggravatingly temperamental. Some weeks I'll manage something resembling improvement and others there'll be nothing to show whatsoever. About two months back, after a year and a bit of skating, I finally started getting a somewhat more consistent set of rotations with better centreing, things were finally improving, but in the last few weeks it's all evaporated into thin air again, I'm right back to where I started.

However, I hope to compete one day and spins are one of the main components of a free skating programme so, one way or another, I've go to get to grips with them. At the moment, I've been overdue a blade sharpening for about two months now so it probably shouldn't be any surprise that as of late things have deteriorated! Must get sharpening done.

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