We Don't Just Excel, We Axel

My face every time the Tammasaurus asks this: PLEASE TAMMASAURUS, I LOVE YOU, DO NOT MAKE MY PRACTISE MY SPINS. I KNOW I NEED TO, BUT I AM AN INCAPABLE CRETIN THAT WAS NEVER MEANT TO SPIN! And she just looks at me...

I've finally sustained some injuries in my quest for Axel. I've always had a rather gung-ho approach to skating, frequently throwing myself around and trying things to see how they work, so it was basically inevitable that this would happen at some point. Plus, learning ice skating, jumps in particular, is definitely a process that can be accurately summarised as follows: I've been getting better at Axel prep exercises, so the Tammasaurus optimistically said " why don't we try a little 3 jump into backspin?" Anyone with a passing familiarity with my blog will know that I loathe spins, not because I don't think they're great fun and all that, but because I just cannot do them for love nor money. " I think that's a little optimistic," I reply with a laugh. However, I've never been afraid of a little challenge, my pivot into backspin has  been improving so I figured I'd give it a go. First try and I land the jump but, unsurpr...

When I'm not skating, which is, to be fair, quite often, then I do one or two other hobbies, one of which is board gaming. I could write a lot about modern board gaming, but that's not what this blog's for, however while attending one of my usual board game groups then a joke was made we should all form a synchro skating team. I joked along with the rest of them, but, one bored night, I decided to look up what competitive synchro actually looks like... Reader, my life has been TRANSFORMED. Where has synchro skating been all my life?! Please enjoy the following (starts at 1:04): If the opening line sequence isn't satisfying enough then w atch out for the intersection starting at 2:25, followed almost immediately afterwards  with a  bizarre-looking spiral sequence; and it's all  set  to  a toe-tapping Canadian country rock song about mud! What's not to love?! Isn't it all just magnificent? I can only imagine how much practice goes into getting t...

In the last post in this series , we looked at the basic rules of jumping in skating and the breakdown of jumps into the distinct categories of "toe" and "edge" jumps. The toe and edge jumps combine together in an order of supposed ascending difficulty as follows: Toe loop ("easiest") Salchow Loop Flip Lutz Axel ("hardest") But what do I mean by 'supposed' ascending difficulty? In my opinion, the order of difficulty is pretty accurate if you look at it from a roughly empirical angle. The further down the list you get then the more complex the actions required to execute them correctly become. However, people learn in different ways and some people find they actually prefer a jump that is traditionally thought of as "harder" over an "easier" one. Personally, my current preference tends to be whichever one is working better on any given day! "Working better on any given day," you hear me say? ...