Skating 101 - Skating jumps explained through "everyday" activities: Salchow

Disclaimer: I've written a small disclaimer for these articles on jumping over on this link. Reading it isn't obligatory, but it does cover a lot of ugliness that I don't want to type every time I write one of these, so if you're about to pick me up on the finer points of jump execution then please read that first!

The Salchow

You have a beloved, imaginary friend called Lorenzo. Lorenzo is a human-sized teddy bear with the classic posture of a sitting teddy bear: both arms and legs open in a welcoming embrace. He's accompanied you through many of the big occasions in your life: first day at school; first relationship; first drunken escapade when you stole a traffic cone; your wedding/civil ceremony of choice; your first kid; etc. etc. However, Lorenzo's a needy, imaginary friend, he wants to be hugged every so often, which would be simple enough, except he's only happy if you employ his preferred patented hug technique, which is a hug whilst swinging him around by his neck AND tickling his tummy with your foot.

To do this utterly contrived piece of nonsense, you begin by standing on your left leg with your knee bent. You reach your left arm up and forward to rest your hand just past Lorenzo's left shoulder - left shoulder from your point of view that is, not his - and bring your right arm out to the right to steady yourself. Your right leg is held off the floor out and back behind you, ready to come forward to tickle Lorenzo's tum in a moment.

Lorenzo relishes the build up to the tickle so you have to bring your right foot slowly towards him from round the right side of your body, not too far out away from you, just enough to trace a very small arc around your right side. Remember not to let your right foot touch the floor as you bring it forward or you'll stand on one of Lorenzo's outstretched teddy bear legs and he wouldn't appreciate that at all. His displeasure would arrive in the form of a stream of cottony vomit spewed all over you, which takes ages to clean out of your clothes - why you let your imaginary friend have this power is beyond me; it's not like I was the one that made him up!

As your foot travels its arc then your right arm should follow your right leg and you should slowly bring it round as well. Your right arm's goal is to get right hand to meet left hand, but still leave a sizeable gap between your arms for Lorenzo's neck to go in, so that once you have your hands locked behind his head then you'll be ready to lift him up and spin him round (fear not, he's been dieting so doesn't weigh much).

With your right hand coming in to meet your left hand then your leg should be finishing its arc at the same time and you can now lift it up and across the front of your body to deliver a single tickle stroke to Lorenzo's belly with your toes. At this point, you should push down through your left leg to give you some lift and allow the swing of your right leg passing across the front and round the left side of your body to carry you up and round. Your goal is to rotate to the left and land on your right foot (the one doing the swing) facing the same way you started. If you land facing a different direction then Lorenzo gets sick and, you guessed it, vomits his cottony, fluffy insides all over you.

As you land, you can release the hand lock you had round Lorenzo's neck and let your arms fly out to the sides, hug now complete. Your left leg should swing out behind you as you balance on your right leg.

Magnificent, you have done the Salchow. It should be noted that the Salchow is actually quite hard to execute without the help of a left outside 3 turn to set up the jump, so you might find it useful to follow that link and maybe add it on the front. If you're trying this off ice then you might be fine without if you've got good balance on your left leg.

Take good care of Lorenzo now!