International coach and choreographer Chris Conte continues his series of videos where he shares a process of off-ice training techniques for developing the double axel. In the first video of this series, he shared drills and concepts to develop the axel take-off. In this video, Chris focuses on the dynamic aspects of air position. The squeaks you hear throughout the video are ankle squeakers that Chris and the skaters are wearing to offer immediate feedback for ankle contact which is so important for good jumping.
Chris begins this video by noting that many skaters do not transfer off-ice drills and information to their on-ice jumps. That makes off-ice training useless. Although Chris does not discuss it in the video, we get to see the skaters all spinning on “spinners” in the axel take-off position. Chris calls it “a little bit of an attitude spin.”
Next, he discusses the air position, starting with the “first up” which is really just the take-off position from the previous video at the moment the skater leaves the ice. Next is the “second up” which is commonly called “first tight position” (shout out to Christy Krall for the terminology). Chris describes this as “what looks like symmetrical rotation” in the upper body (not the lower body). However, prior to landing the skater needs to “wind” into the landing so the position becomes “asymmetrical” where the upper body is twisted toward the axis side and the hips remain closed. Chris offers a helpful trick to make this happen. He suggests thinking about twisting the non-axis shoulder toward the axis hip. Chris says this is superior to simply thinking about twisting the upper body to the axis side since that often results in skaters opening the non-axis hip.
In the symmetrical air position, Chris works on the “flox” position which has the skater standing on the non-axis tippy toe with the axis foot tucked behind and the axis leg straight and the axis ankle flexed (not pointed). Chris then reviews the entire off-ice jump walk-through before practicing the transition from symmetrical air position to asymmetrical air position on spinners.
Check out the rest of the videos in this series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
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