World and Olympic coach Michelle Leigh talks about the challenges and decision process she uses when skaters need to make a major technique change for their jumps. As she notes, sometimes major changes are necessary when coaches get a new skater from another coach, or when a coach and skater spend time focusing on other aspects and a bad habit develops in another skill. Michelle explains that every coach will eventually have the situation where they say, “OK, this has to get fixed. This isn’t going to get a lot better unless we take a drastic measure.”
She notes the coach needs to identify the worst problem and create a plan to fix it. But Michelle cautions coaches not to get too stuck on forcing one specific “ideal” take-off technique. There are a wide variety of jump take-offs that elite skaters “have made work” over the years, and skaters will gravitate towards the technique that feels the most comfortable to them. Coaches should recognize “there’s more than one way to take off and complete a successful jump.”
With that said, Michelle urges coaches not to compromise on proper air position. She says, “There’s not too many air positions that are working. There’s a lot of different take-offs that are working, or variations that have some common things. But the air position, there’s not too many that you’re going to get a lot of successful, consistent jumps out of.” She also notes that there are very few jump landing methods that work consistently. So jump air position and landing technique are areas where Michelle will not compromise.
But making any major change requires that the skater agree and commit to the process. This is often the most difficult part of the process for the coach and Michelle encourages coaches to share video of elite skaters to drive home the point and the need for a change.
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