Flying Sit Spin Video Tip (Page Lipe)

Page Lipe explains how she introduces and teaches a flying sit spin. At the beginning, Page just tells her skaters that it’s just a sit spin, but “you’re going to jump that three-turn from forward to backward.” She uses this explanation and simple drill so the skater knows when to leave the ice. She initially uses a basic upright flying spin where the skater is allowed to land on both feet to get used to generating the rotation and creating the lift without worrying about the details of the sit or tuck.

Next, Page takes the skater to the boards and has them practice the flying sit spin motions in one of the doors to the hockey boxes. She uses the mantra, “kick, tuck, down, in” so the skater can think of it as a sequential 4-part process. In the video she talks about proper back position with respect to shoulders and hips and a simplification of the drill in case the skater has a hard time with the original drill. She describes it as a two-track positioning with the “shoulders in one track and the butt in another track.” She also mentions the need for using the core muscles.

When introducing the flying sit spin, Page doesn’t say too much about the arms. Most skaters will find an arm placement that feels natural and works for them. If they do have problems with the arms, she encourages them to take both arms out over the free leg during the take-off. Note that this is a bit different than how Bobbe Shire teaches the arms for the flying sit spin. But both coaches want the arms to come through narrow and close to the body. Page says, “You really want to make sure everything scoops up close to you.”