Triple Salchow Lesson (Audrey Weisiger)

World and Olympic coach Audrey Weisiger gives a triple salchow lesson at a Grassroots to Champions seminar. The skater in the lesson has a relatively new and inconsistent triple salchow. Audrey starts with some double salchows using two important drills. The first drill is with arms in a frame and a double three before the actual jump. Then she adds the “alignment landing” to make sure the “left side is in control.”

Audrey talks to “us” throughout the lesson, sharing observations and suggestions. And she also gives corrections to the skater. The skater’s first triple salchow has the classic hand down on landing, resulting in a fall. Audrey identifies the main problem as lack of confidence. The rest of the lesson she focuses on ways to increase the skater’s confidence.

With Audrey’s pep talk, the skater lands the next jump. Then Audrey “adds pressure” to see how the skater handles the extra focus. (She has the skater pretend to be at a major competition and needing the jump). The skater comes through and lands the jump, but puts a hand down. Next Audrey stacks even more pressure on the next attempt by offering a $10 reward for the perfect jump. The skater turns out of the landing and doesn’t earn the $10, but notice how different the landing of the jump was without any initial movement toward the ice with the hand.

Next Audrey uses an “easier” jump to train the landing by having the skater do a number of double axels. Audrey mentions the idea of a “target” for where the body parts go at a given moment in the jump. In this case she’s talking about the arms at landing. Notice that the skater is unsure where her arms are in the air. Audrey says, “I would actually probably go to simple doubles where she always has the same arms. She doesn’t do the same thing every time.”

Notice the positive feedback Audrey keeps giving this skater. This kind of attention and encouragement from an Olympic coach that the skater looks up to can be incredibly motivating and inspiring. Near the end of the lesson Audrey does get technical with what the arms should do at landing. After a walk through, the skater lands the next triple while keeping the arms up.