Figure Skating Jump Landings In Detail – Part 2 (Audrey Weisiger)

Audrey Weisiger offers some additional drills and explanations as she continues her discussion of jump landings. She offers these valuable drills:
1. After a skater has landed and stretched into the final landing position, have them return to the ‘h-position.’
2. After a skater has landed and stretched into the final landing position, have them do a back outside bracket. (Not a counter!)
3. After a skater has landed and stretched into the final landing position, have them hop up off the clean landing edge and then re-establish the strong landing position.

Head control is an important part of good jump landings. Audrey wants the skater to turn the head toward the landing arm and hand and look “up into the audience.” She concedes that alternate positions are necessary as part of choreography, but she feels strongly that during the skill development phase the head should be under complete control with the type of landing she describes here.

Audrey also explains the classic “landing in a frame” and why it’s so valuable. She shows what she means and demonstrates the critical elbow position. Here’s a gem every coach and skater should know about landings: “It doesn’t matter where your arms go if the core is under control.” The majority of the deceleration forces for landing come from the free leg movement and core control. This is easily observed on weak landings of skaters with “slow” leg checkout but “fast” arm checkout.

Audrey finishes with a quiz about landing positions. The qualities of a good landing are:
1. Accuracy of foot placement to the edge,
2. Accuracy of the body,
3. Accuracy of balance point on the blade,
4. Maintaining flow, and
4. Beauty of the final sustained landing position.

Audrey says, “Think of the landings of your jumps as punctuation at the end of a sentence.” This is another great video from Audrey. Please leave her a comment below.