Coach Amy Brolsma continues a series of videos on brackets. In Part 1 she introduced the fundamentals of position and balance and posture as well as two foot bracket turns. In Part 2 she offered step by step advice for teaching brackets, using backward outside brackets for her demonstrations. In this video she discusses foundational concepts for good brackets.
A common problem in bracket development is not having proper body alignment and this often shows up as distortions in the entry or exit edges. Amy really encourages coaches to make sure skaters can just comfortably sit on the necessary edges, whether entrance edges or exit edges. She notes this happened automatically back in the days of figures, and she talks about it as “finding the balance of the blade, finding the calmness of the edge.”
Another common problem Amy sees on brackets is having too much upper body rotation. Although the upper body does have twist, it’s relatively small. Instead Amy describes a bracket as the “hips turning underneath the shoulders” which implies the shoulders are actually fairly still. There is tension in the rib cage and hips (core) but not a lot of turning motion. Amy demonstrates how turning the skating foot too much takes the skater off the circle. She also offers a tip: practice brackets on a small circle to force quick and small turns and develop better edge control.
Amy demonstrates a backward outside bracket and she describes how to press with the shoulders for an accurate turn. Notice that the shoulders don’t move hardly at all, although there is a fairly large arm movement. Amy shows how twisting the shoulders excessively on the entry causes the entry edge to flatten. To maintain the lean into the circle, Amy suggests keeping the nose inside the circle and she offers a vivid way to remember it.
