World and Olympic coach Tom Zakrajsek shares thoughts on the most fundamental or foundational jump in skating, the double loop. Tom begins by by saying, “It is an important jump, number one to learn properly, and number two to learn as soon as possible.” He then shares his philosophy for skaters learning double jumps after learning an axel, noting that he does not use a rigid order for learning the doubles, but instead starts building all the double jumps at the same time (except perhaps flip).
He explains that if a skater limits double development to just salchow and toe loop, then along with the axel they will be primarily doing change axis jumps, and not working on same axis jumps at all. [Editor’s Note: At 0:58 in the video when Tom says “staying over that left hip” he means the axis hip, and he references the left hip because his demonstrating skater in this video jumps CW or to the right.] Tom says, “I tell my athletes they have to juggle when they are practicing their double jumps, and that means they’ve got to do double sal, double toe, double loop, and maybe even double lutz all at the same time.” Rather than have skaters think about learning the jumps in a specific order, Tom wants them to “tie concepts and relationships between the jumps together.”
Tom typically teaches a double loop on a hockey circle. He uses the circle to help the skater understand the desired pattern and potential errors. He wants the skater to “stay to the outside of the circle” and quickly “activate the [axis] hip” to get to the take-off. He also wants the skater to “aim out.” Ideally the skating leg does a “little blurb” or a flattening of the edge (or even slight change of edge) outside of the circle just prior to the active take-off edge which Tom refers to here as the “starting edge.” This take-off sequence is necessary for the skater to press up over the axis side properly. Tom notes that this method is “a little more difficult” than some other double loop teaching methods, but the benefits are worth it in terms of loading, bending, edge control, and coordination and this approach makes learning the double flip and lutz “a whole lot easier.”
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