Jump Development Exercises Pt 5 – Hop Arounds (Chris Conte)

Chris Conte continues with Part 5 of a multi-part series on jump development exercises. In this series, Chris provides a set of warm-up exercises with a variety of drills embedded in them to develop important jumping skills associated with axis, air position, head control, and strong powerful landings. The drills are general and apply to all multi-rotation jumps and are not focused on specific-jump take-off methods or technique. In Part 1, Chris introduced the “snizzle” which is a combination of “snap drill” and “twizzle.” In Part 2, he showed some basic warm-up drills including the backward jump snizzle. In Part 3, he covered a warm-up drill and a landing drill. In Part 4 he revisited snizzles with his demonstrator.

In this video, Chris introduces the “hop around” which is a precursor to a snizzle with a hop or jump. In the “hop around” the skater should jump or hop up in the air “at the cusp of the three turn” and not after the 3-turn. Chris notes the importance of the head and arms for this drill. (Chris notes that many skaters who learn twizzles with lots of upper body movement often have a hard time with proper jump air position.) Chris breaks it down and notes the free leg moves to the side of the skating leg (much like the “loose leg” drill from Kori Ade). He suggests having the skater do the drill without the hop to get the rhythm and movements.

In response to a question about whether the skater was actually lifting off at the cusp of the 3-turn or not, Chris discusses the idea of rocking from the heel to the toe (at the cusp of the 3-turn) to initiate the hop. Notice the skater gets up and pivots more on the toe pick then this is the focus. The concept of pivoting on the toe pick also helps many skaters avoid “cheating” on this drill.”

Next, Chris adds this “hop around” exercise to a repeating pattern, hop-around-hop-around-snizzle. The final drill has two hop arounds followed by a double snizzle which Chris refers to here as a “two and a half.” Chris laughs at the end of the video because his phone rings (you have to listen very carefully to hear it).