Figure skating spin specialist Charyl Brusch continues working with a skater on a variety of spins. In the previous videos the focus was on sit spin and camel spin. In this video, Charyl is working on the layback spin. She begins by having the skater get more comfortable pushing the hips forward while hanging on to the wall. She jokes about lifting the heels off the ice for these kinds of exercises, but it’s not really a joke as this is potentially dangerous. Charyl uses an analogy of the mid- and upper-back being a towel draped over a towel rack and notice how high Charyl’s arm (the towel rack) is on the skater’s back (not at small of back). Another tip is to press the skating hip over the toe. To learn this position and the balance point on the blade, Charyl then assists the skater skating backwards in an intermediate layback position.
The skater struggles with the next entry and Charyl reminds her not to come up out of the skating knee so quickly (or too soon). She tells the skater to spin on more of a flat rather than an inside edge (straighten the ankle – no pronation) and again she has the skater skate backwards on a straight line to feel this. Charyl says, “I don’t want you to try to get too much inside edge, especially on a layback (because) it really drags and slows down.” She also describes the torso as a rectangle and the entire rectangle should bend and not twist. She says, “It’s really easy to crunch your right (free) side and not feel it (going straight back), because it’s easier. It’s much harder to get square, but it’ll also make you spin better.”
Charyl repeatedly tells the skater to pull back on the left hip, yet she wants the skater to press the hips forward. What she is trying to make happen is to square the hips more in the forward position. Also, once in the correct position, the sensation of spinning has the skating hip moving backwards.
Another tip for layback is the idea of “turning away from the free leg” as the way of moving from the initial upright position with the free foot in front to enter the layback with the free foot behind. Again she uses the wall to help safely illustrate this concept. She says, “I’m starting on a soft knee and as I turn into my layback I’m straightening my knee and pushing my bottom forward.” She continues, “The lower the center of gravity the better.” She also talks about the free side arm as a way to square off the hips and upper body position.
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