International coach Lorie Charbonneau gives a lesson to a skater on jump landings. Lorie begins by noting this skater sometimes struggles with dropping the free side on her jump landings, especially if she is tired or anxious. Lorie has her do a single loop and she tells her to land while “keeping the left side of her behind a little higher.”
After another attempt, Lorie focuses on the final gliding position of the jump landing. She brings the skater to the wall and sets the position she wants with the “head straight, arms out on the wall (square), bend your knee so your knee is touching the wall, and (the free foot) turned out from the knee.” After another single loop Lorie brings the skater back to the wall to talk about the free hip. She says, “You don’t want your (free) hip to be up too much. You want to keep the hips as square as possible.” She then describes how to turn out the free foot “from your knee” rather than excessively opening/lifting the free hip.
To create the position she wants, she has the skater purposely point the free toe down which closes and squares the hips before trying to turn out the free foot without moving the hips at all, and turning it out from the knee as much as possible. Lorie notes that some skaters find this easier than others.
Lorie says, “I want the hips square because I want to make sure the landing is going to be squared up when I hold it, one for aesthetic purposes and the other to make sure you’re not going into the rotation of the jump. When you’re checking your landing you don’t want to take that (free) hip and pull it the direction you’re trying to check that landing from. And it looks nicer.”
[Editor’s note: There are tons of landing position variations and this is not the only desirable position. The position Lorie is showing in this video is probably best described as a traditional landing stretch position as taught in the USA and Canada.]
