Spin specialist Kim Ryan works with a skater on her sit spin as part of a sit to up camel. This skater performs her basic sit spin entry as an upright spin, and then sits after she is spinning. This technique is less common, as most skaters enter a sit spin on a bent knee and stay down for the sit spin, rather than standing up and sitting back down.
Kim begins by suggesting the skater do a forward lunge entry for the sit spin. This is a classic approach to starting down in the knee and staying down. Kim notices this skater strongly opens the free hip to bring the free leg around, and this is typically more comfortable in an upright position, which helps explain why the skater comes up so far. Kim suggest feeling the simple movements of stroking to push with the free toe pointed more downward in an attempt to prevent the hip from opening so far on the sit entry.
Next Kim focuses on the upper body position. She asks the skater to have more forward body lean by “velcroing your rib cage to your spinning thigh.” She also switches the skater’s entry from a forward inside three turn to back crossovers. Skaters typically stand more upright for the forward inside three turn, and lean more into the circle from backward crossovers. Kim explains that it’s easy and fast to incorporate the back crossover entry into choreography (via a simple undercut). She also tells the skater to keep the “tension” of the spin, both in the sit and the transition to the up camel. She says, “You’re releasing the energy when you stand up. Try not to release the energy. Keep squishing it down.”
Finally, to get more forward body lean as discussed earlier, Kim focuses on the hand and arm position. She asks for a firm hand-to-hand, right-over-left connection (“super glue those thumbs together”) with a stretch forward and down. She mimics the direction of the energy flow by talking about “lasers in the fingers.”
Sorry, this content is for members only.Click here to get access.
Already a member? Login below… |
Add to "My Favorites" (Beta testing)
