International figure skating coach Page Lipe explains how she teaches a walley. She starts by drawing a tracing on the ice and describing what a walley is. Then she explains the first step of the learning process as simply standing at a standstill on a (back) inside edge, and jumping without rotation to a (back) outside edge. Page offers an important tip by saying, “I tell them to throw their (free) leg in front of them a little bit. They’re not jumping behind themselves. They’re jumping out and a little bit forward.” The next step of the process is to include a small amount of rotation, with the skater landing forward on the middle of the blade and then doing a three turn to the back outside edge.
To learn to close the hip for the remainder of the rotation of the landing foot, Page takes the skater to the wall/doorway, and has the skater get used to jumping from the back inside edge to forward on the blade without turning the upper body hardly at all, while holding on to the wall for support. This is done by turning the landing foot inward (internal rotation)in the air at the hip. For a full walley, Page says, “You’re not really doing a whole turn with your body. You’re doing like a half turn with your body and then your leg completes the rotation by turning in.” She also shows the relative movement of the free leg and how it gets “collected” for the rotation.
Page has one of her skaters perform some walleys and she offers insights and feedback. The skater has a few typical problems which Page corrects.
She notes that she uses the ISI system and walleys are in ISI level 7, but she doesn’t introduce the walley until a skater is at level 6. (For reference, she explains the walley happens about the same time as double toe loop, one foot axel, etc in the ISI system.) After a skater has mastered the jump on the regular landing foot, Page has them learn it the other way as well. Although many skaters flex the take-off foot a bit, Page does not tell her skaters to do so unless she’s trying to make corrections.
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