Coach and choreographer Kate Charbonneau finishes her presentation on the USFS Preliminary Skating Skills (Moves in the Field) Test. In Part 1 she discussed the Forward and Backward Crossovers and in Part 2 she covered the Consecutive Outside and Inside Spirals. In Part 3 she explained the Forward Power Three Turns and in Part 4 she shared the Alternating Forward Three Turns. In Part 5 she focused on the Forward Circle Eight pattern and in this video she teaches the Alternating Backward Crossovers to Backward Outside Edges (she refers to it as a “Back Crossover Extension exercise”).
Kate begins by noting that the alternating lobes means the skater is simply going once down the long axis of the rink for this pattern with the long axis along the side of the rink rather than directly down the center. She prefers this positioning because at the preliminary level, skaters really benefit from having the boards as a barrier indicating lobe size. Next Kate skates the pattern, showing the entry steps, the basic timing and lobe size, and the finish. She wants skaters to do 5 lobes down the ice to achieve the “right mix of power and control” and tests typically pass with that many lobes.
A common error is doing inconsistent lobe sizes, particularly differences between the lobes close to the barrier and those close to the center of the rink. To address this, Kate has the skater focus on returning to the axis and pushing perpendicular to the axis to begin each new lobe. Another common error is holding the crossovers for too long on the lobe and having too little time to hold the back outside edges. This is why Kate uses the count from one to four, with one being the first push of the crossover, two being the crossover undercut, and three being the push back onto the back outside edge at the top of the lobe which is held through the fourth count. Kate suggests using the hockey circles to learn a good lobe size for this pattern, and she uses the hockey circles on the ends of the rink as placements for the first and last lobes.
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