Falling to one side on the scratch spin

I've been working on the scratch spin on and off for almost a year now. It's been a semi-frustrating process because what would usually happen is:

• 
  The scratch spin starts becoming consistent and I can hit it comfortably

• 
  I start trying to add speed / power into the spin, and lift the free leg higher

• 
  I lose the spin and time to start again from scratch (lame pun)

• 
  Process repeats

Usually when I start losing the spin, the spin starts to travel and I start falling to one side (I spin CCW, so I would fall to my right side), and I can no longer get my right leg to cross over.

Is this a problem that anyone else has had? What might cause a consistent spin to disappear when I try to "improve it"?

Thank you!

Well, according to my coach, I've got loads of things that cause this:

Tilt my head/and or body out of the circle

Hold my hands, arms or free foot wrong

Don't hold my git in tight enough.

Look down.

Look up

Twist my body

Enter the spin with the wrong arm leading

My legs are too far apart

I'm too far back on the blade

My toes aren't correctly positioned

I've got lots of ways too fail the one foot spin. OTOH, I can knock off a well-centered two foot spin with 4 rotations both ways.

On the other hand, when I was in Beta, the coach demonstrated a spin and I did a perfectly centered one foot spin for 3-4 rotations the first try. Beginner's luck, because I've never been able to do it since!

Wow, thank you for the list! That's a lot of things that can go wrong, I should experiment with the list and see what helps It's so frustrating when an element is inconsistent.

It's cool you can do two-foot spins both ways. I try that sometimes and I can maybe get like, 1 rotation. (Also I think I read your blog!)

lishazard said:

I've been working on the scratch spin on and off for almost a year now. It's been a semi-frustrating process because what would usually happen is:

• 
  The scratch spin starts becoming consistent and I can hit it comfortably

• 
  I start trying to add speed / power into the spin, and lift the free leg higher

• 
  I lose the spin and time to start again from scratch (lame pun)

• 
  Process repeats

Usually when I start losing the spin, the spin starts to travel and I start falling to one side (I spin CCW, so I would fall to my right side), and I can no longer get my right leg to cross over.

Is this a problem that anyone else has had? What might cause a consistent spin to disappear when I try to "improve it"?

Thank you!

Click to expand...

The best thing you could do would be to post a video so we can see what's happening.
Meanwhile, I'll venture a guess as to what you're doing. When you "try to add speed and power" how do you do that? I'm guessing you're swinging harder,wider and higher with the free leg. If so, that is not the way to do it. The power for a spin comes from the entrance edge being really deep. If you put your strength and focus into that part, the rest is just a matter of harnessing the centrifugal force and keeping your body under control.

Go into your entrance edge super low, with a tight upright back and lots of knee and ankle bend (as though you're going into a sit spin, not an upright spin) and hold that edge as it tightens into a concentric circle, keeping your free leg way behind you until you come to the end of that entrance edge and feel your bottom pick hitting the ice to hook the spin. As you hook the spin, lift up a little, bringing the free leg through low and close, then lifting the thigh and knee once it's in front of you. Do NOT swing the free leg higher and farther from the body; that will just make it get stuck and give you a groin pull (I made that mistake when I was trying to get a faster scratch spin many years ago). Now hold that open position while keeping your skating knee slightly bent and pressing the ball of the blade into the ice to keep from getting pulled up onto your toepick. Slowly pull the arms and free leg in, harnessing the centrifugal force and keeping your shoulders pressed down as you keep pressing the ball of the blade into the ice.

I'd recommend doing this from a standstill in a T position on a line to see if you are making your entrance edge round enough and holding it long enough. Start on the line with your left foot in front (perpindicular to the line) and right foot behind and turned out (on the line). Bend your knees and ankles deeply, with your left arm in front and right arm out to the side. Look to your left and gently push off onto a small, round entrance edge, leading with a gently sweeping left arm. Stay down and let the edge curl until you feel like you've drawn a full circle on the ice. Now look at your tracing. Did your entrance edge draw a half circle and come back to the line you started on? That's what you need to do before hooking the spin, and it will *feel* like you've drawn a 360 degree circle.

vlaurend said:

Go into your entrance edge super low, with a tight upright back and lots of knee and ankle bend (as though you're going into a sit spin, not an upright spin) and hold that edge as it tightens into a concentric circle, keeping your free leg way behind you until you come to the end of that entrance edge and feel your bottom pick hitting the ice to hook the spin. As you hook the spin, lift up a little, bringing the free leg through low and close, then lifting the thigh and knee once it's in front of you. Do NOT swing the free leg higher and farther from the body; that will just make it get stuck and give you a groin pull (I made that mistake when I was trying to get a faster scratch spin many years ago). Now hold that open position while keeping your skating knee slightly bent and pressing the ball of the blade into the ice to keep from getting pulled up onto your toepick. Slowly pull the arms and free leg in, harnessing the centrifugal force and keeping your shoulders pressed down as you keep pressing the ball of the blade into the ice.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for the detailed advice! I tried this on the ice today and I didn't fall to the side once, and I was able to bring my knee up higher. Am I cheating my spin if I have to lift my knee? When I watch some of the advanced skaters at my rink, their entrance looks very similar to Dorothy Hamill's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2VuosSk9zU. They seem to be able to keep their free legs high from the beginning, and do not need to lift their knees.

No video unfortunately - agree that footage is useful for progress and critique, but I practice alone and am too shy to ask strangers

lishazard said:

Thank you so much for the detailed advice! I tried this on the ice today and I didn't fall to the side once, and I was able to bring my knee up higher. Am I cheating my spin if I have to lift my knee? When I watch some of the advanced skaters at my rink, their entrance looks very similar to Dorothy Hamill's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2VuosSk9zU. They seem to be able to keep their free legs high from the beginning, and do not need to lift their knees.

No video unfortunately - agree that footage is useful for progress and critique, but I practice alone and am too shy to ask strangers

Click to expand...

Yay!! So glad it helped! I've been doing scratch spins for 20 years and have never extended my free leg straight out in front of me without a sightly bent knee. It throws my weight too far back on the blade. Even when coming up out of a sit spin to do a scratch spin, I start to bend my free leg as I rise up out of the sit spin (even though my free leg is extended straight in front of me in the sit or cannonball sit position before I start rising up).