How To Do Back Crossovers in a Figure 8

We're going to be using these two hockey circles. You really could do this anywhere on the rink that you can generate two circles. When I do it practicing, I do two huge circles using the full ice, but I have the luxury of not very busy ice when I practice. I'm usually able to pick the quiet sessions like this one. So we're going to use these two hockey circles. We're going to start by going clockwise around our circle. That means my left leg is crossing over my right. Now you can do these either with the beginner crossovers that we practiced earlier where you're lifting your foot or with the more advanced crossovers. I'm primarily going to be demonstrating it with the advanced crossovers. Okay, so as we did in the first one, once you get to where you're making a diagonal and you can see the other circle is just behind me. I don't want you to get all the way to the middle of the circle or you're going to have to make a really weird correction. So we're not doing crossovers to the middle. We're doing them to where we can create a diagonal directly to the opposite circle. To start with, we're going to do it as a two foot glide or swizzles in the middle. That's kind of level one of this skill. I'm looking at you when I'm doing these, but if I was doing them without the camera here, I would be looking over my shoulder and I could see that diagonal coming. So when you see that diagonal coming, what I want you to do is square out your hands by dropping them and going square. So you know I don't like helicopter hands. We're doing our crossovers with our hands in the correct position. We're going to drop them and square out. We're going to swizzle, drop, and square. So that lets us cross over. Now I have my right leg crossing over because the outside foot always crosses towards the inside of our circle. So now I can see I'm lined up with the other one. I'm going to drop, I'm going to swizzle, drop, line my hands up so I'm looking back and inside my circle, and I can continue with my left over right crossovers. So you did this going forward. We're just copying it going backward so that we can make that nice figure eight pattern. And now you can see I'm not dropping my hands all the way to my hips. I'm just dropping them a little bit so that they don't spin, okay? All right, so that is level one where we're using swizzles in between our circles to switch between them. So now let's level this up, the second version of these back crossovers in a figure eight. Now we're going to be using one foot glides. Now I'm going to give you two levels of one foot glides, okay? So we're going to have three different versions of this depending on your feelings of confidence out on the ice, okay? Any of them are acceptable. So this second version is using a basic one foot glide. Okay, we're going to do the same thing where we're starting with our left over right clockwise crossovers. So my left leg is crossing over my right. Again, you can do these with the lifting if it's more your speed at this point, but I'm demonstrating with them with the slide. Okay, so when I get to my spot where I am looking across, I want you to switch your hands right at the beginning now, okay? So it's all happening at once, whoosh, okay? So instead of the pause in the middle where you're here and you're backwards swizzling, you're looking over your right hand. Your hands are going to drop and look over your left hand, okay? So let's look at that with a little bit of speed. So we have our crossovers left over right. I'm going to look and switch, okay? I mean, honestly, if you're going fast enough, that could be version two. You could do it with just a two foot glide in between. You can practice that way. Look, switch. All right, so I'm giving you sort of an in-between level here, level 1.5. Look, switch. Okay, so you can practice that switch. You're going to use it with the one foot glide and with our extended one foot glide. So hopefully that switch of the arms makes sense to you. You're just moving through and looking at the circle that you're about to skate on. So hopefully you practice that arm switch or you understand that arm switch. It's, again, I gave you sort of three levels, but that's like 1.5. It's right in between, okay? So the arm switch, we're facing our original circle. So my right hand's in back. I'm going to drop. My left hand is in back because I'm going towards my left arm. I'm going to go counterclockwise towards my left arm. And I want you to lift your left foot, okay? So this is a classic lifted one foot glide position, but you're looking over your shoulder. Let me do that with a little bit of speed so you can see how that's going to work. So we have our left over right crossovers. I'm looking towards my right hand. I switch. I'm looking towards my left hand and I pick up my left foot. Now I can drop that left foot and go directly into my crossovers. Now my right foot is crossing. I'm looking towards my left hand. Switch. Look towards my right hand. Lift my right foot. Drop my right foot and I can go directly into my crossovers. Now the reason I'm being so specific with which foot you lift is because if you lift the wrong one, it's going to put you in an awkward position to do a crossover. So if I lift my right one, then I have to put my right one down and then shift my weight over to do my crossovers. So it puts an extra step in there that we don't really want. I'm going to get that leg lift. All right. Now we are ready for our fourth version of backward crossovers in a figure eight. This is going to use a backward extended one foot glide. So again, we're going to start with clockwise crossovers, left over right. So we're going to come around to that point where we can see the diagonal behind us. So we're going to do the same thing where we switch hands, but this time instead of our lifting our leg here, we're going to lift it and point it where we're trying to go. Okay. So your leg is lifting and saying, I want to go there. So that key difference is just where you're placing your one foot glide. So I'm looking towards my right hand right now. I'm going to switch, look towards my left hand and with it, lift my left leg. Okay. So I want you to think about that arm and that leg sort of mirroring each other. Okay. My arm and my leg should be kind of creating two parallel lines. Let's look at that on the other side. So if I'm going right over left crossovers, I'm going to switch my hands. Now my right leg is lifting and my right hand is pointing back. Then I can place that right leg down and go into my crossovers. All right. So right, left hands and back. I switch, look at the left, lift the left, place the left down. Do my right over left crossovers, switch hands, lift the right leg and hand. All right. So that is your next level, the fourth level of backward alternating crossovers on an eight. So one last time with this sort of ultimate version of our backward crossovers on an eight. So we have our left over right crossovers. I'm looking towards my right hand. When I come to my diagonal, I'm going to switch. Look at my left hand, lift that left leg and arm. Now I'm crossing my right over my left. I'm going to switch my hands and extend both leg and arm together.