How To Do A Broken Leg Spin - In Figure Skates!

Welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. I am coach Julia and I'm very excited because today I have a special guest. Now our special guest is usually behind the camera, but I managed to find someone else to do the job today so they could be in front of the camera. Devin, get over here. Hello. Hello! So today we're going to be doing broken leg spins. And while I can do them, they're definitely not my best spin. I did not spend enough time practicing them when I was younger. I was like, Ooh, they're hard. And I quit. So don't do that. But my student over here is very good at broken leg spins. So they're going to be demonstrating this for you. So let's Let's get started with showing you what a broken leg spin looks like. So now that you know what a broken leg spin looks like, let's talk a little bit about this spin. It is in the sit-spin category. So you have three main categories, upright, camel, and sit. And this is in that sit-spin category. It's considered a variation. So you want to learn your standard basic sit. You need that for competitions. And then you can learn the variation, the broken leg, as, you know, a cool added skill. Alright, so this spin enters like any traditional spin with a wind-up or from a three-turn. Which way do you prefer doing it? Wind-up for this one, yeah. Definitely a wind-up because you don't need as much of that like kicking in motion on this one. Yeah. And you create a lot of that momentum with your arms rather than with your leg. Yes. Okay, so we're going to enter it like a basic sit-spin where you have a wind-up. Instead of bringing your leg full around like a sit where it makes that full circle and comes forward we're going to bring it into the side. You want to show us that? Yeah so from that wind up just coming in I do a little kick but I don't let my foot go past my knee and then I just sit down and we have a spin and it's really common your foot will probably touch the ice and that's fine. That's kind of where my spin has ended, where my foot is laying on the ice, so I don't get a lot of momentum. But as you build your skill with this, you can have your foot hover above the ice, and then you can maintain your speed. Let's talk a little bit about the action of the right leg, which is really the main difference in a broken leg spin. So instead of your leg coming in front, you're going to turn your toe forward, and your hip is going to rotate in. Okay, so it's like... Very cutesy, the way I do it, okay. I do it cutesy. Yeah, that's fair. So your knee goes forward and your toe goes forward, and you're going to close down on your left, so you still have that sit motion where you're trying to get your hip and your knee even, but the right knee is going to come slightly in front and slightly below your spinning knee, so you're contracted in a little ball, so you want to get your knee below and slightly in front with that foot. Flared open to the side. Now, Devin, what do you like doing with your arms when you do this spin? The easiest one is to just pull them across. Try and get your right hand in front of you, if you're assuming you're right-handed. Try and get your dominant hand in front of you and your other hand kind of behind you. That way you get that extra bit of torque. Yeah. But you can also pull the shoulders open, which I do a lot. or go underneath with your hands. I've seen people bring their hands underneath their legs or underneath their knees. They can get small enough. You can take those hands, face them towards the ice, and pull down under your knees, which is really a cool look. But you got to sit all the way down for those ones. Yeah, very low. But for starters, we can cross them. Right across, left behind. Okay, let's show just that knee coming forward and the lowering. Just that compression, for sure. If you were paying attention, you'll see that Devon kept their chest They weren't leaning down as far as you might in like a pancake. So you want to try to keep your back engaged and your core engaged so that as you lower you can keep your chest somewhat upright. I do tend to tip forward because again I haven't spent enough time practicing that spin. If you guys are wanting some inspiration, over here not over here on this spin. It is my favorite. It's a go-to. Yeah. And the classic sit is one of my favorites. So I spent a lot of time working on the traditional sit and I did not. Yes. So you get good at what you practice. Exactly. So keep that up. Keep your upper body nice and tall if you can and keep your lower, your core and your back engaged so that as you scrunch down, you're not tipping your weight in front of your knees. You're staying right over your foot. Okay. So you're lowering as Well as possible over your foot, especially if you're going to end up with your arms open. If you're tipped forward when you go down with your arms open, you're going to be like a spinning top and you'll be totally off balance. Yeah, it'll throw you all off kilter. So staying really upright, especially when you get to opening the arms, super helpful. It's going to help you keep your weight over the ball of the foot where you need to be for spinning. Yeah. Maintain that position. Okay. So some things that we can think about as we lower, as you said, your foot's probably going to hit the ice as you start spinning. Yeah. So it's going to be very slow and you can practice your pretty push outs afterwards. But as you work on building speed, you can try to keep this foot hovering up above. And that takes a lot of muscle in the outside of your hip. So if you're at the gym and you want to work on those Abductors you can build that strength on the outside of your legs to help you with those broken leg spins So let's break this down one more time so you get all those steps So you're going to wind up like a traditional spin you're going to step forward bring your right hand across your left hand back Keep your weight right over the ball of your foot, over the left leg, and you're going to turn and flare your right out so that your toe is forward, your knee is forward, and your knee is contracting in towards your spinning leg. So once again, arms around, weight over your spinning leg, and flare the other leg. Alright, that's about as well as I can do on the broken leg. That's pretty good. Thank you. It's not as good as I would like to have it. And so practice makes perfect, all right? You got to start somewhere, come out and work hard at it. But while you're working on this broken leg, don't let your traditional sit go to waste. You always have to keep working on those basic positions, the upright, the camel, the sit as you work on all the variations. So you never want to sacrifice a basic position for the cooler positions. Just add it. That's why we spend more and more time out on the ice as our skills improve. Absolutely. Let's see a few different arm variations for this broken leg. For sure. Thanks so much for helping me demonstrate some of those broken leg spins. Of course. Of course. You know what? Even when something feels a little bit tough, like this spin feels tough for me, don't let that discourage you. Go out there and practice it. It might never be your best spin, or maybe you find with a little bit of practice it's amazing. But either way, don't give up on those difficult skills. Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this, please do give us that thumbs up. And as always, I'm looking forward to reading all your comments in that section down below. Happy skating and we'll see you next time. See you next time. Bye!