Axel notes . 8.16.2006
Position to facilitate
rapid weight transfer
Arms on take off - hold them close
to the side of the torso, as if you were holding ski poles, like folded
wings.
The elbow should point straight back.
Entire body weight should be centered over skating leg. the free leg
should be bent and directly under
the free hip. Skating knee should be bent.
Imagine a very narrow door that you
have to pass through on the take off.
The narrower you are, the quicker
you will get over to the backspin side in the air. it is less distance
to travel and less swingy.
Creating resistance to
generate lift
imagine a rubber band that is holding
your torso and someone is standing behind you pulling on the rubber
band as you are moving forward. Now you have to resist that force from
behind as you move forward. This resistance is a loading effect before
the jump take off. The more resistance you have in your torso, the quicker
the ascent to the top of the jump and the easier it is to get to backspin
position.
The way to get the resistance is
to practice sitting on the edge slightly longer than on a waltz jump.
The longer you sit on the edge, the more you have to build up the resistance
in your torso from the tension required to hold your body in the takeoff
position. The additional tension will translate into a takeoff with
a faster rise to the top of the jump. You want a faster ascent
in order to do the axel. in addition, the faster ascent will facilitate
rotation, because of the excess momentum moving up will translate quickly
into a crossover and a backspin position, the energy is used by pulling
in. If the skater doesn't pull in, it will result in an overrotated
waltz jump, because there is so much energy created from the tension
released on takeoff.
Because the axel requires you to
pull in at the top, you want to get to the top as quickly as possible
and be "suspended" at the top for a split second in the backspin
position so that you can pull in for the rotation. If there isn't
enough acceleration to the top of the jump, the crossover to the backspin
side will be less pronounced, harder to feel blindly in the air and
typically happen very late in the jump. The more pronounced the rise
and crossover, the easier to feel the moment of suspension and backspin
position so that the skater can pull in for the jump. If the skater
does not get to the backspin position in time and tries to pull in,
it will result in an off-axis jump which can feel insecure and lead
to painful falls.
When sitting on the edge longer before
take off, the knee bend has to gradually increase to "load"
the jump before take off. This important loading effect also contributes
to the fast ascent on takeoff. On jumps like the axel, the arms do contribute
significantly to the lift of the jump if the arms follow through correctly.
On the double salchow, the arms contribute less on the take off of the
jump, there is more contribution from the balance point on the edge,
the knee bend and 3 turn entry.
staying low in the knee and torso
slightly on the entry also assists in the vertical thrust of the jump.
Because the point of take off is so precarious - you are going to jump
forward and the last thing to leave the ice is the toepick which could
slide out from under you -, you want to buy as much possible insurance
that your take off will have as much stability as possible. The low
crouched position you get from a deeper knee, slightly forward torso
and free leg/arms will be more stable than a position where there is
not enough tension in the body throughout and the body is higher up
( meaning less knee bend and a back that is more upright)
On Take off
on take off the arms and free leg
go BACK TOGETHER and THROUGH TOGETHER. The togetherness is extremely
important to make sure that the skater is in the correct position on
take off. The free leg and arms must be in sync with each other so that
the skater will hit the right position on take off in order make the
jump successful. Make sure that the arms follow through to shoulder
height on take off all the way. This will generate LIFT and height in
the jump. The free leg should go straight through a slot as if you were
walking. Stopping the arms on lift off will only cut short the
height of the jump and amount of vertical thrust that could otherwise
have been created.
The take off is counterintuitive
because on land it is something that probably wouldn't happen naturally.
Also, if the jump doesn't ascend to the top quickly enough, the step
over is less likely to happen at the right time. The step over
in the axel is like on land, you step forward on to the ball of the
right foot and then pivot 180 degrees so that you are facing the direction
you came from.
It is important to remember that
the crossover happens NATURALLY, it does not work if the step over happens
forcefully. if you the jump rises to the peak fast enough the step over
will happen by itself. if your waltz jump is not stepping over until
you are almost landing the jump, you need to work more on the take off
of the waltz jump in order to get it to rise fast enough and crossover
with a moment of suspension in the backspin position before landing.
On rotation
It doesn't make sense at first that
this take off style will get you additional rotation but it does get
you up into the air with a quicker acceleration to the peak. Once
you can feel the free leg point down midair- you know you can pull into
the backspin position easily and be in a safe rotation position. The
safe rotation position is good because even if you underrotate, you
can save yourself from falling hard. some skaters have the uncanny ability
to underrotate jumps and stay vertical, this is because they are so
on their rotational axis that they can balance their way out of the
jump, in a similar fashion to a backspin exit.
What is important to remember is
that the lift of the jump and crossover is of primary importance. you
want to worry about these two aspects first and then worry about rotation
last. The reason why is that rotation will happen on its own by squeezing
the arms and legs into the backspin position quickly at the right time.
When you have lift and crossover into the corrrect position, everything
else is simple. Too often, skaters try to rotate at the beginning
to the jump with a jump takeoff that is too low in trajectory, and without
enough tension in the take off in order to allow them to generate rotation
when pulling in.
once you get this far, you will discover
that pulling in will generate rotation easily and naturally, and then
you are simply stuck with the problem of checking out hard enough and
fast enough to break the rotation on landing.
On Fundamentals and the
role they play in multirev jumps.
The most important thing to is to
go back to the single jump and work on height, takeoff and speed and
confidence in approaching the single jump. This will teach the skater
to learn how to approach jumps with more tension prior to takeoff and
control their edges and bodies for jumps. In addition, it is good preparation
for multi revolution jumps because the skater will learn the key skills
for acquiring more jump height and rapid ascent.
