Let's just say, I'm taking my own 'direction' in improving my spins.
My left hip bursitis can't stand much repetitive motion, and my right great toe has arthritis and can't stand repetitive practice either. I can't practice in one direction over and over, so I now alternate to take the load off.
Fortunately, when I practice spinning to the right, I've noticed that my spins to the left improve. This is based on some solid science: when you work on a skill or strength on one side it improves the weak skill and strength of the opposite side of the body. In my case, what's happening is the flaws in one side are improving due to the better skills on the other, so that my spins are averaging into mirror images of each other.
If I spin to the right: I get two rotations. Immediately, I spin to the left: I get two rotations, and my free foot and leg position have improved. When I spin to the right, in the opposite direction, I already have good free foot position, but my skating leg position and strength improve.
The two sides of my body working together
But OMG are my spins sLoW....
but I'm making progress and feel secure
Then Group coach wants me to do alternating inside outside spirals
She says I'm 'close' to a passing position
She says I'm 'close' to a passing position
 |
| I think she's just being nice. |
Glad to hear that the strong member of opposite side elements seems to feed and improve your weak side. That hasn't happened to me. My wonky side FI Mohawk isn't getting any better even thought I have a beauty going the other way.
ReplyDeleteI messed around with changing my dominant rotational direction for a little while, because I'm a right-handed clockwise skater. I definitely noticed that spinning to my "opposite" side (to the left) improved my form overall because I made different kinds of errors.
ReplyDeleteUltimately I gave up the experiment because my CW-oriented brain couldn't handle the terror of jumping and rotating CCW. I can do a passable CCW waltz jump and one-foot spin, but not more than that. I still practice "unspinning" in the opposite direction sometimes when I get dizzy, though.