Hot Cross Buns--er---Rolls

I've always had trouble with cross rolls.  Anyone else?

Anyway, I admire the way some people do a big semi-circle then at the last minute the free foot crosses onto the outside edge, and you push off with the old skating foot from a T position. Finally, this summer I asked Coach Amazing if she could help.

She stood too one side and watched me do my 'cross rolls'. What I was doing was rather pathetic flat curves and only occasionally landing on the outside edge.

"I see what you're doing wrong," she said, "You're starting your free leg forward too early."

I was treating the cross roll like a swing roll. What I was doing was bringing the free leg forward at the top of the curve, and I wasn't bending my knees enough.

What I *should* have been doing was bending the knee much much more, and not bringing the freeleg forward until the last second.

It took me a while to break myself of the habit of bringing the free leg forward too soon, but once I mastered bringing the freeleg forward at the last second, I found that with the proper kneebend, I was automagically in a proper T-push position for the next edge.

Well, at least I only have to
worry about TWO legs!

Move.Smooth

"Don't jerk your foot like that." Dance Coach has the frowny face as he watches me do the Evil Step Behind from Rhythm Blues. If I'm not paying attention, when I  bring the front foot up, I do it too quickly (just to get the thing over with) and my upper body will rock slightly in response.

Ah, yes. Move. Smooth. It's more than just style points. There's actual physics involved.

Since I'm a beginner, up to this point, most of my skating problems have been soluble by thinking about my center of gravity.  It's not until I got to the Evil Step Behind that I run into more complicated concepts.

For those of you pursuing Freestyle, I'd better explain The Evil Step Behind. Think of it as a back cross roll, without the back, or the roll. You skate forward, bring the free foot in front, then gracefully (this is ice dance) move it so it crosses behind the skating foot, to the opposite side, and switch feet so the free foot is now the skating foot. You don't 'roll' so there's not any margin of error of skate placement. This is usually the make or break point for adult ice dancers. And it's in a beginner dance. Fortunately, Coach Amazing helped me past this point with her advice to Point.That.Toe. Now, I have to achieve consistency and 'pretty skating'.

What happens when you too quickly move your foot up ahead of you, either in the first step or subsequent steps? Well, there's a disturbance in the Force. And that disturbance is called jerk. I do not make these names up.

What happens when that front foot snaps up too quickly is that your foot accelerates up, then suddenly stops. The rate of change of acceleration abruptly goes from something to nothing. You get a physical jerk, hence the name.

When you stop that foot too quickly the rest of your body has to respond to the resulting release of force. A beginner skater like me wobbles in the upper body to keep from falling. This doesn't happen when you're standing on the ground, but when you're in skates, you're on the rocker. Your stability is lessened and the upper body is sensitive to sudden changes in acceleration. Even small changes in acceleration such as from a badly done step behind can cause a wobble in the upper body. (More experienced skaters don't have this problem, as they have better body control and years of practice. This is a beginner problem. )

The solution to this is to Move.Smooth. The motion of raising the foot from the ice and bringing it to a stop has to be done so that there's a slow change in acceleration. It should be like stopping a car when your elderly great grandmother is sitting beside you. Don't just 'step on the brake' to stop. Plan that stop so it feels like a soft pillow gently being put on a sofa. Same thing with the step behind. Raise it (increase the acceleration from zero to something), then bring it to a stop in a planned manner. Smoothly.

Interestingly, in the early rocket programs of the 50's and 60's jerk caused the destruction of many rockets. Here's some motivational video of rockets exploding.

AWKWARD moments in learning to ice dance

From day one coach has had the idea in his head that I wanted to learn back cross rolls, and that I wanted to learn them the 'ice dance way' (the hard way) by stepping straight to the edge rather than rolling back from the toepick.  His method to teach me was to have me do the back cross rolls while 'lightly' (his words) resting my hands on his, while he skated forward. (It began with a death grip on my part, but we got to lightly). Anyway, you should have this mental picture: I'm skating backwards with my free foot stuck forward pointing my toe with all the mighty power of my Tinkerbelle sized foot, Dance Coach is facing me and skating forward, we're about 18 inches  apart. My hands are lightly resting on his. He's skating in that negligent, easygoing way people who've been skating since they were 6 do, legs apart and just gliding along because I'm so slow.

Now, watchers of Three Stooges shorts, bad TV comedies, and America's Funniest Home Videos should know what happens next.

The blade of my skating foot hit a rut and I started falling backwards.

The natural reaction to this is my free foot kicked upwards.

Yes, I toepicked my coach in the crotch.

But, on the good side, it slowed down my fall.

My face went white. He was getting married in 6 weeks. "Oh my god," I cried, "I kicked you in the nuts!"

Coach started laughing, "No, no, you just got my leg." As if that wasn't bad enough.

I was trembling in horror and I didn't want to do another crossroll, but he made me do them down the rink again.