Tip of the Week: Janet Champion's Spins

Tip of the Week: Janet Champion's Spins

BY TERRI MILNER TARQUINI

Spins all start somewhere… and they should finish close to that same spot.

In figure skating, that’s known as “centering.”

Skaters were experimenting with spins as early as the 1850s, with the crossfoot spin included in the Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society’s repertoire of club figures in the 1860s. However, it wasn’t until the 1930s when a momentous advancement to skating was agreed upon by elite coaches of the time, including legends Jacques Gerschwiler, Gustave Lussi and Willie Frick: Spins should be centered and not travel.

Gerschwiler was quoted as theorizing “that the rotation in the spin comes from the check of the forward movement by the marked turning of the body, and that when a spin is not centered, that is to say when the skater is travelling as opposed to remaining in one place, it is because this forward movement has not been sufficiently checked.”

Ninety years later and coaches are still looking for ideas to teach their skaters the crucial concept of centering.

“The best print on the entry edge on all of your spins is shaped like half of a valentine heart,” Janet Champion said in a PSA Tip of the Week on PSA TV, demonstrating by starting on a hockey line, curving out and returning to the line to complete the half-heart shape.

Getting the outside edge to curve in is imperative in a skater’s ability to successfully center a spin.

“The edge has to deepen just before the point of the three-turn,” Champion said. “You have to lean in and then keep increasing your knee bend until you get to the spin.”

Champion has coached at the Broadmoor World Arena since 1987, when she moved there to join Carlo Fassi’s coaching team. Master rated in free skating, figures, moves in the field and group instruction, she was inducted into the PSA Hall of Fame in 2012 and has earned a reputation as a top spin instructor, having been the spins specialist for several world and Olympic competitors.

“A spin requires the conversion of forward momentum into rotational force,” Champion wrote in an issue of PS Magazine. “To achieve this, the entry edge of a spin must be a curve whose diameter diminishes as it approaches the three-turn. Examining the print on the ice can be a major help to clue the teacher in on mistakes and to assist the student in understanding good spin technique.”

Champion’s PSA TV video has another recommendation to help a skater achieve a correct spin entrance.

“Also, spotting your head where the edge started really helps you center your spin,” she said.

This is not the repeated spotting of dancers, but rather a momentary spot.

“I’m going to look straight forward here,” Champion said, skating the half-heart entrance edge, “but, when I hook my spin, I’m going to drop my head to the right and look (spot) where the spin started.”

Standing on the hockey line where the skater begins the entrance edge is an effective way for the skater to understand where they need to be looking when they go to hook the three-turn that triggers the spin.

“A good tip, I think, is I stand here (on the line),” Champion said. “Then I have my skater do the (entrance edge of the) spin and then, as they start spinning, they have to see me.”

While dancer’s heads stay in the same place and their body turns until their head whips around and finds the same spot to look at, skaters rotate much too fast to spot through a spin. However, one good spot could go a long way in setting up a spin for success.

“It’s only one time you spot your head and then you let it go,” Champion said. “But keeping your head to the right helps with converting forward momentum into angular momentum.”

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