Skating Fridays

A Real Back Camel Spin

I’ve been on the struggle bus with the back camel spin. For whatever reason, my body refuses to get itself into the right position for the spin to work. My free leg goes off to the side, my body doesn’t want to bend forward, and I cannot hook the spin at all. I watch Jason Brown’s back camel and just sigh. It’s a thing a beauty, unlike my sad attempts.

One morning, I went to freestyle, and as I was getting ready to turn in my freestyle passes, the ice monitor stopped me. She said that the ice was bad, so my session was free. Huh. This hasn’t happened before. Once I stepped onto the ice, I knew why the session was free. The ice was worse than a 6-hour public session with no Zamboni cut in between. The grooves and snow on the ice were so bad that if you fell, you’d cut yourself from the choppy ice and end up in the hospital. And I’m not exaggerating.

I knew that my blades would be dull after that session. So I contacted my blade guy and asked him to take a look. He took a quick glance and said that my blades were bad. After he returned them to me, I tried another attempt at the horrendous back camel spin, just for fun. And to my surprise, this is what happened:

Well, what do you know? It just took a good blade sharpening to get my edges to work! This is probably one of the best back camel spins I’ve done to date. Just so you know, I haven’t done one this good since!! Ha ha ha!

Hopefully the improved spin is here to stay, but I may need to get my blades sharpened again in order for that to happen.

10 Comments

  1. November 15, 2019 / 2:32 pm

    Very nice Eva, I’m happy for your skating win!

    • evabakes
      Author
      November 15, 2019 / 3:53 pm

      Thanks, Mary! I was so excited to have a real back camel spin!

  2. November 15, 2019 / 3:28 pm

    That’s pretty impressive, Eva! I wonder what exactly was wrong with your blades to make this change so dramatic (whether it was the entry edge, or the spinning spot on the blade). You’d think that you’d notice this difference on other moves too.

    • evabakes
      Author
      November 15, 2019 / 3:54 pm

      I’m pretty user it was just user error. 🙂 I have trouble aligning my body into the correct position on every step of the spin setup, so then my actual spin is incorrect. For some reason, everything aligned correctly that day!

  3. J
    November 15, 2019 / 4:58 pm

    Wow Eva, that was a great spin!
    I think you got the camel spin right bc you had the confidence to do it and the determination!
    Have a fantastic weekend!

    • evabakes
      Author
      November 15, 2019 / 5:05 pm

      Thanks, J! I guess I do tend to lack confidence… 😉

  4. November 16, 2019 / 2:47 pm

    Sometimes it just takes one thing to make a difference, even if it’s not totally related. It’s like your brain is just waiting for a reason to get you over the mental block. Regardless, congrats!!!

    • evabakes
      Author
      November 18, 2019 / 8:46 am

      That’s so true, Mercedes. Now if I could only get the rest of my elements fixed… 😉

  5. George A
    November 16, 2019 / 8:20 pm

    Nicely centered!

    • evabakes
      Author
      November 18, 2019 / 8:46 am

      Thanks, George! I definitely have a traveling problem when it comes to spins, so this was a huge win!

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