Single versus Double Salchow Comparison
I had a very insightful lesson last week with my jump coach. I’ve still been struggling with the double salchow and thought that I knew where I was going wrong. But during this lesson I had another “a-ha” moment that helped me pinpoint an issue that I believe is the main root cause of the problems I’m experiencing.
I know that I tend to open up at the end of the jump. I thought I had fixed the entry so I’m taking off later. But something still wasn’t right.
My coach videoed my single loop and calculated the air time: 0.35 seconds. It was definitely enough for a double salchow (where minimum air time is typically 0.30 seconds). He asked me to attempt a double and surprisingly, my air time on that was exactly the same as the single – 0.35 seconds. So theoretically, I had enough air time to accomplish the jump.
When we dug even further, we compared my jump entries. He videoed both and shared this gem with me:
I don’t know how difficult it is for you to see in this video, but my initial setup for both jumps is the same (the double attempt is in the top video). Then, my approach before the takeoff is different. The timing is not the same.
My coach realized that I was bending my knee too much in the double attempt so I’m losing momentum and cheating myself of rotation. He asked me to watch the video of the single to see how much knee bend I had there – it’s barely bent in that jump.
So the big takeaway for me is to not anticipate the double, and to treat it like a single with little to no knee bend. I think, psychologically, I am thinking that I need a big knee bend so I can “load and explode” into the air. But in reality, I don’t need that at all.
I found this to be a great insight about myself and will attempt to make the corrections moving forward. This lesson was a great example of how powerful video can be.
