Skating Fridays

Spin Clinic (part 2)

As I shared last week, I attended a spin seminar in Delaware. There were two days of clinics, with the second day focused on adults. I only participated in the adult seminar, and it was a smaller group of female skaters so we each got some individual attention.

My friend K and I shared a private lesson. We worked on scratch spins, camel spins, butterfly entries and laybacks. The time flew by, and before I knew it, we were getting kicked off the ice for the Zamboni resurfacing.

After a short break, the seminar began. We started off on the vestibular spinner, where we each got to try standing and balancing on the contraption. Surprisingly, I was able to keep it together without falling off. We first tried to pull in our arms, which made the spinner rotate at a faster velocity.

Next, we tried some sit spin positions. I started in a squat and then tried to twist my core. This is a spin I’ve done many times before, but not on a vestibular spinner. It actually threw me off because I am used to balancing on one foot while holding the position. Strangely enough, it was harder to balance on two legs for this!

After we each got a turn, we went to the ballet room to work on the spin boards. My coach created these spin board many, many years ago (before the pandemic) and found these to be helpful to build spins off-ice. She taught most via Facetime lessons on the spin board during the pandemic. Because she and I had worked on this together, I could easily keep up and even got to demonstrate some exercises.

Finally, we took these exercises to the ice. We mostly worked on scratch spins (centering them) and then moved on to sit spins. I got to demonstrate some exercises to build strength for lower sit spins and then even got to demonstrate my change foot sit spin from my program.

Thankfully, my legs weren’t too tired the next day. All in all, it was a great day, and I hope I can participate in another one of these seminars soon!

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