Skating Fridays

Mind Trickery – a Double Salchow Success Story!

I landed my first (and only) clean double salchow in 2019. It was definitely a fluke because I haven’t be able to recreate it since then. I was so excited about it but wasn’t able to get the technique consistent, and subsequent attempts have been badly cheated.

To be honest, it was defeating. I wanted this jump SO BADLY but had such a hard time with it. My jump coach tried just about everything under the sun, and nothing worked. We worked on various techniques, different entries and other approaches. Nada.

Last week, he came up with a brilliant new exercise that he collaborated on with Jeremy Allen (Bradie Tennell’s former coach). We worked on a step sequence – forward outside rocker, step behind to a backward cross stroke. Eventually, we sped this up so it resembled an axel takeoff (but thinking about it as a forward rocker).

A few days after my lesson, I tried a few double salchows. After re-watching the video, it appeared that they were about a quarter turn cheated, which is the cleanest I’ve gotten since 2019. Yes, the landing was ugly, but it was rotated!

My coach confirmed that my landing was slightly under a quarter cheated, so if this had been done in competition, it would have received full credit (minus the Grade of Execution, of course, which likely would have given me some deductions). However, I am over the moon that this mind trickery has helped me. Rather than thinking of this as a salchow, I tell myself that it’s a rocker jump.

Here’s to hoping that the technique continues to stick and that I can get this jump consistently clean!

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