Skating Fridays

Private Lesson with Brian Orser

I was fortunate enough to secure a private lesson with Brian Orser when he was in town. Unfortunately, I did not get any photos or videos since we only had 30 minutes.

I asked Brian to help me on my double salchow. I told him that I landed my first clean one 2 months ago, so he took a look. He said that Javier Fernandez and Evgenia Medvedeva taught him a new entry that he’s been using on all of his athletes. Rather than going in a “magic circle” on the takeoff, Brian had me go into a T-position, where my free leg was resting on the ice on an outside edge. He then asked me to rotate on the ice and “flick” the free foot and transfer my weight onto the new axis.

I asked him if it was similar to a toe loop take off, and he said it was the exact same takeoff.

While I didn’t have any successful attempts, he didn’t expect one since it was a brand new technique. I’m excited to try it out the next time I get on the ice.

As for the double loop, he asked me to do a single loop. Then we did loop/loop and attempted loop/2Lo. The key for me was to make sure I always kept my free ankle in the same “pocket” next to my skating ankle. When I go up into the loop, I should not move any other body part – just get the ankle into the “pocket.” This was true for both the single loop and the double loop. We then tried Lo/Lo/2Lo, and while I did not fully rotate any of these, I was able to get my ankles in the right position. Brian was pleased that I got the concept and even executed the exercise correctly.

So – great progress and some mini achievements in 30 minutes. I’ll take it! And how amazing that I got to learn from one of the greatest coaches in the world!

Hopefully I can apply these new techniques soon and land some clean jumps later this year.