Gracie Gold Exercise
Did you all watch the U.S. Figure Skating Championships? What an amazing competition! It feels like everyone brought their ‘A’ games, and rightfully so since it is an Olympic year. One of they highlights (besides the skating), was watching Gracie Gold’s twitter feed. She was hilarious and had the funniest — and sometimes snarkiest — things to say!
Although Gracie is taking some time off to battle some inner demons, I was able to get a hold of one of the exercises and warmups that both she and her sister Carly do for their salchows. I’m determined to land a correct double salchow this year and know that this is the year that I will make it happen.
A recent analysis of my double salchow takeoff was that I was pre-rotating (read: cheating) it. Rather than jump straight and forward, I was jumping into the circle and getting too swingy. So this is where the Gracie exercise comes in.
Watch what Gracie and Carly are doing in this video:
You’ll notice that they do their regular salchow takeoff (with just a tiny hop), and land FORWARD on a FLAT, and then do traveling 3-turns out of it. The purpose of this is to train the body to jump forward rather than around.
The next step after this is to do the same exact thing, except land backward and then do the traveling 3-turns. After that, the training wheels come off and one should attempt the double (triple, or quadruple) salchow.
I hope that this exercise is helpful for someone!
