USFS Moves In The Field: Backward Outside Counters (Amy Brolsma)

Amy Brolsma continues her discussion of counters.  In the previous videos she covered forward outside counters and forward inside counters.  In this video, she tackles backward outside counters.

The skater starts by facing into the circle.  Amy teaches strong internal rotation of the free foot, strong rotation of the skating shoulder going in, lifting the free knee down the axis, and passing the feet close together after the turn and pressing back on the free shoulder.  The shoulders start the turn.  Enter on the ball of the foot, go back to the heel to do the turn, and return to the middle/back of the blade for the exit edge.

Amy has her skaters think of the actual turn being very quick and “short” or small.  Amy says, “You don’t want a big open turn.  It should be very narrow.”  To keep it narrow, Amy uses the concept of cutting off the turn so the skater “tries” to skate down the axis first rather than immediately open into the new circle.

Amy addresses the most common major error when doing the turn, which is using the free leg to do the turn rather than the shoulders.  She even suggests trying the entry with a toe-to-toe position rather than have the free foot behind to make sure the shoulders and edge pressure create the turn.

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