Online Figure Skating Lesson: Axel Jump – Part 1 (Michelle Leigh)

In this video, we sit in on an axel lesson with Olympic coach Michelle Leigh.  This is a great follow-up the Michelle Leigh axel video.

In this video, Michelle is working with a skater that doesn’t naturally step up into the axel jump.  This is one of the most common errors we see with this jump.  You’ll notice that Michelle wants the skater to have a bent free leg behind on the step and a bent free leg as she jumps up into the air.

Michelle uses a very hands-on approach with this skater as she helps the skater balance in the position at the moment of take-off.  Notice that at the moment of take-off, Michelle wants the skater’s head, shoulders and arms facing the jump direction, while the hips have started into rotation.  This helps accomplish the desired sideways take-off of the lower body.

At take-off, Michelle wants the free leg bent.  But also notice at 0:53 in the video that Michelle wants the skater’s free foot behind the skating leg at the moment of take-off.  This will surprise many coaches and it deserves some discussion.

Discussion:  In the United States, most coaches teach the axel as a forward take-off with the skater attempting to step up squarely into the jump.  The skater simply attempts to create an h-position and thinks of the take-off as being completely forward and square.  I suspect this approach to teaching the jump has developed in response to the tendency for skaters to pre-rotate on the ice.  But most good coaches realize that even though they may teach it this way, a good axel is not actually performed this way.  A good axel has a sideways take-off which most skaters eventually get without actually knowing it.  By trying to step up squarely into the jump, the foot travels at the target, so most US coaches don’t talk about where the foot needs to go.

But Michelle teaches the jump exactly how it actually happens and she therefore tells her skaters exactly what to do.  This is just a different way to approach it as both methods are generally effective.  But you can see if you teach your skaters to snap their hips to create the deeper entrance edge required for axel, the sideways take-off becomes obvious and skaters need to understand exactly where to take the free foot.  The answer is:  the free foot needs to go at the target or in the direction of flight.  That means that the skater will feel the foot behind their skating leg going directly at the target.  If the foot goes around (too much), the axis of the jump will tilt in the air.  -Trevor

Michelle wants the skater to look at the target or in the flight direction.  Also notice, that she is absolutely consistent and mentions it constantly to the skater.  This is a mark of a good coach.  If something needs to be fixed, stay on the skater about it until they make the change.  Michelle gives a great drill of looking into the glass to keep the head in proper position (this really works!).

Finally, notice that Michelle uses video analysis, in this case, mainly to reinforce the changes that were made in the lesson.  Skaters need feedback in all forms and visual feedback is one of the most powerful, especially for making changes stick.

You may also notice that Michelle doesn’t talk about a couple of key things in this video.  For one thing, the skater’s free arm swings around rather than going straight through as Michelle wants.  Michelle also doesn’t focus on keeping the right side back on the take-off edge.  I asked Michelle about it briefly after the lesson and she told me that if a skater has proper edge pressure and hip snap, the upper body issues tend to go away on their own.  And you’ll notice that on the last attempts the free arm and shoulders were definitely better.

We can really learn a lot from watching other coaches and understanding why they do what they do.  And Michelle has had tremendous success teaching single, double and triple axels.  I hope the video and discussion above help broaden your understanding of the axel.

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