Axel Jump Lesson Part 3 – Entry Continued (Nick Perna)

Nick Perna continues his axel lesson with Kayla.  This is part 3 of this half-hour lesson.  In the first part Nick focused on Kayla’s backspin.  In the second part, Nick introduced a back entry method for waltz jump and axel to build consistency.  In this video, Nick finishes his explanation of the entry method.

Once the skater is aligned and gliding with the hands over the tracing on the ice, the next step is to touch the hands together without changing any other body position or alignment.  As Nick explains, this is usually where disaster strikes and the skater sticks out the butt and starts squatting.  As Nick says, “You want to touch the hands together and still keep your hips under you, your butt under you, and your knee straight.”

Nick offers a drill of repeatedly touching and releasing the hands without moving the body to get used to the proper motion.  Notice that Kayla loses her alignment and Nick offers this advice.  “Feel like you’re squeezing your butt muscles together so when you touch the hands together you don’t lose the hip position.”

Nick also clarifies that the hands touch OUTSIDE the circle and the skater should make no attempt to touch the hands together on the circle.  As Nick says, “You want them to touch literally right in front of your zipper.”  Nick’s only explanation is that if we put the hands on the circle it would twist the shoulders around. He says this in passing but this is an extremely important observation.  We want the free shoulder back when stepping into an axel so it makes no sense to twist the shoulders around by placing the hands on the circle.

Nick works on this with Kayla at a standstill.  Nick wants the hands to touch at roughly the height of the bellybutton.

Next Nick address how to take the arms back on the step.  He says, “You want to bring your hands past your body as if you’re wiping them on your pants.  Wiping the palms of your hands on your legs.  You want to feel like you can clap your hands behind your back.”  This minimizes the rounded shoulders caused by palms facing upward which typically also causes severe lunging with the upper body.

Next, Nick explains the forward step.  The free leg should be bent with the free foot flexed.  It should feel “like you’re kicking yourself in the bottom.”  The skating shoulder should be leading strongly and the free shoulder should be back.  The skater should be right over the skating hip.  Nick wants the skater to be able to hold the forward step position all the way around the circle.

This is an incredibly important video.  If you apply the information in this video, not only will your axels be more consistent and have more flow (less swingy), but they will look more like the double and triple axels we all see on TV.  This information is classic, yet it seems that 80 to 90% of all coaches do not know it or do not think it’s important.  That is very sad for all the skaters that are missing out.

Stay tuned for the next part of this lesson…

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