Spread eagle tips? | Golden Skate

Spread eagle tips?

J

jjane45

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
I started working on outside eagles a few month ago, and never achieved good speed / ice coverage. Somehow it always closes in to a small, edgy circle. Any attempts to make a larger curve will slow it down even further. I currently enter from forward stroking. Never had a stable inside spread eagle as the circle is even smaller, fine on a straight line though. Any tips on drills, entrance, position...? Thank you so much in advance and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :love:
 
Place your feet in the spread eagle position against the boards and push towards the boards and lean back from the boards. This exercise helps establish the feeling of the position. Try entering into your spread eagle from backwards stroking as I find this is an easier entrance. Good Luck!
 
What helped me get my spread eagle was holding onto the boards, turning my leading foot out, then pointing and turning out my other foot and bringing it heel first into the instep of my leading foot. That made the trailing foot slide right into position on an outside edge. Then I tried it on the open ice while moving.

A few other tips: If you are going into the spread eagle by skating forward (which is also how I first did it), take a few strokes, then push out at a 90 degree angle onto your turned out leading foot. Look over your leading shoulder and really solidify that deep outside edge (on a bent leg) before straightening the free leg, turning out the foot and bringing the heel in right to the instep of the leading foot (straighten the leading leg as you turn out and straighten the trailing leg). Keep looking over your leading shoulder and try to push your hips forward.

Caution: You should not do spread eagles if you don't have naturally open hips. This is a matter of joint structure, not just lack of flexibility, and no amount of stretching will give you "turnout" if your hips aren't built that way. What will happen if you push it is that you will damage your knees. To test the openness of your hips, stand right up against the boards with your pelvis facing the boards, your knees bent and your feet turned out at 180 degrees. Keeping your knees bent, push your pelvis forward against the boards and gradually try to straighten your knees (this is the same exercise "I love to skate" recommends above). If you can straighten your legs with your pelvis pushed up against the boards and your knees facing the same direction as your toes, you have open hips. If not, do some butterfly stretches for a few months and if you still can't do it, leave the spread eagle alone.
 
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Thank you so much for the tips! My hips are likely open because I do get full circles on outside eagle, but somehow cannot increase the diameter without losing speed completely.
Will definitely try looking over the leading shoulder and entering from backward stroking, thank you again vlaurend and i love to skate :yes:
 
jjane45 said:
Thank you so much for the tips! My hips are likely open because I do get full circles on outside eagle, but somehow cannot increase the diameter without losing speed completely.
Will definitely try looking over the leading shoulder and entering from backward stroking, thank you again vlaurend and i love to skate :yes:
Click to expand...

Are you saying you can do an outside spread eagle on a deep outside edge (rounder curve/smaller diameter circle) but cannot do an outside spread eagle on a shallower outside edge (flatter curve/larger circle)? That is an unusual problem! To make your circle bigger/flatter, you will need to build up more speed before going into it, since you don't have the deepening edge to keep your momentum up once you are in the spread eagle. Do some crossovers to build speed, then aim your spread eagle at a corner and think of making a flat diagonal line and staying aligned right on top of your blades rather than on the outside of the blades.
A good exercise for controlling the depth of your spread eagle is to start on an outside spread eagle, then go onto an inside and back onto an outside. It's all an exercise in getting over your blades.
 
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vlaurend said:
Caution: You should not do spread eagles if you don't have naturally open hips. This is a matter of joint structure, not just lack of flexibility, and no amount of stretching will give you "turnout" if your hips aren't built that way. What will happen if you push it is that you will damage your knees.
Click to expand...

Very interesting. I guess that is what killed my knees then. I alwasy wanted a nice spread eagle and did a lot of ballet where I would put a lot of stress into getting a really good second, fouth and fifth position. I achived this (although never the good spread eagle) but now my knees feel like they are 80 years old
 
Thank you vlaurend for your generous help! Sorry for not describing the problem better, yes I tend to go into a very deep outside edge and make circles about half size of the center circle. By forcing myself to go on a shallower edge, I can probably trace only quarter of the center circle extremely slowly.
You are right I should *think* starting with a flat to make flatter curve and work more on edge depth control. How does entrance from backward crossovers work? Also what is the optimal distance between heels? I am afraid my skates are too far away from each other (> shoulder width).
THANK YOU AGAIN!! :laugh:

Blades of Passion said:
You have to think of the number 17 in order to do a really good Spread Eagle.
Click to expand...
Thank you but would you please elaborate a little bit? :biggrin:
 
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jjane45 said:
How does entrance from backward crossovers work? Also what is the optimal distance between heels? I am afraid my skates are too far away from each other (> shoulder width).
THANK YOU AGAIN!! :laugh:
Click to expand...

To enter from backwards crossovers: If for example you are doing a spread eagle in the clockwise direction you would do backward crossovers, place your weight on your left foot, lift your right foot off the ice, bring it around until you place it forwards on the ice while your left leg continues to go backwards. Does that make sense?

Shoulder width is a good distance for your legs to be apart!

Here is a collection of some spread eagles and ina bauers. The spread eagles are entered from backwards crossovers so you can see my explanation in action! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBeW488t4io
 
i love to skate said:
To enter from backwards crossovers: If for example you are doing a spread eagle in the clockwise direction you would do backward crossovers, place your weight on your left foot, lift your right foot off the ice, bring it around until you place it forwards on the ice while your left leg continues to go backwards. Does that make sense?

Shoulder width is a good distance for your legs to be apart!

Here is a collection of some spread eagles and ina bauers. The spread eagles are entered from backwards crossovers so you can see my explanation in action! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBeW488t4io
Click to expand...

Thank you so much i love to skate! Makes perfect sense now, the Youtube collection also helps a ton. WOW at the speed of Brian Boitano... :love:

Tinymavy15 said:
I think Blades of Passion had something like this in mind!
See 5:13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf7KXsfdLsU
:chorus::chorus:
Click to expand...

Now I know what I missed :rofl:
Cough cough the "17" looks more ina bauer to me...
 
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Spread eagle and Ina Bauer are the devil, aren't they?

They're pretty much the reason I quit - got nudged - out of figure skating - and onto other more suitable sports for me.

After doing fine at LTS/lower test figures and free skate tests, my club had a screening with some visiting coaches.

I remember being about 10 or 11 years old, and being lifted up into the air (skates off) by my coach and a ballet teacher, and asked to make "froggy legs" position in the air - putting the soles of my feet together and opening the knees outward, to test how open our hips were. And standing in open 2nd position with good posture.


They were smart enough trainers to see that I wasn't likely to gain enough flexiblity without injury for certain moves.

I've started skating again after years of Pilates and other sports and I *still* don't do well at pivots and inside-spread eagles. More like 115 degree spread eagles
 
viennese said:
Spread eagle and Ina Bauer are the devil, aren't they?... After doing fine at LTS/lower test figures and free skate tests, my club had a screening with some visiting coaches.
Click to expand...

Yes they are evil... %@#%#@% On the other hand, IIRC spread eagle / ina bauer are not required for testing / competition. I am curious if open hips are crucial for any mandatory elements?
 
You're right...spread eagle & Ina Bauer aren't required elements for tests, certainly not now.

But "open hip" type flexibility, being able to stand in a relaxed second position, open, with hips and shoulders squared and no strain upon the knees, that certainly does help when doing essential moves like

Pivots (which I see again in basic skills tests)
Spirals/camel spins
leaning or layback spins

even the gliding edge, step into a waltz jump or axel


The pivot and spread eagle make cool transition moves, in step sequences, into and out of jumps - I love seeing skaters do them now, at all levels in competition.

It's not that the moves above *can't* be done without 180 flexibility.

But the quicker a skater can step into and out of that position, the quicker those steps go.
 
Thinking of the most beautiful, highest Axel jumpers

Midori Ito, Yukari Nakano, Tonya Harding, Holly Cook

They didn't necessarily have 180 degree spread eagles, shown off in their programs, from what I remember...they were hardly the image of baby ballerina skaters. But Harding and Ito did very pretty Ina Bauers, often into difficult jumps.

And all had that marvelous, sweeping, FAST gliding arc going into their double axel (or triple) axel, and a flying fast edge coming out.
 
i love to skate said:
To enter from backwards crossovers: If for example you are doing a spread eagle in the clockwise direction you would do backward crossovers, place your weight on your left foot, lift your right foot off the ice, bring it around until you place it forwards on the ice while your left leg continues to go backwards. Does that make sense?

Shoulder width is a good distance for your legs to be apart!

Here is a collection of some spread eagles and ina bauers. The spread eagles are entered from backwards crossovers so you can see my explanation in action! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBeW488t4io
Click to expand...

Yes, exactly. To keep your feet from spreading farther than shoulder width apart, you'll have to really feel like you're pulling not only your heels together, but the insides of your upper thighs together. I'd also like to add two words of caution (from experience, LOL!) before you try your spread eagle from back crossovers:

(1) Make sure you stretch to open your hips first (I do the plie exercise against the boards). Otherwise, your leading foot may not open out enough when you place it down forward and you can catch and edge. It can be rather unnerving.

(2) Assuming a clockwise (right foot front) spread eagle, really hold that left back outside edge as you finish your crossovers. Look over your leading (right) shoulder and open out your right arm and right foot to face the direction of travel before placing that right foot down. Rushing your step forward and failing to "aim" your foot properly before stepping can also result in catching your blade.

viennese said:
You're right...spread eagle & Ina Bauer aren't required elements for tests, certainly not now.

But "open hip" type flexibility, being able to stand in a relaxed second position, open, with hips and shoulders squared and no strain upon the knees, that certainly does help when doing essential moves like

Pivots (which I see again in basic skills tests)
Spirals/camel spins
leaning or layback spins

even the gliding edge, step into a waltz jump or axel
Click to expand...

From what I hear from closed-hipped friends, one of the toughest moves is an outside-to-outside mohawk, like the LFO-RBO and RFO-LBO mohawks on the 8-step mohawk pattern. The less open your hips, the more you need to work your lean and your shoulder positions.

But I have seen lots of amazing full-split spirals and great camel and layback spins from girls with extremely closed hips, so I'm not sure those are such an issue. In fact, one teenage girl I know who fits that description has such closed hips that she can do a pigeon-toed spread eagle (toe-to-toe, 180 degrees!). Also, both of my coaches have always had closed hips (neither has ever managed to do an outside spread eagle or ina bauer) but were Olympic skaters with great double axels. If anything, I have had to be careful not to turn my foot out as I step out from my RBO edge to my LFO axel takeoff edge. Closed hips would make it easier to push straight out of the circle rather than onto the same circle (a big no-no).
 
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Hmmm yeah open hips may help the backward pivot, and I can definitely see outside-outside mohawk being a obstacle to closed-hipped skater! (I probably had it on the first or second try, after mastering the inside mohawks) Spirals and laybacks are more about with flexibility with some different "axes"?
Thank you so much vlaurend for the entrance tips, especially (2). Going from a backward crossover is much harder than it looks (just as everything in skating, the pros make it seem like a piece of cake LOL). Luckily I did not catch an edge, but was very unstable and unable to keep both feet on the same curve. It was more like a bad cross of eagle and bauer, lots more of practice are in order! :p
 
you are right, the mohawk sequence may be the hardest of all to learn to control.

my coach - i mean my adult coach - learned of this conversation and said, lack of flexibility or not, you can use core strength and edge quality to achieve these movies. Nobody expects ballet quality turnout or "pretty feet"



With my childhood coach, it may also have been a matter of guiding me toward sports that I'd have success at...I'm sure a more dedicated or single minded 10 or eleven year old would have said, hell no, I'm going to skate no matter what.
 
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