Euler aka half Loop jump | Page 4 | Golden Skate

Euler aka half Loop jump

pearly

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Honestly speaking, I don't think all mentioned examples of euler combos here look effortless or natural. It still has a pause and some labor, so I just accept that's the feature of the jump.

I know, half these examples have a moment where the skater resembles a swastika. Not very aesthetically pleasing.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
here is another version (although I'm not sure he gets all the way around to backward, so maybe this should be called an overrotated big falling leaf rather than an underrotated Euler/half-loop), followed by ten little falling leafs in a row
 

LazarusPitHotTub

Rinkside
Joined
Jul 29, 2018
I was hoping to see Kaetlyn Osmond's gorgeous 3F-1Eu-3S in competition this year:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BXlyKPRhiqd/?hl=af

one of the few females with a 1Eu that doesn't look rushed. so amazing, powerful, great ice coverage and control. +5 GOE!
Yes! I was just about to mention that whilst Kaetlyn hasn’t competed this it’s on her Instagram and probably actually my favourite from a lady (mostly because it doesn’t look like an accident!). Really nice flow too.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Yes! I was just about to mention that whilst Kaetlyn hasn’t competed this it’s on her Instagram and probably actually my favourite from a lady (mostly because it doesn’t look like an accident!). Really nice flow too.

I love that it looks like she's about to do a 3T, and is like "Just kidding! I can do a half loop 3S too." :biggrin:
 

skatingfan4ever

"Our blade takes us in the most amazing places."
Medalist
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Nov 3, 2012
Country
United-States
A couple people mentioned Patrick. This one is probably my favorite 3Lz+1Lo+3S he ever did (2011 Worlds LP). Such speed and conviction, not to mention the wally before it. In his final season, he put a 3A+1Lo+3S in his LP, but this is the only time he did it successfully. (Side note: His 3As were so beautiful when he rotated them and landed cleanly - sigh).
 

Sam-Skwantch

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”
Record Breaker
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Dec 29, 2013
Country
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Anastasia Tarakanova : Half Loop

Talk about syncing your half loop combo up perfectly to the music. It’s unbelievable how precise and effective this half loop is and how the piano takes on the character of this jump pass. Whoever choreographed this is brilliant or just plain lucky.





Here's Alexandra Trusova in the junior grand prix event just completed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3GvpMh_cE&t=2m38s

She really does them well. It doesn’t look like an error or a bird with a broken wing flopping about. She has nice spring and the half loop itself seems to enhance the jump. Not true for everyone IMO.
 

pearly

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Here's Alexandra Trusova in the junior grand prix event just completed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3GvpMh_cE&t=2m38s

Anastasia Tarakanova : Half Loop

Talk about syncing your half loop combo up perfectly to the music. It’s unbelievable how precise and effective this half loop is and how the piano takes on the character of this jump pass. Whoever choreographed this is brilliant or just plain lucky.

She really does them well. It doesn’t look like an error or a bird with a broken wing flopping about. She has nice spring and the half loop itself seems to enhance the jump. Not true for everyone IMO.

I'm sorry but what's nice about these examples? They both look messy and (to me) plain ugly. If that's what we've decided a half loop should be then fine, but they can be nice and tight and look like real jumps.

This (and probably about 80% of other examples in this thread) is exactly what a half loop looks like when beginners start learning it. How can it be that we improve every other jump as we progress but leave this one looking like a mess?

Any jump that has a moment where both knees are bent at 90 degrees and legs are not crossed looks to me like a terribly executed save. Nothing aesthetically pleasing about your lower half looking like a swastika if you ask me.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Any jump that has a moment where both knees are bent at 90 degrees and legs are not crossed looks to me like a terribly executed save.

Crossing the legs in a jump was optional for most of double jump history and into the early triple jump era.

For example, check out Donald Jackson's 1962 free program, which contains not only a couple of triple jumps (first-ever triple lutz in competition) and several doubles with the legs straight and tight but parallel, not crossed, in the air, as well as various jumps of 1 and 1.5 revolutions, and an occasional double, with more open air positions.

For jumps like inside axel (at 2:42) and one-foot axel (at 3:27), an open air position is more natural than crossing the legs.

Rotating in the air and landing on the back inside edge of the "other" foot on purpose in order to jump a salchow afterward is going to require a different air position to set up the salchow than a regular back outside edge landing. We see this in the one-foot axel into salchow as well with the half loop/Euler.


Nothing aesthetically pleasing about your lower half looking like a swastika if you ask me.

I think you're bringing in outside associations that are not at all inherent in the jump and are not what most people see or think of in relation to this jump.

Nazism and genocide are ugly, and the swastika has become inextricably associated with Nazism so that it has become difficult to appreciate the geometrical shape on its own terms.

But a double stag air position can be quite visually pleasing and is not associated with swastikas let alone Nazism in anybody's mind but your own.

Try changing your associations so you can appreciate such moves better.
 

VenusHalley

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 6, 2018
This jump is very anxiety to me when I see it, because it looks like a step out even with the best of skaters and I am thinking "oh no, she screwed up... is she gonna fall?". Then i realize "oh, that's a half loop".

I get the point of this jump, but I really do not like it in 90% of skaters.
 

pearly

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Crossing the legs in a jump was optional for most of double jump history and into the early triple jump era.

For example, check out Donald Jackson's 1962 free program, which contains not only a couple of triple jumps (first-ever triple lutz in competition) and several doubles with the legs straight and tight but parallel, not crossed, in the air, as well as various jumps of 1 and 1.5 revolutions, and an occasional double, with more open air positions.

For jumps like inside axel (at 2:42) and one-foot axel (at 3:27), an open air position is more natural than crossing the legs.

Rotating in the air and landing on the back inside edge of the "other" foot on purpose in order to jump a salchow afterward is going to require a different air position to set up the salchow than a regular back outside edge landing. We see this in the one-foot axel into salchow as well with the half loop/Euler.




I think you're bringing in outside associations that are not at all inherent in the jump and are not what most people see or think of in relation to this jump.

Nazism and genocide are ugly, and the swastika has become inextricably associated with Nazism so that it has become difficult to appreciate the geometrical shape on its own terms.

But a double stag air position can be quite visually pleasing and is not associated with swastikas let alone Nazism in anybody's mind but your own.

Try changing your associations so you can appreciate such moves better.

I appreciate your post.

Until a few decades ago, the non-landing leg was not wrapped the way it is today in jumps. It was higher up, crossed over the knee. But the sport changed and so did its aesthetics.

A swastika is a symbol used in many religions in the east and a geometrical shape which strongly resembles the position I see in most half loop jumps and is therefore a very simple way to illustrate it. It is this particular position, especially done hastily and with rotation, I find ugly. Nothing to do with WW2.

The double stag example you linked is beautiful and I wish all half loop were as elegant. But they are not. My main thought when starting this topic was: this jump can look beautiful and not like a saved step out. I wish more skaters performed it that way because in most cases it ruins the flow of the jump and has us wondering what happened (until we see the third jump, that is).
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I wish all half loop were as elegant. But they are not. My main thought when starting this topic was: this jump can look beautiful and not like a saved step out. ...

I consider the whole thing to be one of those compromise things that we fans have to put up with if we want a points-based scoring system. This is not really a jump. It is a way to get on your other foot so you can get amass more points by working in a combination that ends with a Salchow or flip. Of course it is going to look like -- well, an awkward way to get on the other foot.

To me it is like the frantic busy-work step sequences (unrelated to the music) or the esthetic sacrifices that we are willing to tolerate in change-this, change-that, do-another-position spins. Modern skaters can do all sorts of amazing athletic feats, and good on 'em. I think we are asking too much if we expect them to look pretty while doing them.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Until a few decades ago, the non-landing leg was not wrapped the way it is today in jumps. It was higher up, crossed over the knee. But the sport changed and so did its aesthetics.

Yes, the sport changed with the proliferation of triple jumps and more recently quads, and so did its aesthetics.

But it's more about mechanics. Most skaters who got to middle skill levels could learn double jumps in a variety of air positions, including parallel (uncrossed) straight or (uglier) tucked leg positions. Whatever worked for them. But only the highest jumpers could master triples, until the technique changed to favor the "backspin in the air" position for multirotation jumps.

But part of the point of getting into the backspin in air position is to get the weight over the landing side, and the low tightly crossed leg position is to allow for quicker rotation. It's a technical issue more than an aesthetic one.

Let's talk about counterclockwise rotators for simplicity.

The whole point of the half loop, and also one-foot axel, is that the skater does NOT rotate with the weight over right side, because they're not going to land on the right back outside edge. They're going to land on the left back inside edge, and therefore their weight needs to be positioned differently in the air and they should not get into a position with left foot crossed in front of the right ankle. It would be impossible to land on the LBI edge that way. That's the nature of the mechanics of the back inside landing.

So you can't expect back inside-landing jumps to look like back outside-landing jumps of the same number of revolutions. The air position is different because mechanics of landing are different. You're never going to see a half loop that looks like a regular double or triple or even single loop in the air. It would be impossible to land on the LBI edge from that position.

Form follows function.

It is possible to execute a back-inside-landing jump in ways that are more aesthetically pleasing or less aesthetically pleasing within the parameters that the air position will be more open, with the weight centered between the legs or even more to the left side in the air. To judge back-inside-landing jumps on their aesthetics, it would be necessary to develop aesthetic standards based on the mechanical requirements of that type of jump. It makes not sense to complain that they don't look like back-outside-landing triples and therefore they must be poorly done or ugly because they don't look like a completely different kind of jump with completely different mechanics.

Here's a one-foot double salchow, landing on the LBI edge. It doesn't look the same in the air as a regular double salchow (probably popped from an intended triple) because the landing is going to be different. That's the nature of the back inside landing. It has its own aesthetics.

The double stag example you linked is beautiful and I wish all half loop were as elegant.

The big isolated half loops I posted a few pages ago probably look more elegant. The demands of taking off directly from the landing of a multirotation jump and setting up to take off for another multirotation salchow or flip limit options for air position, because as a transitional jump in the middle of a combo it's more important to maintain horizontal flow for the next jump (especially with a salchow following) then to get height up into the air.

There have been lots of examples posted in this thread. Do you really think all of the transitional Eulers in combo look ugly?

The legs will be apart. They will be bent. Some may be in prettier positions than others depending on the skater's technique and the shape of their body and the quality of the first jump landing and maybe the camera angle. But bent, separated legs are a necessary part of the jump mechanics.

Personally, I'd be more concerned about whether the skater actually achieves a full rotation in the air -- we often see underrotated and downgraded Eulers and to me that's a bigger concern than the aesthetics. And getting good lift into the air while also maintaining enough flow to jump a triple salchow afterward, also with good flow, would be the next thing that would make it good quality, to my eyes.
 

combo

Rinkside
Joined
Apr 10, 2017
Upon rewatch, I found this one from this weeks JGP mens bronze medalist, Adam Siao Him Fa, quite nice to watch - deliberate and carries nice flow into the 3S.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003

I'm sorry but what's nice about these examples? They both look messy and (to me) plain ugly. If that's what we've decided a half loop should be then fine, but they can be nice and tight and look like real jumps.

I guess we have different expectations. To me, she is nimble, quick, precise and in control. I stopped the vid at each frame and her position never offended or annoyed me. I consider it a connecting move rather than "a real jump." (But the ISU has to call it a real jump in order to give full credit for a combination rather than a sequence, so what can you do?)
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Well, I think most moves such as low-rotation jumps that are included as transitional moves between elements tend to look better than the rotational jump elements. There are plenty of unattractive split jumps at lower levels, but those skaters aren't likely to have beautiful triple or even double jumps either.

And even the most beautiful skaters can look unbeautiful when they pop or stumble out of or fall on a jump.

Even successfully landed rotational jumps are not always pretty.

So if we're looking for beauty, we'll often be disappointed by jumps of all sorts in the jump elements.
 
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