Figure Skating | Building Better Balance With Off-Ice Exercises

Hi and welcome to Next Stage Tutorials. In today's lesson we're going to be looking at some exercises that can help build your balance on and off the ice. So let's jump into it. So when it comes to skating we all know that we need better balance. Whether we're spinning, jumping or just skating. The real question is how do we get that balance? Or how do we find it? How do we engage it? And how do we grow our balance? The simple answer is we need to challenge our body to find it. And the best way to do that is with some really really simple exercises. And these exercises what they'll do is they'll encourage our body to start to learn what we can do and what we can't do. Your body will adjust and learn as you begin to challenge it. So in today's lesson we're going to challenge our body with some simple exercises and then hopefully you can see how your body starts to learn and adjust to those exercises and really bring out the best balance in you. Okay so for this first exercise we're going to challenge our body with a simple jump. Now when jumping our body really needs to have balance in two places. Before the jump and after the jump. Or on the ice, the takeoff and the landing. So in this exercise we're going to do a landing position with small half rotation jumps. Really simple and on one foot. So I'm going to start with basically an open loop position. Something that's very commonly seen. Left arm in front, right arm behind. From here I'm going to do a simple half rotation landing facing the other direction. So let's have a look at that. Left arm, right arm. A simple half rotation. And landing. And now from here I'm going to go back into that loop position and do another half rotation. So from here, back and landing. And you'll see that balance is engaged straight away. It's engaged as I take off making sure I'm nice and straight. And then it's engaged on the landing. You'll see on that last one even an extra hop. So that balance is really fighting to help me out trying to keep me nice and straight. Let's have a look at it a few more times. Try and get a bit of rhythm on and you can see how that balance may be lost or maybe it still remains. So arms behind, left arm in front. And jump into a landing position with a rotation. Okay, good balance. And again, pretty good balance. Let's do two more. Still have my balance here. Jump. Not bad. And last one. And balance. So you can see on that last one getting a little bit more tied. The balance really struggling there. But that's what we want. We want our body to be challenged, then encouraging it later on. Adjusting, finding that balance to really help me out. Okay, so for exercise number two, we're going to really try and challenge our balance as we move from one foot to the other foot with a small hop. And you may notice in exercise number one, we really tried to challenge our balance just with the same leg. So jumping off one leg, landing on the same leg. So you'll notice this exercise slightly different with that shifting of the weight onto different legs. So for this exercise, I'm going to start on my right leg. Right arm behind, left arm in front. Almost like I'm about to go for a spin. So I'm in this position. And then from here, I'm going to hop over to my left leg. Just so a mirror image of the opposite. And then I'm going to hop across to there. Now we can start out with it being really simple. Just hopping back and forward, back and forward. And that may be enough for you. But for those people who are looking for an extra challenge, what we can add is some upper body movement. Going forwards, coming up, and then some extra squatting. Really challenging our body to adjust, to make movements, to keep us from putting our other foot down. So let's have a look to start with. Just with those simple hops. Just back and forward a few times. So I'm at the beginning. Right arm in front this time. Left arm behind. And then I hop. One, got balance. Two, balance. Three, and four. So very simple. Something that you could probably start with. But now let's really up the ante, challenge that balance. And now every second one. So when we get back to that starting position, let's do some upper body movement. Moving lower and then coming back up. So we start again. Left arm behind, right arm in front. And one, two. Now some upper body movement. Touching this down onto the ground. That balance is definitely challenged there. And then again. One, two. And again. Upper body down and up. Okay, that time definitely felt better. So you can see how the first time my body maybe wasn't ready for that upper body movement. The next time my body adjusted, made some improvements. And already my balance got better on the second time. So something to think about. Kind of start where you think is necessary. And then adjust. Make some challenges for yourself as you go forward. Okay, so we're up to our final exercise. The first two exercises we focused on some jumps. From one foot to the same foot. And one foot to the other foot. This time it's all about rotating and spinning. So now it's about challenging that balance while you may be a little bit dizzy. Now this exercise, super simple, super safe. But you just have to be careful when trying it. And make sure you've got enough space around you. So for this exercise we're going to imitate almost like a small camel position. So I'm going to rotate my way to begin with. I'm going to start with my left arm in front. My right arm behind. And my right leg is going to be in the air. Now from here what I want to do is I'm going to hop and do three rotations non-stop. Not super quick. And then after three rotations I'm going to balance at the same place I started. Get my balance. And then from there I can go again. Okay, so let's have a look. Nice and slow to start with. Nothing crazy. So left arm. Right arm. Looking where I'm facing. Leg up. And then hops. One rotation. Two rotations. Three rotations. Balance. Still fighting. And then I've got it. And there it is. So that's really challenging. And it's definitely not difficult. So it's great to find an exercise that really challenges your balance. But at the same time isn't super difficult to do. Isn't super stressful. Lots of space. Isn't dangerous. So those exercises are by far the best. That way you can do them multiple times and really get a feel for them. Okay, this time let's have a look the other way. I'm not sure how this is going to go. So right arm. Right leg. Left arm behind. Left leg up. Okay, same thing. Facing this direction. Three rotations. And then pause for balance. Okay, and let's have a look. One. Two. Three. And got my balance. Okay, so that time it actually felt better. Surprising because this is definitely my preferred way as I spin that way. So this exercise, again, something fantastic to work on. And you'll notice that I really tried to hit up. I spin this time after the few other ones were sort of some jump exercises. Okay, so there you have it. That's the three exercises to really challenge your balance. Now, the number one thing that you should really focus to do and make sure the mistake that you don't want to do is putting that other foot down when you feel your balance getting challenged. I know it's difficult and I know it's tricky and it's so much easier to just drop that foot whatever exercise you may be doing. But that's not how you learn. You learn by staying on that one foot, waiting until you find your balance and then proceeding after that to the next exercise or continuing on with that exercise. If you put your foot down, you're basically just giving up on it and your balance just completely disappears. Let your body fight. Let your body learn and adjust and try to find that balance. By doing that, I guarantee you'll find balance so much quicker. You'll accelerate your learning and you won't believe how many things you start to learn just from doing that one little trick. It really is the absolute thing you should be doing. The other things that you don't want to be doing, don't rush these exercises. I know that sounds silly but other exercises you can rush if we're working on quickness or rhythm or power or something else. Balance is just all about taking your time, making sure you've got it and then moving on. Okay, so those are our tips. I really enjoyed having you here for today's lesson and we can't wait to see you on the next one.