Beginner's Guide to Every Figure Skating Jump

Okay, today I'm going to be taking you through all the jumps. Let's go. The first jump that I usually warm up with are my waltz jumps and I usually do three in a row and the thing about them that I really like is that I like that they feel like I'm flying. So the point is to get a little bit warmed up as well as feel the split in the air. Alright, explainer time. I think that for people who don't watch figure skating or participate regularly, all the jumps look the same but there are technically six different types of jumps. Six different types of jumps. Waltz jump, saucao, toe loop, loop, flip, and lutz. And then after those singles, you go axel, double saucao, double toe loop, double loop, double flip, double lutz. Then you go into double axel, triple saucao, triple toe, triple loop, triple flip, and triple lutz. We're going to go back to all our singles. So after waltz jump, you learn your saucao. And when I started learning how to skate, I took off one foot like my left back inside edge. So it would look like this. You take your basic three turn. Nowadays what's popular is the trend to put both feet down. So it's almost like you're taking off of two feet. And I have to say, for me personally, and I think most of the rest of the world, taking off of the two feet is a lot easier. So now you will see a back outside three turn. As a coach, I still teach first because I find that the back outside three turn is a little bit more challenging for the younger skater. I don't know, coaches out there, tell me, do you already teach your skaters to put their foot down in saucao? I wonder what the trend is. Moving on to the next jump, which is the toe loop. The toe loop introduces the first top jump. You tap into the ice with your left back tap. And then you roll your right foot through to kick up and then you land. Things to watch out for on toe loops. It's easy to turn it into a toe axle. So that's when someone goes like this, they tap and then they turn forward. Toe loops are an especially important jump because they are a point getter. Attach them to virtually any landing. So every single landing usually lands on the right foot unless you're lefty. But for most of the world, you land on your right foot and as you land, you can reach back top and bubble. All jumps, I guess, technically have different variations. When I learned the toe loop, I learned it from a forward inside three turn. Nowadays, I do my toe loop from a c-step, but there's also the variation to do it from a forward outside three turn. Okay, next is the loop jump. And loop jump is my favorite jump because it is an element that you have to be so confident and sure over your right side. I feel like it's the basis for all jumps because you really have to be really controlled over your right side and all you get to do is believe in yourself, kick your free kick, and turn back to your right side. Yeah, there are two types of edge jumps, saw cow and loop. And edge jumps don't have a top, so you have to trust your edge. Find that most people like one or the other. And for me, love the loop. So let me show you what it looks like. I like it off the back double threes, but most people do it off two jumps like this. Okay, now we're back to our top jumps. We are on the flip jump. And a flip jump is a three turn or c-step with a right top. So toe loop is left foot top, but flip is right foot top. And the thing to look out for with flips is that you're supposed to be on the inside edge here with the left foot. More recently, we've seen the rise of the trend of doing it on the back outside counter, which I find helps skaters stay checked. I wouldn't say that it's an easier takeoff, but it is a handy tool for making sure that your shoulder is checked against your hip. Yes, I think that one of the biggest mistakes that people make with flip jumps is that they drop the right shoulder, which then breaks the axis. So you're rotating in the air like this. So let me show you the back outside counter. Okay, final jump before we move on to actual rotations. It's a lutz jump. The lutz jump is very similar to the flip jump. You go into it backwards, and you want to hold that. I believe that most skaters can only do one or the other, flip or lutz. For me, it's natural to tap on an inside. My tap goes like this, which flips my edge. So what you'll be seeing today is a flutz, but you get the idea. You can still see that there's a very slight change. So now that we're through the cycle, let's start to add rotation in. So first jump, our one and a half revolution jump, the axle. Axle is a forward flip hop. I'm gonna put bunny hops in as the first little element that most people learn jump-wise. And a bunny hop, this is what a bunny hop is. The wall jump, because you go like this, and then you kick through, which is what you do on an axle, right? The axle is probably one of the most difficult transitions because you're starting to add rotation. So a single axle is one and a half turns. So this is when a skater starts learning how to do your step, do your kick through, and rotate to land. And it is very disorienting at first to get this feeling to be very natural, but this is what it looks like. All right, moving right along, double salchow next. So with axle, because it is forward takeoff, that's why it's one and a half turns. But now with the salchow, the double salchow, and the rest of the doubles, they all become two turns in the air. Moving along to double toe. Double loop next. Moving on to double lutz. This is the cycle of jumps that you often see on the international circuit. But first jump first, double axle. This jump actually took me a really long time to learn. It's kind of the same as a single axle. It's that first foray into adding another rotation. And even though it's only half a turn, it becomes really difficult. I spent something like four years learning this jump, and I think because I spent so much time learning it, it's one of my favorites. Okay, so we're actually going to skip the triple salchow because triple salchow is my least favorite jump. I like to get warmed up with all the rest of my triples. We'll come back to salchow, but next is triple toe loop. Okay, next is triple loop jump. As you can tell on that one, my axis was so off. But it's really important as athletes to learn how to adjust yourself in the middle of the air. And that's how I was able to get back over my right side and quickly slice my blade out so I could stay on my feet. All right, let's go for the triple lutz. As you can see, every skater has one element, but at least one element that they feel iffy about. And that's the mental game, right? Is that you have to face that element that you're not so good at and spend extra time on it so that you have the confidence to nail it in competitions. All the really good athletes are able to bounce back between elements so that when they do make mistakes, and everyone makes mistakes, they know the game, they know the rules. So if they miss a really hard jump that's a point getter at the beginning, they can swap it out later on. It's all about knowing the rules, how many jump boxes you get, and how you maximize on those points. You guys just watched all the elements, single, double, triple. That's it from me guys, I'm Raina Gossu, thanks for watching. Jumps with me!