Learn The 5 Step Mohawk Sequence - From USFS Skating Skills Tests

Hey skaters, welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. I am coach Julia and today we are going to be doing more footwork. This one is from the U.S. figure skating test track. We are going to be doing the five step mohawk sequence. This goes down one side of the rink. You're going to do it one time so it doesn't lap the rink like some of the test tracks do. Let me show you what this standard skating skills test at the pre-bronze level and the adult skating skills test at the bronze level. So standard pre-bronze adult bronze of the U.S. figure skating skating skills test formally moves in the field. That's a lot but I'll write it down in the description below in case you need a recap. Okay so what we're going to do is we're going to start in the opposite corner because we're going to take a few intro steps. Now in any of the U.S. figure skating skating skills tests you have up to seven steps you can take as intro steps. You don't have to take all of them but up to seven. Okay and the different patterns are really going to require a different number of intro steps. So for this one I'm just going to do four and that should get me where I need to go. So we are going to be in one of the hockey circles for this one. This is where I'm starting. Now different skaters with different amounts of power are going to maybe adjust this a little bit but for now I'm starting in one of the hockey circles. This is the right Lutz corner so that can give you some reference. I'm not going to be right on that dot. I like to stand kind of in this wedge where we have this red line. Now my dad, hello dad, he watches every single one of my videos and last week commented that I use a lot of the hockey markings as references and if you're in a rink that does not have hockey markings what are you going to do? Well you need to find some other frame of reference in the rink that kind of gives you a guide for where your axis lines are and what corners to stand in. You can still find a spot in the Lutz corner that's going to work for you. What's more challenging with any of these moves in the field tests or skating skills tests is that we don't have the markings on the ice that give us a good visual guide for a center axis. So that answer is for my dad who asked me last week. All right so we are going to take four intro steps. I'm going to go left, right, left, and then the right one is actually going to begin the pattern. So I guess it's three intro steps. You could take more but you want to end where your right foot is stepping in line with the hockey dot. So again a reference to hockey markings on the ice. At our rink we have hockey markings and so these red dots there's four of them down the ice and they give me a reference for where my center axis is going to be. So all of the half circles or lobes are going to come to this axis line so lining up with these red dots. While I'm skating I have one corner of my eye kind of referencing these dots as I skate so I can try to finish each half circle in line with these red dots. So however many intro steps you do you want to be ready to step with your right foot in line with this red dot and that is the beginning of your first lobe. So again we're going to start with the intro steps. I think I'll actually start on the other foot this time. So instead of starting pushing onto my left I will start on my right that way I will get those four steps. So I'll go right, left, right, left. Now I can start on my right foot. So we right to left we're going to do an inside mohawk put the feet together push back to an outside mohawk put the feet together and slide the left one in front. So that's the whole five steps let's count it out together. So what you have is a forward inside mohawk a backward outside mohawk and a slide. You're going to do a right forward inside mohawk that's your steps one and two one two put your feet together and you're going to do a right back outside mohawk that's steps three four put your feet together and slide and you're going to be on your right inside edge okay so this is just feels a little bit like ice dance slide okay so your feet are together nice and collected you're going to slide your left close to in front of your right and you're going to end up slightly on that right inside edge tip. So we have finished our first low with those right mohawks we're on our right inside edge with our left foot extended to the front now we're going to do the exact same feet but mirror image so we're going to make a low going clockwise now and it's going to be right uh left foot mohawks so I'm going to step onto my left forward inside edge and I'm going to do a left inside mohawk that's steps one and two our feet come together we push back and we're going to do an outside mohawk three four put our feet together and we're going to slide onto that left forward inside edge so it's the same thing just going the other direction on the other foot. So one more time through with those left side mohawks so we finished our first lobe of right mohawks we're going to go left inside mohawk left back outside mohawk feet together slide that right foot forward then we're going to repeat it right inside right outside feet together slide to our inside edge again left forward inside left back outside slide the right and one more low bar fifth one one two three four five now knowing the steps is one thing but making it USFS passable is a whole different deal so there's a few things that you really want to think about first we want really quiet feet if you're out on a USFS test session this isn't it doesn't apply quite so much if you're testing virtually but if you're testing in person you're usually the only one on the ice and there's usually no music so it's an environment very much like the one we're at today and every single little scratch and wiggle that you make with your feet feels like it's being amplified okay it's just so loud on a very quiet session so you want to work until your edges are really clean and until you're not dragging your toe picks at all that means your weight really needs to stay in the middle of your skates so think about keeping your upper body your shoulders your hips lined up with the center of your skate throughout every single element so that we don't get those toe drags especially when we're going backwards another thing i want you to think about is the timing the pace of this we want all five steps to have the same value and that means to me the same amount of time on the ice so we don't want a couple very quick mohawks when that's difficult and very long steps when it's easy so for some of my students i have them count one two three one two three one two three and this helps them even out all of the steps so you can go like this one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three and doing that helps you make sure that every single step has the same amount of time, the same amount of value, makes it really really even. And then you're not telling your judges which are your easy steps and which are your difficult steps. So this next little tip, this bit of advice, is going to be easiest if you do have some of those hockey markings. We have hockey markings and curling markings on our ice so there's a lot of different things that you can use for a frame of reference. If you don't have any markings on your ice then you are going to have to get really really really good at gauging the size of all your lobes yourself. But here we have a lot of markings and so I'm going to show you what I give my students as reference points to make sure that everything stays very even. So this is a five lobe pattern. Now there are lots of five lobe patterns in US figure skating and they all have the same basic shape on the ice. You want your center pattern, your center lobe, to go across the center of the ice. So in a hockey rink that means there's a red line right through the center of the ice, that's going to be your center lobe. So we kind of measure things based off that. So if you've noticed throughout this tutorial I'm starting just to the right of one of the corner hockey dots. So this is the left side for Lutzers. So if you're a Lutz skater and you skate lefty we're in the left Lutz corner. So I'm just to the right of that dot to start my lobe. If you're a little bit of a less strong skater you might want to scooch up a little bit but for me and my students this is where I want them to start. So we do our first lobe starting just to the right and we want to get, since we have curling circles, I'm going through the edge of these black lines. So there are these little black lines on our ice for curling. If you don't have those curling circles that you want to end, oh gosh how many feet is that from the blue line? I'm definitely at least that's like seven feet maybe more from the blue line. Alright so I'm not even between the dots but I'm definitely a good number of feet away from the blue line. Alright I just usually reference these black lines. I want to be close to the edge of the black lines for the curling circles. Now we're gonna start our next one and we want to get just to the other side of the second hockey dot. That's gonna give us the next lobe, the second lobe. So we have one, two, three, four, five and here's that hockey dot. This makes it so that I can make my third lobe go right across the red center hockey line. So we're gonna make it really nice and even. So if you get to the far side, the left-hand side of the second hockey dot, it gets you in the right place for this third lobe. So we're gonna perfectly clear this and end our third lobe on the right side of the third hockey dot. One, two, three, four, five. Now I've finished my third lobe and I am to the right of the third hockey dot. Okay so I have perfectly cleared that red line in the center with my center lobe. Okay so now we're just nearing. We're gonna try to get to the middle of those curling circle black lines. We're just a bit past the blue hockey line. I know this one's a little bit difficult for me to explain to you. Okay so we're gonna do lobe number four. One, two, three, four, five. We're in the middle of these black hockey lines to the left of our blue. Sorry we're in the middle of the curling lines to the left of the blue hockey and now we're gonna do our final lobe and we want to get to the same spot on the right side or the other side of that last hockey dot. So we have our fifth lobe. One, two, three, four, five. And here you can see I am in the exact same spot on the opposite corner of the rink. So now I am just past my red hockey dot on the complete opposite side. So we have made a nice mirror image pattern with mohawk sequence. Anyone who is part of the US figure skating program is gonna test it at some point since it's part of both a standard test track and the adult test track. So get out there and give it your best and of course all of you those of you around the world who are not part of USFS can still work on this fun smooth and challenging mohawk sequence. If you enjoyed this one please do give us a thumbs up and as always I'm looking forward to reading all your comments in that section down below. If you haven't done so yet then hit that subscribe button and the little notification bell so you can see all my videos when they come out. Happy skating and I'll see you next time.