HOW TO DO A BACK SCRATCH SPIN | Coach Michelle Hong

Hi everybody. Welcome back to my channel. It's Coach Michelle Hong. Today we're going to be working on the back scratch spin. That is right. We're going to be working on rotations for this week of Skate With Michelle. It's going to be a fantastic way for you to start incorporating these really detailed skills for you to increase your rotations on those jumps on the ice when you get back on after quarantine. I am so excited that you've been so happy with all of the Skate With Michelle series videos and I hope that you enjoy this one as well. So, let's get started. When I first teach the back scratch, what I'm going to do is I'm going to glide on my free leg. The leg that is going to be in the air as I spin. And I'm going to go on a deep inside edge. So I place my opposite arm from the leg that I'm standing on in front. And then I scissor my arms and then I place my free leg at the time in comparison to the one that I'm standing on in front. Then I'm going to use this free leg to become my new skating leg, right? That's going to be the spinning leg that I spin on. And I'm going to trace a circle with my free arm. After I trace a circle with my free arm, I'm going to go on an inside edge, turn on to that outside edge and hold a V. Awesome. And from this V, you're going to go into a high H. And then you're going to put your heel on top of your knee. And then you're going to squeeze down for that back scratch. All right. So, with the beginning basics down, let's go straight into high H. To master the back scratch, I always emphasize the high H. And I talked about the high H in previous exercises before because I talk about jump technique. And the high H is basically creating a lowercase H with your hip up as so and your bottom leg straight. So, the leg that I'm lifting up is the free leg of my back scratch. So, for me, since I'm going counterclockwise, I'm lifting up my left free hip. And for those who are going clockwise in skating, they are lifting up their right hip. So, everybody lift up your appropriate free leg as so. And you're going to create an L-shaped position with your free arm and your skating arm to the side. And what we're going to do to practice preparing for the back scratch is bending our knee and then turning forward without any movement. Bending our knee and turning a quarter turn. Bending, quarter turn. So, as you can see, my high H is lifted. My hip is not dropping and my foot is not flopping, right? It's important to keep this hip square and you want to create its own line, right? It does not intersect the axis of your bottom leg. Appropriate high H, common mistake. So, with that being said, now let's incorporate our half turn with this strategy. We're going to start our hip in that high H position with our arms in an L. We're going to bend our knee, keep our eyes focused forward, and we're going to just rotate from the bottom half of our body. You're going to bend and rotate. So, that's a little bit more challenging because we only have a floor. So, I would highly recommend that you start off with the ground without any spinner exercises quite yet. You want to master these basic skills and fundamentals in order for you to understand what to do when you start going onto the spinner. Alright, so, from this high H position, right? What you're going to do is you're going to pass your heel on top of the quadriceps, the standing quadriceps. And then you're going to slide your feet all the way down to commit at an intersection, right? So, let me show you a forward viewpoint. Alright, high H, crossover, slide down. High H, crossover, slide down. Awesome. Okay, so that's how you start incorporating your feet when you develop the skills to balance on that one foot. So, after I've demonstrated how to go into the back scratch all the way through execution, now let's start adding the rotation in. So, what we're going to do is glide on my skating leg as I draw a circle with my free arm. And I bend my knee and I point my toe. And now I'm going to use my inside edge to be able to turn onto that outside edge as I hold a V. And then I'm going to start to hop, right? Let's just simulate what that's like to spin. In my V position, my head is forward and my eyes are up and my chin is up. And I'm starting to balance on my high H. And I pass down all the way through, squeezing tight on my toes. High H, and out. There you have it, that is the back scratch. This is the common drill you need for all of your jump rotations that we're going to do for this week. Thank you all so much for watching and I'll see you in our next episode of Skate With Michelle.