Product Description

This is a 4 minute and 29 second video lesson in which Robert shows you how to flex your leg on the toe loop take-off.

He describes the proper “set” position one should reach before picking into the ice and attempting the jump. In this position feet are a little bit apart, knees slightly bent, body tilted and slightly forward, with the left arm low and the right arm out to the side. Once you attain this position you will lift and straighten your free leg until you feel a tightening in your back and buttocks. After picking and during take-off you should be coming up on your skating knee and turning your core, keeping back and hip muscles flexed. You will then flex and lift your front leg.

Regardless of how you choose to enter into your toe loop, you must be sure to reach this set position before attempting the jump.

Robert tells us that picking is not an isolated action and should occur on the way up and into the jump. The pick action should feel light like a “tap” and you should be pushing up from, and accelerating off of , the ice rather than down into a curtsying position.

Robert takes you through an exercise in which you get the feel of the down and up motion of the toe loop take-off. You begin by gliding backward in the set position. You then bend both knees and lean slightly forward before rising up from your knees and lifting and straightening your upper body. Your skating leg (generally the left) will be in front and your free leg directly behind it, with your head in line with your right shoulder and both wrists pinned together. Repeat this exercise 2 or 3 times and on the final repetition you will go up and onto your toe pick.