Landings, mechanics, etc of FS jumps

[meoima]

As a fascinating discussion started in the Layout thread, we've decided to move all the relevant posts here, so as to facilitate the discussion on jumps, their landings, etc when it comes to all the skaters that might peak your interest, and not just Yuzuru. 

 

Thank you @Fresca , and everyone, for the fascinating discussion and hopefully it'll continue!

Edit by Yatagarasu

 

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OmNom said:

As much as I'm not fond of Nathan's wobbly landings, he does have amazing edges on both the flip and lutz (which I don't see very often so that's got to be very difficult)

And once again I'm reminded of Boyang's amazing height on his lutz. he has airtime to spare before his landing foot even touches the ice! no wonder it always looks like he's flying when his lutz is in full mode

 

Nathan's wobbly landings (and even Boyang's wobbly landings too) are due to bad body alignment. They are small and they rotate very fast but they do not control their speed and power in the landing enough. In short, less control if you compare to Yuzuru, Patrick, Javi's landings when they do well.

Boyang and Nathan, nevertheless, have true Lutz, while Shoma does not.

[EisElle]

Actually Shoma's landings sometimes bothers me more. When he does those crazy turns out of his jumps.. it looks really unstable

 

Lol we don't talk of Shoma's landings here.. or it'll turn into pages and pages of analysis and gifs/videos :rofl2:

Nathan's and Boyang's jumps have room for improvement but it's entirely different for Shoma (as in, he doesn't just 'wobble'; it's much worse than that lol). Tbf his body type might be at a disadvantage compared to other jumpers in the field, but it is what it is and doesn't change the fact that he has rather poor techniques on his jumps

 

On the other side, I think his body type may help him to save his landings too, as he has a low barycenter and that "soft knee" that allows him to jerk his body in position after the landing. I've heard/read something about this somewhere.

Is having long limbs (like Yuzu or Boyang, who has grown quite tall) an advantage when jumping? I think it requires more control and awareness, so I wouldn't say Shoma's is much at disadvantage, apart from the ability to spin fast. His legs looks very strong, very muscular, so that should grant him a lot of "power" for his jumps. Correct me if I am wrong, I'm still a newbie here :yes:

[meoima]

On the other side, I think his body type may help him to save his landings too, as he has a low barycenter and that "soft knee" that allows him to jerk his body in position after the landing. I've heard/read something about this somewhere.

Is having long limbs (like Yuzu or Boyang, who has grown quite tall) an advantage when jumping? I think it requires more control and awareness, so I wouldn't say Shoma's is much at disadvantage, apart from the ability to spin fast. His legs looks very strong, very muscular, so that should grant him a lot of "power" for his jumps. Correct me if I am wrong, I'm still a newbie here :yes:

Yes. Shoma's short legs (and low center of gravity) are the main reason that helped save his landing with VERY bad body alignment. You will never see Yuzuru, Nathan or Boyang having that kind of landings because their bodies could not afford that. Their long limbs might be tangled right away. However, bad body alignment is bad body alignment and it will leave bad consequence.

[OmNom]

 

On the other side, I think his body type may help him to save his landings too, as he has a low barycenter and that "soft knee" that allows him to jerk his body in position after the landing. I've heard/read something about this somewhere.

Is having long limbs (like Yuzu or Boyang, who has grown quite tall) an advantage when jumping? I think it requires more control and awareness, so I wouldn't say Shoma's is much at disadvantage, apart from the ability to spin fast. His legs looks very strong, very muscular, so that should grant him a lot of "power" for his jumps. Correct me if I am wrong, I'm still a newbie here :yes:

 

When you have to 'save' your landings every single time, that's not an advantage of body type, that's poor techniques that could be due to body type. He might not fall a lot bc of his supposedly 'soft knees', but those 'successful' jumps are no where near decent. His airtime is generally quite short, which causes his landing foot to reach the ice before he could complete his rotations, hence the knee twist to adjust his whole body to keep it from falling.

[Fresca]

Nathan's wobbly landings (and even Boyang's wobbly landings too) are due to bad body alignment. They are small and they rotate very fast but they do not control their speed and power in the landing enough. In short, less control if you compare to Yuzuru, Patrick, Javi's landings when they do well.

I do agree with you that Boyang has less control over his landings but from what I see, I don't think the problem is with his alignment. I think Boyang has beautiful alignment in the air (better than Patrick or Javi in my opinion) and when he lands, he generally lands with proper alignment too (foot under the center of gravity, knee over foot, hips and shoulders square). I think the problem is not with his alignment but with his feet and his knees. He needs better plie (softer knees) and I don't think he rolls his foot to push down to his skates then to the ice properly to control the momentum and direction of his skating well after the jump. These are also not good and may lead to their own set of injuries so Boyang, please strengthen your feet and knees!

 

Then again, I'm not a skater but a dancer so perhaps many things are being "lost in translation" so to speak from dancing to skating.

 

Yes. Shoma's short legs (and low center of gravity) are the main reason that helped save his landing with VERY bad body alignment.

There are times when I see Shoma have bad alignment even in his air position. I cannot imagine what stress his body is going through in order to adjust to complete the rotations and then balance himself on the landing.

[Joey]

Nathan's wobbly landings (and even Boyang's wobbly landings too) are due to bad body alignment. They are small and they rotate very fast but they do not control their speed and power in the landing enough. In short, less control if you compare to Yuzuru, Patrick, Javi's landings when they do well.

I do agree with you that Boyang has less control over his landings but from what I see, I don't think the problem is with his alignment. I think Boyang has beautiful alignment in the air (better than Patrick or Javi in my opinion) and when he lands, he generally lands with proper alignment too (foot under the center of gravity, knee over foot, hips and shoulders square). I think the problem is not with his alignment but with his feet and his knees. He needs better plie (softer knees) and I don't think he rolls his foot to push down to his skates then to the ice properly to control the momentum and direction of his skating well after the jump. These are also not good and may lead to their own set of injuries so Boyang, please strengthen your feet and knees!

 

Then again, I'm not a skater but a dancer so perhaps many things are being "lost in translation" so to speak from dancing to skating.

 

I'd agree that Boyangs body alignment overall is pretty good, and that it's a problem with his feet/ankles when his landings wobble so much. What he sometimes messes up too is the landing edge... he lands too much with a flat edge (or even inside), instead of an outside edge.

However, I was positively surprised that his jumps looked better in that regard in practices in Helsinki, so maybe it's more of an old habit still creeping in in competition. He looks better in that regard this season compared to last in general too. So I hope they work further on it, it is fixable in my opinion, at least very much so compared to Nathan and especially Shoma.

 

And when he lands his jumps like the 4Lz in his WC LP, there is zero to complain about. I haven't seen Patrick or Javi land their jumps better than that.

[meoima]

Nathan's wobbly landings (and even Boyang's wobbly landings too) are due to bad body alignment. They are small and they rotate very fast but they do not control their speed and power in the landing enough. In short, less control if you compare to Yuzuru, Patrick, Javi's landings when they do well.

I do agree with you that Boyang has less control over his landings but from what I see, I don't think the problem is with his alignment. I think Boyang has beautiful alignment in the air (better than Patrick or Javi in my opinion) and when he lands, he generally lands with proper alignment too (foot under the center of gravity, knee over foot, hips and shoulders square). I think the problem is not with his alignment but with his feet and his knees. He needs better plie (softer knees) and I don't think he rolls his foot to push down to his skates then to the ice properly to control the momentum and direction of his skating well after the jump. These are also not good and may lead to their own set of injuries so Boyang, please strengthen your feet and knees!

 

Then again, I'm not a skater but a dancer so perhaps many things are being "lost in translation" so to speak from dancing to skating.

Yes. Shoma's short legs (and low center of gravity) are the main reason that helped save his landing with VERY bad body alignment.

There are times when I see Shoma have bad alignment even in his air position. I cannot imagine what stress his body is going through in order to adjust to complete the rotations and then balance himself on the landing.

Yes, Boyang has the best technique among 3 of them. I often say Boyang has best chance of walking healthily when he gets old... per Patrick's standards.

Boyang has very good air position (tight and straight, except that scary head rolling). I don't think there is much issue with his take off and on air position. Though I think his edge jumps take off are less impressive than his toe jumps.

Your explanation of Boyang's landings make so much sense. :bow: Since English isn't my first language I also struggle to express what I see in many ways. Boyang's knee and ankle do lack control in the landings, so it give the impression of wonky and scratchy. But we have seen him with very good landings in practice and now and then in competition (like that 4lz at WC). Technically, Boyang can fix that bad habit as we have seen him did better.

But for now, his knee should be softened.

[randomanon]

Boyang has hard landings occasionally and I think like Fresca said it is because his knee is a bit stiff (unlike Yuzu), similarly I feel the same with Nathan. But I have other problem with Nathan, the way he checks out and opens up his jump is a bit weird sometimes. I am not sure if it will affect him in terms of injury though or whether it is just style and will not affect someone so much.

 

I think i remember somewhere someone said Nathan tilts to one side too much when landing? not sure if that's what you're referring to, please correct me if i'm wrong :)

[mcq]

I think i remember somewhere someone said Nathan tilts to one side too much when landing? not sure if that's what you're referring to, please correct me if i'm wrong :)

 

Maybe, but I am talking more about the way he unwraps his free leg. It does not necessarily mean that it is wrong though, it just bothers me but I can't explain why :p Maybe fresca can explain better

[sesinda]

I think that Nathan puts his leg so badly, because Rafael Aratunian wants to damage his second hip to jump seven quads, damage his knee and get sick for the rest of his life. Because it's only important to defeat Yuzuru and get gold. Everything else doesn't matter. :hachimaki:

[Fresca]

I'd agree that Boyangs body alignment overall is pretty good, and that it's a problem with his feet/ankles when his landings wobble so much. What he sometimes messes up too is the landing edge... he lands too much with a flat edge (or even inside), instead of an outside edge.

However, I was positively surprised that his jumps looked better in that regard in practices in Helsinki, so maybe it's more of an old habit still creeping in in competition. He looks better in that regard this season compared to last in general too. So I hope they work further on it, it is fixable in my opinion, at least very much so compared to Nathan and especially Shoma.

Yes, it's fixable. It's not easy but it's more straightforward than alignment issues. Soft knees begin with the feet. In dance, good plie requires articulate strong feet that roll from the toe to the heel when landing jumps to cushion the impact and transfer it in a controlled manner from the foot to the ankle to the knee. Then, good plie requires strong leg, butt and core muscles to control the bending and straightening of the knee so the movement is smooth and continuous. In dance, to remedy this, you would be at the barre doing many, many repetitions of [link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unv8TS3JO6U&t=33s]releve[/link] and [link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeSVHYSMItg&t=27s]tendu[/link] to strengthen the feet, [link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrBhcopjDZQ&t=27s]plie[/link] to strengthen the muscles and practice control of the knees, and basic jumps ([link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB-OsU0wfT4]saute[/link], [link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEg0HJn8lQ8&t=50s]temps leve[/link]) to practice landing jumps with the right feet and plie. Boyang could do similar exercises for off-ice training but I guess the skating equivalent would be stroking exercises and simple jumps with difficult transitions out to ensure he has good control of his skates going out of jumps.

 

Fixing balance and alignment is much trickier because it requires you to develop an understanding of what muscles to engage and adjust to keep yourself in balance/alignment. A teacher can tell you how to position yourself or even move you into the correct position but remembering what that position feels like so you can move into it again or adjust yourself to maintain it is a different matter. To explain, [link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCWsIXxcLLw&t=1094s]here is ballet dancer Tetsuya Kumakawa describing to Dai this adjustment.[/link]

[Fresca]

Boyang has very good air position (tight and straight, except that scary head rolling).

I also think the head rolling is scary and I don't think his mummy arms look very nice either (I find Yuzu's air position with arms in jazz 1st and neutral head is so much prettier) but I can't fault his alignment.

 

I think i remember somewhere someone said Nathan tilts to one side too much when landing? not sure if that's what you're referring to, please correct me if i'm wrong :)

Maybe, but I am talking more about the way he unwraps his free leg. It does not necessarily mean that it is wrong though, it just bothers me but I can't explain why :p Maybe fresca can explain better

Yes, Nathan lands unbalanced. When he lands he doesn't quite get his foot under his center of gravity so he opens his hip and swings his free leg to the side and back and uses that to wrench his upper body to move his center of gravity so it is over his foot to balance himself. It's an alignment issue and bad for his hips. The hips should stay square and the movement of the free leg back should not be circular to the side (which means the hip is being raised) but under (more front to back).

 

ETA: realised I missed some wording...I was half asleep when I wrote it.

[ElaineChen]

Fixing balance and alignment is much trickier because it requires you to develop an understanding of what muscles to engage and adjust to keep yourself in balance/alignment. A teacher can tell you how to position yourself or even move you into the correct position but remembering what that position feels like so you can move into it again or adjust yourself to maintain it is a different matter. To explain, [link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCWsIXxcLLw&t=1094s]here is ballet dancer Tetsuya Kumakawa describing to Dai this adjustment.[/link]

 

The Tetsuya Kumakawa part is very interesting. It's a pity that Takahashi seems not quite followed up his description. I wonder if Yuzu can appreciate it more, because he certainly learned a lot from the talking with Nomura Mansai.

[EisElle]

Fixing balance and alignment is much trickier because it requires you to develop an understanding of what muscles to engage and adjust to keep yourself in balance/alignment. A teacher can tell you how to position yourself or even move you into the correct position but remembering what that position feels like so you can move into it again or adjust yourself to maintain it is a different matter. To explain, [link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCWsIXxcLLw&t=1094s]here is ballet dancer Tetsuya Kumakawa describing to Dai this adjustment.[/link]

 

The Tetsuya Kumakawa part is very interesting. It's a pity that Takahashi seems not quite followed up his description. I wonder if Yuzu can appreciate it more, because he certainly learned a lot from the talking with Nomura Mansai.

 

Well Yuzuru is as good at understanding the theory behind figure skating as at skating itself :goe:

His analyses are always a pleasure to read, they are deep and accurate. More so he is very eager to learn more about sport in general. I recall that conversation he had with the gymnast Kenzo Shirai about jumps :smile: :bow:

 

(Also: 25 posts yessss! :yay: )

[Fresca]

The Tetsuya Kumakawa part is very interesting. It's a pity that Takahashi seems not quite followed up his description. I wonder if Yuzu can appreciate it more, because he certainly learned a lot from the talking with Nomura Mansai.

yes, i have always been impressed with him about this. there's that video where he was still in his early senior career talking about mastering quad toe loop. he doesnt really talk about it as a 'feeling' as i thought skaters would usually say, but gave a really analytical explanation about how to regain the balance even if the axis was off.

 

I think he would definitely click more with Tetsuya Kumakawa than Dai. His explanation about jerking his muscles to adjust his air position (and his F1 example lol) is very interesting. Dai looks so lost...

Yes, Yuzu would definitely understand what Tetsuya Kamakawa was talking about because Yuzu does the exact same thing as Mr. Kumakawa when he fixes his jumps.

 

Yuzu's uncanny sense of balance and alignment, like a cat, is what differentiates him from the rest of the pack. Even if his alignment is not quite right, he knows how to make the right adjustments in his body to fix it in the air or to fix it in his landing position. For example, [link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne7Z8Z5fDEI&t=373s]his 4Lo in his NHK 2016 FS[/link]. Even if his position in the air is too tilted forward, he manages to fix it when he opens up by simultaneously putting his landing foot forward and his upper torso back using a torso contraction to land with his foot under his center of gravity. Amazing. :bow: