Loops are BACK

I hope saying this out loud won't jinx it, but... my loop jumps are BACK!!! Tonight's loops had a success rate of about 80% once they started happening again.

It took a combination of three coaches (two class coaches and my private coach) trying to correct my bad habits to finally get it back.

1. Do not pre-rotate upper body
This was the hardest thing to fix, and I still sometimes slip back into the old bad habit. All three coaches said the same thing to me, made me try it again and again, and still I would pre-rotate my upper body. I knew it but I just couldn't control it! Right now, I try to not do this by telling myself to pull in my arms as I jump so that my hands are clasped on my right side (just below the collar bone), instead of just dead centre. Because when I think to pull it to the middle, what I'm actually doing is pre-rotating and pulling in to the left side. So far, this has helped, let's hope it will continue to be fixed.

2. Curve the take-off edge more
That whole thing about how all jumps actually take off forward. I do my loops from backward crossovers, and the take-off edge should be a sudden back outside edge curve into the circle, that basically looks like a hook. I started to be afraid of the loop because I'd sometimes feel like I was skidding/slipping sideways on my take-off. With my old skates, I blamed it on the need-to-be-sharpened blades. With my nice new blades, the problem persisted, and coach J pointed out my tracings on the ice and said if I curve more, I shouldn't be skidding. It works. I just need to figure out how to consistently curve more.

3. Don't drop either shoulder on take-off and landing
I drop my left shoulder on take-off (so I pre-rotate), and I drop my right shoulder on landing, so I can't hold up the landing. Not much to say here - need to keep shoulders square.

4. Don't bend knee until right before jump
Since I go into the loop from backward crossovers, the entry is a RBO edge gliding backwards with left foot in front of right foot (as close together as possible, was another thing I had to fix). During this gliding, I used to have my right knee bent the entire glide. Coach J told me to only bend just as I'm about to jump. When a person does a normal jump upwards motion, they don't start in the bent position and jump; they start upright, suddenly dip down, then immediately jump up. Exactly the same here. So I tried keeping my right leg straight on the backwards glide (left foot still close in front!), and voila! There was my loop. This last change actually killed two birds with one stone: 1) it gave me the power for the jump and 2) as I bend that right knee, the motion actually created that deep curve that I'm supposed to do!

So many bad habits, and I'm sure I have more. But at least these have improved and now I can happily say I can do loop jumps again. Hope I will soon be able to say that I can do flip jumps again!