Freestyle 4 Requirements

Hello everyone, and happy skating, today I am going to show you the freestyle 4 requirements, you are now at one of the biggest sprout outs at ice skating at a level because you are now going from half rotation jumps to single rotation jumps. The required spin can only get harder to but, I think you are ready to take one the challenge. The required moves

1. Loop jump
2. Flip jump
3. Half loop
4. Sit spin
5. Dance sequence

For the loop remember take advantage of this jump because you are simply just popping up and back down, there is know need to worry about changing positions or transferring your weight like in the axel. This jump is one of the easiest jumps in my opinion, so don't be to scared. The sit spin can take awhile to learn, it took me a few months to get it down in a progress about 2 hours per time I skate which on average I skated one or two times a week.  Yet once you get this spin you will realize it is actually simpler then the scratch and change foot at least in my opinion. I have not learned the dance sequence of this level or most of the levels, so can't really help you there, I have not even learned a half loop!

Freestyle 3 Requirements

Hello welcome back to the ice skating blog and today I am going to go over the freestyle 3 requirements, now you are getting into more complex things such as harder elements, and harder dance sequences, unfortunately I do not know these dance sequences or forgot them so I can't really help you there. You will need

1. Salchow
2. Change foot spin
3. Dance Sequence 
4. Back Spiral
5. Toe loop
6. Back pivot

For the salchow you want to make sure when doing the three turn you check check take off and when doing it try not to make the three turn swingy, like keep your free leg (the one your not standing on) close to your other leg. For the toe loop make sure you don't pre rotate which is when your shoulders rotate before your whole body does. This can be tricky especially when you get to double and triple toe. The back spiral and forward ones, make sure you back is arched, you leg is at least at the waist and you hold it 4 times your body length. The change foot spin is quite tricky at first and some skaters like, my sister can agree. When doing a change foot you are doing three revolutions for the one foot, three for the back, and three again for the forward. An exercise my coach in LA taught me is to do it from forward to back ward to forward pivots, this really helps so I would recommend doing this if you are having trouble.  Pivots are quite easy to learn so the back one you should have down quickly and likely before the change foot.

Preliminary Freeskate Test Requirements

Hey guys and welcome back to another post, in todays post I will be talking about preliminary freeskate test requirements, this test is overall quite simple and is all the basic jumps and spins you learn through out the following ISI levels, freestyle 1-4. Here are the list of moves you will need

1. Waltz Jump
2. Salchow
3. Loop
4. Flip
5. Waltz Jump-toe loop combo
6. One foot (can do Scratch, three revs.)
7. Sit spine (three revs.)
8. Through out the program you should have some of the moves

In this test you will need to create a program and skate to a piece of music. This I believe has to be one minute and 30 seconds, note that the test is short and they want to see that you are able to do all the requirements so don't spend the time doing a bunch of other stuff. A tip that my coach suggested is that you should have one gap where when you skate the piece if you mess up on a element then use that gap to do that element you messed up, this gives you a second chance before you get a retest on it, unless you mess it up again. Of course to get more credit you want to demonstrate a clean spin with more then required as you may hear from teacher more is better, meaning that doing more then the minimum is good. Remember you only have one retake on one element take advantage of a little gap to do any messed up elements if you mess up. If you still mess up after that make sure thats the only one and they will give you one retake. If you do not mess up and have a gap just do what ever of the required stuff again to fill it in. Good luck and hope for all skaters to pass this test!

Freestyle 2 Requirments

Hello and welcome back to another post! Today I am going talk about freestyle 2 requirements, in this level there is more to learn you will need to know

1. Ballet jump
2. Half toe wally
3. One foot spin
4. Dance sequence
5. Half lutz

In this level for the half lutz, it's important to take off from the outside, if you take off from the wrong edge it is considered a flutz which is bad. The one foot spin you will need to bring the arms in front of you pull it in as if you were hugging a beach ball and to your chest down and out. At the same time as soon as you did your wind up you will want to bring the leg next to your heel. The ballet jump is a little hop from I believe an inside three turn. That is quite easy to learn once you know how to jump.

Freestyle 1 Requirements

Hey guys me here again, today I am going to talk about the freestyle 1 requirements. This is a pretty big step up, first of all this is your first real jump, and spin you will be learning! Wow you are getting so advanced now, anyway here are the requirements you will need for this level.

1. Waltz Jump
2. Two foot spin
3. Back edges
4. Pivot
5. Spiral
6. Half Flip

For the waltz jump you want to make sure your leg when you are doing the take goes up and forms the figure of a stair case, transfer your weight, this can be hard even I have trouble so don't worry if you can't do it at first, don't also expect to land it fully the first time, it doesn't just automatically come. For the spin when teaching I noticed one thing about the arms, when you go into it after the wind up you want to have your arms out in front of you then pull them in like your hugging a beach ball, then pull them into your chest and down, this will help for scratch spin. everything else should be pretty easy to learn, the spin and the jump is the trickiest that many people have trouble with.