- stomach

No matter how you analyze it, spins are all about your stomach muscles. Speaking strictly from mechanical physics, three things kill a spin: misalignment of the weight distribution along the vertical axis, a shifting of that distribution off-axis, and precession.

As you practice your spins you tend to naturally compensate for misbalance by thigh and arm adjustments, but the foundation for all of these torque dynamics actually are based upon the position of your hips, your rear end, and the angle you maintain between them and your spine.

And this is all governed by taught, controlled stomach muscles. Are your spins unstable? Sit ups, my dear.

- lucky

Something is messed up with the way we plan our practice and our competing. In a word, we somehow expect to be lucky. No one in their right mind plans a major endeavor under the assumption that everything will click just so, and yet as I watch the gals practice their programs that is exactly their approach.

Should you really be pushing yourself to the limits of your skills in your standard competition program? I don't think so; if you can only land a jump half the time in practice then how do you expect to land it when you are under stress and under the eyes of the audience and the judges?

I think you should skate the jumps you already are quite comfortable with; in other words your regular program should be easy, and slightly less than you can actually perfectly accomplish on a lucky day.