h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Jumps in Figure Skating - A2643518
Author: Mikey the Humming Mouse - A1355195 Hitchhike your way into the Edited Guide! - U99875

Hi there! This one was prompted by the discussion in the PR thread (F48874?thread=408925) of another entry of mine (A1233578), and I was able to bang this out more quickly than I expected.

Please let me know what doesn't make sense, what needs elaborating, etc.


Mikey

I haven't seen the article whichs' PR thread led to this article, so my comment might have been addressed in it.

I've seen a friend's son learn how to ice skate. These jumps look beautiful and effortless during televised competitions, but they are in fact VERY hard to perform. If you see these jumps being practiced live and there is no disguising music and a huge crowd around, it's possible to get close enough to see and hear the *crunch* involved and the skeletal shock when the jumps don't quite come off properly. You do mention ease for performing these jumps, but perhaps it's worth mentioning that jumping isn't particularly easy, and its a relative thing.

Yeah, the other article I have in PR right now is focused more on learning to figure skate, starting at the beginning. But the second half of that entry deals with stuff like what order the different jumps might be learned in, and what jumps are needed to pass what tests, etc. -- and people kept asking me what all those different jumps were.

And since I think for the average hootooer, watching figure skating on TV is probably about as close as they are likely to get to most of these jumps, that was the angle I tried to write it from.

I will, however, add in a sentence or two that tries to give an idea of the fundamental difficulty of rotational jumps, though.


Mikey

There, I added in these 2 sentences to the introduction, do you think it helps?

"Some of these jumps are more difficult than others, but none would be considered easy for the average person. After all, most people would have a hard time jumping off the ground and rotating around several times in the air, let alone doing it on the ice and landing cleanly!"

For what it's worth, I managed to learn up to a double salchow relatively easily (i.e., it took practice but only weeks/months for each jump, not years) when I was figure skating, but the jumps beyond that just utterly eluded me.

Talking of the word "salchow", here in the UK it was pronounced to rhyme with "know" rather than "cow"... or, at least, that's the way I always heard BBC commentators say it. Maybe it's pronounced differently in different countries?

I like your entries - as a small addition to thi one, maybe you could explain how the jumps you talk about came to be called a "salchow", a "lutz" and a "walley"? Are they all named after the people who first performed them, for example, or is it something else?

Talking of the word "salchow", here in the UK it is pronounced to rhyme with "know" rather than "cow"... or, at least, that's the way I always heard BBC commentators say it. Maybe it's pronounced differently in different countries?

I like your entries - as a small addition to thi one, maybe you could explain how the jumps you talk about came to be called a "salchow", a "lutz" and a "walley"? Are they all named after the people who first performed them, for example, or is it something else?

Many of them are named after the people who created them -- I will research this a bit more, and find a way to add it in.


Mikey

*faints*

Finally, something that explains what it's all about! Great entry Mikey!!

I've only got one tiny concern - instead of using the abbreviations LBI and such, I think I would rather see the term written out each time it's used. Using LBI seems a bit too technical and detracts from the otherwise clean style of the entry.

But I really learned a lot from reading it so I reckon that makes it a good 'un!


- Jimi X

Ok, historical bits have been added, and abbreviations removed.

Anything else?

Glad it made sense for you, Jimi X!


Mikey

Two things, Mikey. The 'positional jumps' link doesn't work for me and I have always heard 'salchow' pronounced as 'salko' - in fact, I've never seen it written, and it came as a surprise to see it spelled this way. I wonder if there's a pronounciation difference on different sides of the Atlantic?

How it's pronounced could well differ depending on where you are, I guess. It's definitely spelled like that, though -- it's someone's name.

I guess I'll take out the pronunciation footnote...

Hmmm... that's odd, the positional jumps link still works for me -- and I even tried refreshing to make sure it wasn't just cached.

Here's the full link -- could you try it again?

http://www.skatejournal.com/jumpposition.html

ok, I changed the footnote on the salchow a bit -- what do you think now?

The link works no for me, Mikey and the pronounciation footnote is fine. Is it really pronounced sow-cow over there?

Yup, although the 'sow' is pronounced much more quickly than the 'cow' part. And it's almost closer to 'saow-cow' than it is 'sow-cow', but the former would just confuse people more.

Just checked, and Merriam-Webster lists the pronounciation as:

'sal-"kau

which is pretty close to how I hear it here - I just never hear the 'l' actually pronounced.

Over here the 'l' is definitely pronounced and the emphasis is slightly more on the first syllable, although they are almost evenly stressed. Interesting!

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Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

woo hoo! thanks!


Mikey

Congrats!