What's New; 410; Perfection

... What's new 69, 8-02673, perfection and skating. 38, 31, 70, recording date, program linked. It's funny 9 minutes. Thank you. In and out and round about.

Here, there and everywhere. What's new? Hi, on some different what's new days, we've talked about a number of different sports ranging from basketball to baseball to horseback riding. When I was your age, we used to play the different sports by the seasons. Lots of different ones to choose from in the summer and baseball, swimming, golf, croquet, horse shoes. The fall and going back to school always meant football and basketball naturally followed football into the winter. The one thing that strikes me most of all now and looking back at those times is the uniform. We really didn't need all those shoulder pads and knee guards and jerseys with numbers. The uniform was what we had on at the time and the universal all-weather, all-sport, unofficial, official, footwear, the sneaker. In those days, you couldn't buy a little cut pair like these.

They were up to here. We're always black and we're called gym shoes. With that uniform, anything and gym shoes, we were ready for almost every sport as the season came along. As you know, from watching and participating, each sport has its own rules and its own disciplines. These are used obviously for skating, for knocking around and falling down on your neighborhood pond, or for racing and hockey, or in a different version, for one of the most demanding individual sports of them all, figure skating. In figure skating, as we'll see, the time, the effort, the discipline, and the sacrifice of other unimportant things, all add up in the championship performer to something very near genius. Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Add a person with a purpose and you have the portrait of a champion. There are a number of different figure skating schools in and around the United States, but the broad more, in my opinion, is by far the best. Not only does it have the main arena, but it also has the studio arena. Well, when there are other activities going on in the main arena, we can always use the studio. If the student wants to work with the coach and do extra figure practice time, in the making of a skater, first of all, you have to have a skater that does have some form of talent. If you've got to have a skater that does have the right kind of muscles, the right anatomical structure.

It is not only that you're teaching a skater, you're trying to teach sportsmanship, you're trying to teach them how to handle themselves when other people are around. You're trying to teach them to handle themselves when judges are present, when they're competing all the way up the ladder. A good figure skater is usually a good scholar in school. If you have a student that is a good student in school, they can adapt themselves to the dedication of the time that it takes on the ice to do these school figures, figure skating originated in Europe years and years ago, and there were many different styles of figure skating in those days. There was a style in England developed called the Old English Style, whereby they never used the arms. The arms were downed by their sides like a wooden soldier. And they used to do figure eights around oranges, and they used to do things like grapevines and all that sort of thing, and then gradually it's developed over the years.

You have to have the background of all the intricate turns like the three turns, the brackets, the rockers, the counters, the loops in order to be able to do field work in a free skating program. School figures and free skating cost their two totally different things. If you're going in a competition, you have to have both, and you have to be good at both. And there are many, many skaters that are poor in school figures, and they're good in freestyle. Well, this doesn't make a champion. Skating is nothing else but centrifugal force. This is knowing how to move in relation to the centrifugal pole. And of course, once you learn this, then when you are attacking a piece of footwork in a program, it is done so effortlessly that people look at it and say, well, I mean, it just doesn't look that difficult. People just kind of get a thrill out of watching this endless flow for them.

And he tried skating club. Amongst the many students that I started to teach was little Tim, little Tim were. And I started teaching him when he was about seven. And at this time, he came in on a Sunday and he did his little jumps here and there, what he knew, what he picked up himself. And then he'd go home and that used to be skating for the week.

And by the time he was nine, ten years old, he won his first juvenile competition. But it wasn't until he was about ten years old that I thought that he did have the ability to go quite a way. And he didn't at that time seem to me that we would ever finish up together with the professional and student being the world champion. He was the runner-up in the 1968 Olympics. And he is the present world figure skating champion. Today, there are many more variations on this type of figure. We add many different types of turns and different edges combined together. If you notice, the forward outside three turn begins on the forward outside edge, carries into the top of the turn and comes out on a back inside edge.

The term edge is very confusing. What I mean by that is the edge of the skate or the blade. If you notice right now, I am on the flat of the blade. The blade is perfectly flat with the ice. If I tilt a little bit to the outside, I am on the outside edge. If I tilt a little bit to the inside, I'm on the inside edge. There is also an forward outside edge. At the top of the turn, there are two little bunny ears that look just like that on the ice. And this is what the judges look at. This is called the forward outside three change three. We will do the first three that I did a minute ago. Come through the change, change edges that means. On to a back edge and do a three turn on the opposite direction. As you see, I'm on a forward outside edge, doing the turn on to a back inside edge, changing edge at the center of the circle onto a back outside edge, doing the turn on to a forward inside edge.

Come to the center and push off for some speed around the circle another time. I'm on a forward inside edge, the turn on to a back outside edge, through the change. I'm now on a back inside edge, turning on to a forward outside edge. This figure is one of the figures in the sixth test. There are eight tests in figure skating. Really there are nine counting the preliminary test. The important thing to remember when skating figures is that the circles have to be perfectly round. They should also be three times your height. There is also a long and a short axis. This right here is long axis and the turn should be placed at both ends of my arms three times my height in distance. This is the short axis and this should be as short as possible. In other words, the tracing on the ice should be extremely small.

Also, in regard to tracing, in other words, the edges placed upon the ice, they should be very close. They should be as closely placed together as possible. If a skater can skate a complete figure and have the tracing an inch width all the way around the figure, you have an excellent figure. As I said, there are various types of turns that one can do within these different circles. These are what demonstrate right now. The three turn, which is this turn right here, the forward bracket. They are completely opposite to each other. Now, also, combining these three turn on the circle at the one-thirds, we have a double-three, which is this. Turn at the one-third, the two-thirds. Also, there is a combination of a three turn and a bracket called a rocker, which is like this.

This is a three-loop figure. Also, there is a combination of a bracket and a three-turn, which is called a counter, which is also a three-turn figure. These are all the turns that a skater has in competition and in compulsory figures. Now, we have what are called loops. These are small figures and should be one times your height. This is a forward outside loop. This is a third-test figure, so it's very basic in skating. These loops are traced all the time. You try to trace them as close as possible, and the turns have to be symmetrical just as the large figure. This figure is a paragraph back loop. It's probably one of the most difficult figures in figure skating.

It is all done on one foot. If you notice, the body weight has to be completely over the skating foot, so that the momentum is kept throughout the whole figure. These shoulders also have to be kept moving to keep that momentum going. What makes this figure so difficult is that in competition, with a little bit of nerves, you can tighten up very easily, consequently the momentum stops and the figure does not turn out the way you want it to. In the free skating blade, you do want those two edges so that you have a much deeper hollow, much more concave than the figure blade. But when I have free skating blades sharpened, I usually have those sharpened, by the way, once every two months. And I'm constantly stoning them, which means bringing up the edge on them with a piece of stone.

In free skating, you can do what you want, different moves, anything you feel you can do. And things that get me down or depress is when I can't do a jump. And you try about 10 million times, and you just do the same thing as you did the first time. Bobbi on the ice portrays a very pretty picture. She has a nice build. She's very attractive. Her legs are nice and pretty. She is quite artistic. She has very good arm movements that have come from a lot of the ballet that she's worked at. She is a very good spinner. She has good positions in spins. She is the skater that is still going through the process of learning. She hasn't really what you would say perfected everything.

She's going through the stages of learning like all the other skaters. But she does portray a very smooth, attractive picture when she's skating. And I think that again, it is within the child, and the ushering of the professional and the things you tell them, that does stir them and make them move ahead and be enthusiastic. In the school figures, Bobbi is quite talented. She's quite a good school figure skater. People do sometimes make the mistake when the learning school figures of steering the foot. The actual movement in a figure should be done with running edge. It should be done with flow. And of course, the only way to get a flowing circle is to be in a position over the skate, which is the least resistance, to the skate. That you are doing it by body movement and not by steering the foot. What actually happens when a skater steers the skate is that they lose running edge.

They lose the flow. Running edge is flow. Skating is glide. There will be five years in January that I've been skating. And when I first started, I saw an advertisement in the newspaper advertising or ring back home. And I don't know, I just wanted to skate, because I'd seen Peggy Fleming and Carol Heiss on the world championships, and figured that was what I wanted to be. Well, I skate around eight hours a day, but it doesn't bother me getting up early because I'm used to it by now. I skate before I go to school to about 11.30, then I go to school until three o'clock. And that way I get all my subjects in. I have about two hours for homework, and then I have to go to bed around 10 or 10.30. I do miss things because I'm always skating, and I have to miss parties and dances. And you do just certain things that the other girls do. I don't really feel left out at home because my father works, and then I see him when we eat dinner, and then I'm off to the rink again.

I guess it's something that I just want to do. You know, at the sport, and it's not really fun. It's a lot of hard work, but you get something out of it. I like doing school figures. You have to do, in school figures, the same movement over three times in order to trace it and get well-rounded circles lined up. It's not really mechanical. You just kind of weave the movements together. And then I have to go back to school.

And then I have to go back to school. Good one. Very good. Very good. Come over here a minute. Now, you've got to think that this is sheer, right? You make a fist, you think of the left shoulder, right fist, right? You've got to think of that, and then let the foot, the free leg, carry in the same direction as the shoulder. Now, you're just a little sloppy with the arms. Let's try another one.

Gail has a wonderful elasticity in her muscles that give her the elevation that she gets in her jumps. Very good. Very good. Okay, now, let's do the couple of single flips. Let's go. Concentrate on the left shoulder, right fist. She jumps with such ease and such flow. She has a very strong stiff back. Okay. Alright, let's try the double flip now, right? Good. Very good. Hold it. She holds the next stiff and holds the head up. She doesn't collapse in the middle of a jump. She's extremely dedicated. She listens to everything she's told. And she always tries to do what you tell her to do.

That's good. Let's try one more and see if you can get that back leg up to the other leg, okay? Right? Very good. That was a good one. That was very good. Very good. Right? You thought about that one that time, huh? Right? Very good. It was really good. Right? Really good. Alright, now, let's have a look at the axle, right? Okay. Mr. Baker is very good. He's strict, but it really pays off to do what he says. Keep the back leg stiff. That's it, right? Every day, I usually practice about six hours. Up and up and up. In the mornings, a lot of times I have to make some things to give me energy. I usually get up about quarter of six in the morning for 6.45 patch. And I try to get to bed as early as 8.30 in the evening. I think it's very challenging to skate.

It's not boring because there are so many things in skating that you have to correct to make right. Like in one jump, there can be about 15 things you can think about to do. I would someday like to be a gold medalist in the world. And then afterward, I'd probably become a pro. Keep that back up. And control and slowly put it down. They take ballet and figures and free skating and archivatics and try to blend it all into one to be a champion. Let's go forward from the hip. But don't drop it. Stretch it this time. I'll put this on over my neck. There we go. Does that pull? Okay, just say when it pulls. And then I'll stop. The majority of skaters, legs and hips are well developed. But some of these little girls' arms aren't very strong.

And the girls that I work with are very agile and very willing to learn. Whereas when they get a little bit older, I think they don't want to go backwards and learn archivatics that they should have learned but in the younger age. I don't put the fellows through the same type of work and same type of limbering because the boys don't need it and they're skating as much. That's why we're all over galing the stomach. Turn your head sideways. Arms up. This won't hurt. It might pop a little bit. There we go. Say when it pulls. They all do split jumps in their numbers just about. It's a great split in what I call a full split. And so we work on the floor on splits and limbering so that their muscles don't get too tight and bulgey from just doing figures.

Spinning is a control of the centrifugal force. This is the most basic spin. It's just the regular two foot spin. You come in on two feet, bend the knees, and come up on the knees. And you notice I'm spinning. If I pull the arms in faster, I start to move faster. It's the control of the centrifugal force. If I pull the arms in again, I go faster. Let them out. I stop. Pull them in. Stop. This is a much more advanced spin. And the object is to stay in one place when you're spinning. Pull the arms in very slowly to keep the centrifugal force controlled. The hard thing about it is to stay on balance, which means that the weight is right through the head, through the body, down the ball of the foot. So it's your own perfectly flat blade. You don't get dizzy because you practice it so often. You condition your body to it.

At first, when you start spinning, you know, at the younger ages. And if you have even eye, if I have impacted the spin for like, say the month, I take off in the spring, I don't practice the spin. I come back on the ice, and I do a couple spins, and I get dizzy. And see if you can follow the free leg. That's when you start picking up speed. The camel spin is done in a position flat like this. And it's called, the one I am going to demonstrate is called a flying camel. It's a jump into the spin, this way, and spin. I'll demonstrate what I mean. Notice I try to pick the free leg up as much as possible. Come into the back spin, into a crosswood spin.

This is a wall jump. I'm moving on to the forward outside edge, jumping into the air, and doing only a half of a rotation, landing backwards on the outside edge again. The axle jump. There's a progression from the wall jump. It's exactly the same preparation, but you do one and a half revolutions in the air. The double saw cow is one exact revolution in the air. What a skater must always try to remember when doing these jumps is to try to make them as high as possible, to try to keep his speed up through the jumps. You must have a continuous flowing movement through these jumps. The flip jump is the beginning of toe jumps. Now with the toe jumps, you use the toe as the momentum force. The double flip is taken off of a left back inside edge,

toying with the right foot, jumping into the air, doing two revolutions. What is most important here is make sure that the arms are in a circular position so that the jump flows continuously. The double toe loop is exactly two revolutions, taking off of the right foot, toying with the left foot, landing backwards on the outside edge. This next jump is a split jump. The important thing is to try to go into the air and extend your legs in the Russian split position as far as possible, and the toes must try to be pointed, and your hands must touch your feet so that you are in a perfectly horizontal position with the ice. This piece of footwork that I am doing is used for connecting around corners of the ice arena, and also there is another type of footwork used going down the ice straight to connect jumps from lengthways of the rank. Now when we take all these jumps and we add the footwork together

and we put spins together, you have a five minute free skating program. Well, I don't think this is skater in the world that has the flow or the movement over the ice that Tim Wood has. He has reached this perfection in skating. The championship figure skating is portrayed by World Champion Tim Wood by his friends and his coach, Mr. Baker, at the Broadmore in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

This is what's new USA. My name is Al Benford, and I'll be looking for you right here next time. The name of this program, as always, is what's new? So next time we'll find out even more about the world we're in, and the bigger world that's in us. This is National Educational Television. This is National Educational Television.