The Salchow

I started skating too old to ever be good at it, but young enough to think I might be OK and be thrilled by the ride.

For a year, I whizzed through things at a speed that dazzled me. Stroking. Cross-overs. Back crossovers. Mohawks. 3 turns. Two-foot spin. One-foot spin. Waltz jump. Shoot the duck. Patch (in the old day, we did figure 8s for 45 minutes at a time). Salchow.

I never did the salchow. The salchow wrecked ice-skating for me. I spent 6 months miserable about my inability to do a salchow; where I had once seen achievement, now I just saw failure.

In order to do a salchow, you start with a 3 turn (which is a sudden half turn--you are going one way on the ice and all of sudden your blade makes a little 3 and turns itself the other way while you are still in the same position, headed the same direction--it makes a 3 (on its side) on the ice). Normally, you'd check the rotation so that you stopped spinning, but with a salchow, you don't--you let your body start to spin in a somewhat uncontrolled fashion. Then you take you use that momentum to hurl yourself up and over the standing foot, doing a full turn onto the free leg. (Someone has a better description.)

If you ask me, I can do this jump on land. No problem. Easy. I can explain the physics of it. I know how it works. I can feel the 3-turn and I can feel the jump out of the 3-turn in my bones. What I can't do is this damn jump.

You have a fraction of a second to do this jump. You have to do the timing correctly. If you hesitate, you've lost that 3-turn and have to start over again.

You cannot talk yourself into it. Your brain will never get you there. Your muscles have to trust it. Crave it. You cannot have fear and successfully land it. The problem is, without having landed it, your muscles clench because they don't know it is safe. All day long, your muscles keep you safe. As you start to slip in the rain, they so "no--let's keep you right up." That muscle-memory makes it possible to do so much without having to think about it. Anti-skid brakes for our lives. It is an amazing system. But I can't turn it off. I can force myself to do the 3-turn a hundred times in an afternoon. I can force myself to release rotation and spin. I can let go of that much control. But I can't get that final piece. I've tried.

There are 2 ways I could actually do the salchow. I landed one once, when I was at a friend's wedding and I was drunk. The alcohol 'inhibited my inhibitions' as someone might say. But I don't want to be using alcohol like that too much (and it isn't practical--ice-skating rinks don't serve or allow alcohol, except at private parties). Or I could learn pair's skating and have a man throw me into the jump. Practically speaking, I doubt seriously that any coach would encourage a pair to do a throw salchow when the lady couldn't land it on her own. But that very much appeals to me.

I hope that this doesn't remain a metaphor for my erotic life and I can learn the pair jump that I could never do on my own.