Awful Ugly Death Spirals

So, I was considering the comment made by one of my readers about how difficult the BO death spiral done by Demers-Boutin and Joncas at Jr Worlds was and why that makes it NOT an awful, ugly DS. The commenter said it got a Level 4 and has been used as an example of how to do a death spiral by Skate Canada (the org not the event), meaning it must have been done spectacularly well.

So, I found the video of their performance online and downloaded it... because frankly, I had already lost the visual in my head. Having too much to be responsible for tends to drive relatively unimportant things out of your head rather quickly. I've uploaded D-B&J's Long Program at 2006JW to YouSendIt here. That link will be good for 7 days at most, if it wears out, you might try asking for their program to be reposted in the 2006 Jr Worlds forum at FSVids. The recording is really crappy quality. Sorry about that, I didn't make it.

So, was D-B&J's death spiral awful and ugly or was it a Level 4 DS spiral done spectacularly well.?

Let's take a look at it step by step:

On entry, D-B performs a "difficult" side catch spiral in an extreme position. She holds this position on a shallow edge for 3 seconds and then lowers her leg into a more classic entry position in a controlled manner. I'm going to begin counting rotations from the time that she hits this position. Technically, the ISU does not begin counting rotations until the man sets his toe pick, so I'm spotting them a extra rotation that they should not get credit for under ISU rules.

My take: a pretty stunning position, though the edge was nothing to write home about. I liked it: +1

Now, take a look at this next pic, which is 1/2 a rotation into the death spiral. Look at her position. Her free foot is rotated in instead of turned out. The foot underneath her is way under her, not extended as it should be. The harsh bend in her knee makes a very ugly line. And also note that with her foot right under her like that, she's not really on all that deep of an edge. It's not edge control that's keeping her "up" it's that her foot is right under her. She's not terribly secure with this spiral. He's doing his job pretty well, but he's very "up" on his knees, not down into them.

My take: this is REALLY ugly. I hated her position and the spiral's poorly executed as far as she is concerned: -2

This next pic is 1/4 of the way into the second rotation. I know that the pic is blurry and it's hard to see, but notice how straight her back is. There's no arch there. In fact, there is no arch in her body at all. The hard bend in her knee is still there, only barely extended, her back is straight. The twist in her back and how her head drops to the ice, makes you THINK she's arched when in reality, she hasn't arched at all. Nada. In fact, her butt is sticking out. You can't see from this angle, but she is edging less shallowly (note: I don't say "more deeply" because her edge is still not very deep). Her free foot (along with her free hip) is STILL turned in.

My take: still a rotten position and still not great as far as execution goes. But since she's a tiny bit more into the edge: -1.

Now, finally, here's a picture from 1/4 turn into the second rotation. D-B has pulled her leg down and crouched it behind her bent knee. Finally, she's fairly deep into the edge a mere half a rotation before she pulls out of the spiral. Her back is still not arched. Her free foot, knee and hip are still turned in. Now she has TWO ugly bent knees instead of one! Her head in thrown back to simulate arch and closeness to the ice, but look at her body, look at her back. Look at the shoulder she's NOT twisting. She is not all that close to the ice, is she? Nope. She's not. All the close she IS to the ice is from that way-under-her bent supporting knee, NOT because she is on a super deep edge. This is not a well executed spiral. The low to the ice should come from the depth of the edge, not from the bend in the supporting knee.

My take: ugly position, no arch, optical illusion fake-out. Not fooled here: -2

I should note that putting her free foot behind her knee, which disguises her poor position is a "feature" under CoP that gives her a higher level. That twist in her back and dropped head which makes her look closer to the ice when she's really not? Another "feature." In software development, we have a saying when the customer comes at us with a fault that we should have fixed and didn't, "hey, that's a feature not a bug." Let's take away those features and see what kind of spiral we have.

Bent supporting knee.
Shallow edge.
No arch in the back.
Poorly executed.
He's not low to the ice.

Is it a good one?

No, it isn't.

Now, here's one that's better (Hinzeman and Parchem at SA 2006). No, this isn't the best BO DS I've ever seen, but it's got a lot going for it. Though you can't quite see it at this angle, Marci's supporting leg is pretty straight and her knee is extended. She's staying up pushing against the edge, not by putting her weight on a supporting leg that is bent under her. The "low" in the DS comes from the depth of her edge and the attractive arch in her back, not from a bent supporting knee. Her head is thrown back and the the shoulder is twisted but only to the extent that her back is arched. It complements the arch, rather than hiding the fact that there isn't actually any arch to speak of. The free foot is turned out (not as far as it could be and it's not pointed... but as I said, this is not the best BO death spiral I've ever seen. Note also, that Parchem is very deep into his knees. He's sunk down as low as Marci has rather than staying high (which is easier) and letting her dangle.
.

I wish I could find a good picture of Berezhanya and Sikhuralidze doing their BO DS or better yet, Gordeeva and Grinkov. Gordeeva's edge control allowed her to get WAY close to the ice.

At any rate, when one is taking notes in split seconds, sometimes a great deal of analysis gets condensed into "AWFUL, UGLY." I thought you might be interested in the thought processes behind the extra, short summarized version.

This is the nature of the beast in CoP. Sometimes you can use "difficulty" to hide poor execution and positioning. But then, I am the kind of person who would rather see the moderately difficult done sublimely, than watch the "very" difficult done poorly. I put "very" in quotes because I'd argue that it is ten times as hard to really get down into a deep edge in a death spiral than it is to grab your leg or tuck your free foot behind your knee.

As my coach always said, "It's a gimmick and you don't need gimmicks."