Spin specialist Charyl Brusch gives an excellent presentation on the death drop. When introducing the death drop, Charyl starts with a drill she calls the “kick turn.” Notice the drawing on the ice to encourage the skater to ride a deepening edge rather than jump early. Charyl describes the drill in detail including where to start with the arms and what arm movement is required for the take-off. The arms end in what Charyl refers to as her “little Superman position.” She wants the skater to turn on the bottom toe pick at the end of the entry edge. She emphasizes this with one of the demonstrators. She says, “Make sure you hit your toe, or you aren’t going to like yourself very much.”
Charyl notes that most people who try to do a death drop actually do a flying camel into back sit. The take-off of a death drop is dramatically different than that of a flying camel. Charyls says, “The biggest thing on this is you don’t want to lean forward. You want to keep your back up.”
Next in the development, Charyl has the skater jump slightly at the end of the entry edge. She says, “I just have them kind of start the kick, hop over to the other foot, and not worry about sitting. I’m just going for that timing with the legs getting a little bit more of a whip.” In the first take-offs Charyl wants to keep it simple and safe.
Common death drop errors include leaning forward on take-off, not waiting long enough on the entrance edge, and prematurely stopping the arms so that they don’t swing all the way up at take-off. Charyl demonstrates exactly what she wants the arms to do in the death drop. This detail is sometimes the only missing “trick” needed by some skaters to master this spin entrance. Charyl wants the knees of both legs to be straight in the air.
Lots of information in this video and some nice demonstrations.
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