... About Those Sitspins!!

Dear Skaters, Once upon a time, everyone who said s/he could do a sitspin, did one that looked like THIS. S/he looked like s/he was sitting, which is where the spin got its name.

Then, one day, someone invented the Preliminary Free Skating Test. Beginning skaters who had difficulty doing a proper sitspin, did one that looked like this!

Judges, because they're such nice people, pretended they didn't notice, or maybe they just made a small comment on the test sheet. They presumed that by the time the skaters got to their Junior Bronze Test they would be doing a proper sitspin that looked like this!

Alas, not only has that not happened in many cases, but these half-baked sitspins have turned into a disease!! - maybe even an epidemic!! - that has spread to skaters at embarrassingly advanced levels... sometimes even Novice and Junior skaters! Not only that, sometimes these sitspins look like THIS. It is hard to tell that the skater is even thinking about sitting!

These are NOT sitspins, and they make judges CRAZY!! - Even NICE judges!!

The moral of the story is this: do not tell yourself or anybody else that you can do a sitspin until you can do one in a proper "SIT" position, and do not be surprised if a judge comments that there was no sitspin in your program if you do one that looks like this.

Let's stamp out half-baked sitspins!!