Almost every skater has had a spin that felt brilliant in the moment and looked, on video, like a small argument between the shoulders and the feet. Spins are unforgiving. Half an inch of misplaced weight at the entry turns into a travelling mess three revolutions later, and no amount of effort mid-spin can rescue it. The encouraging part is that most trouble at the beginner and intermediate level comes from the same handful of habits, and each one has a fix you can start on in your next session. Below are five of the most common mistakes, what they actually look like, and how to correct them without rebuilding your whole spin from scratch.
1. Rushing the Entry
The entry is not a formality before the real spin begins. It is the spin. Skaters who hurry the approach — usually because they are anticipating the rotation, or because the music is coming and they are behind it — chop the curve, step onto the spinning foot too early, and arrive off-centre with their weight already drifting.
Watch for a hook at the end of the entry, a shoulder that drops before the rotation starts, or a step that lands flat and then tries to find an edge. Those are all signs the skater is thinking about the spin instead of finishing the approach.
The fix is repetition with patience built in. Choose a fixed approach — the same number of strokes, the same tempo, the same curve — and hold the entry edge for a full beat before you allow the spin to happen. Then practise entries only: set up, hold, step out. No rotation at all. Ten clean entries will teach your body more than thirty rushed spins, and they cost a fraction of the energy.
2. Collapsing Posture
Spins fall apart from the middle outward. When a skater breaks at the waist, lets the ribs drop toward the pelvis, or tucks the chin to the chest, the skating side loses its support and the blade has to be rebalanced mid-rotation. That correction is almost impossible to make at speed, which is why a collapsed spin looks like a slow collapse rather than a sudden wobble.
Think tall and quiet rather than stiff. Three checkpoints do most of the work: ribs stacked over the pelvis, shoulders stacked over hips, and hips stacked over the skating foot. Keep the skating knee long but not locked. A locked knee makes the whole body rigid, and rigidity travels straight down into the blade.
A quick posture drill
Before you attempt a one-foot spin, do a two-foot spin and think about nothing but posture. If you can hold that shape for four rotations with your weight centred, you are ready to lift the free foot. If you cannot, the one-foot version will only amplify whatever is collapsing.
A useful rule of thumb: if you cannot hold the position for a full second before the spin starts, you will not hold it for four revolutions.
3. Hunting for Balance Mid-Spin
The sweet spot for a spin sits on the flat part of the blade just behind the toe pick, near the front of the rocker. Beginners often find it, lose it, and then spend the rest of the spin rocking the foot forward and back trying to relocate it. The result is a spin that wanders and a skater who looks busy rather than balanced.
Find the spot before you rotate. Stand on one foot in the spin position, hold a wall or a partner's hand, and rock slowly forward and back until the blade goes quiet. That quiet place is the spot. Now hold it for five seconds without moving. Repeat until you can find it without looking for it.
Then shorten your spins deliberately. Do two or three revolutions and stop while you are still balanced, instead of grinding out twelve that end in a scrape. A controlled stop teaches your body what centred feels like, which is information a messy exit never gives you.
4. Arms and Free Leg Working Against the Rotation
Arms that flap outward, a free leg that drops instead of pressing across, a free hip that sags: these are the quiet leaks that drain a spin's speed. Many skaters close their arms too abruptly, which stalls the rotation, then push them out again to rescue it. The spin never settles into a rhythm.
Bring the arms in with control, not with a slap. Imagine pulling them through water rather than snapping them to your chest. For the free leg, think of it travelling around and across, not down toward the ice, with the hip staying underneath you. Slow-motion repetitions help enormously here: perform the whole spin at half speed in your head and at a quarter speed on the ice, and the correct path becomes obvious.
5. Practising Spins Only as Spins
Perhaps the most common mistake is not a body position at all. It is a practice habit: doing the full spin, badly, fifteen times in a row, and hoping the sixteenth will be better. Fatigue sets in, the bad pattern gets reinforced, and the session ends in frustration.
Break the spin into parts and drill them separately:
- Entries only, with no rotation, until the edge is repeatable.
- Spin position holds on one foot, finding the quiet part of the blade.
- Two- and three-revolution spins with a controlled stop.
- Full spins at proper speed, but only a handful — and filmed.
- Off-ice work: single-leg balance, core control, and a spinner if you have one.
That last item matters more than it sounds. Ten minutes of balance and core work at home, done consistently, often does more for a wobbly spin than an extra half hour on the ice.
A Simple Two-Week Plan
Pick one mistake from this list and give it two weeks of attention. One, not five. Split each session into short blocks: five entries, three centred spins with controlled exits, one filmed full spin, then move on to the rest of your practice. Film from two angles if you can — front and side — because almost nobody feels a dropped free hip or a leading shoulder accurately.
Show the footage to your coach and ask a specific question, such as "where does my weight go at the entry?" rather than "what do you think?" Vague feedback is hard to act on; precise feedback changes a spin in a week.
Finally, treat the exit as part of the spin. Skaters who scramble out of a spin tend to rush their entries, because part of the brain is already bracing for the messy part. An exit you trust makes the entry calmer, and the calmer entry is usually the one that centres.
If pain in a knee, ankle or hip keeps showing up during spins, or you feel dizzy or unwell, stop and speak to your coach and an appropriate health professional rather than pushing through it. Spins should feel demanding, not painful.
Photo: Rainer_Maiores / Pixabay
