Mohawk madness!!!

[caelan]

hello fellow skaters, I'm new to the forums!! I need some advice on my forward inside Mohawks. they have improved a lot in the last few weeks considering I hated attempting them not long ago!! I now enjoy practicing them in a sequence: LFI to RBI Mohawk, push on to back edge then bac outside mohawk, slide chasse and repeat. now what I want is smooth and beautiful Mohawks!! mine are so scratchy and feel very choppy as I go bmforward to back. any ideas, or similar woeful tales?!

[GarrAarghHrumph]

Yeah, my mohawks pretty much suck. But when my coach gets me to remember to bend my free leg as I bring it in, it's better. So that's one idea. Don't bring your free leg in straight - bend it.

Also bend the knee of your standing/skating leg.

[Clarice]

I'm not sure why you would need to bend either knee? My dance coach specifically wants me to bring my free leg in straight. I can see why bending would make it easier to do them if you're bringing the free foot in turned out 180 degrees, but it's supposed to be heel to instep, which is more of a 90 degree angle, so I'm not sure why the bend would be necessary.

[Debbie S]

I believe the actual mohawk is done with legs straight but knees are bent before and after - kind of like the down-up-down motion of 3-turns. In freestyle, usually most people keep both knees bent, b/c it happens so fast and you're using the knees to push and gain speed as you make that turn. In dance, coaches are more picky.

Scratchiness is sometimes caused by edges changing or toe pick dragging. To the OP, focus on staying on the same edge (for FI mohawks, stay on the inside edge, on both feet) and keep your shoulders over your hips, which will keep your posture straight and lessen the chance of leaning on the toe pick.

[gkelly]

I'm not sure why you would need to bend either knee?

You don't necessarily need to bend the knee of the free leg before or after. But the skating knee would be bent most of the time that foot is on the ice.

For LFI-RBI mohawk, you'd start on bent left knee, rise to almost straight as the right foot crosses in front, and then bend the right foot as you put weight on it. So the whole motion is down-up-down, like a three turn but with a change of foot involved.

I've had the shift described to me as similar to easing off the clutch when pressing the accelerator, or vice versa, in driving a manual transmission car. For those of you have the experience for that analogy to be meaningful.

[dbny]

I can see why bending would make it easier to do them if you're bringing the free foot in turned out 180 degrees, but it's supposed to be heel to instep, which is more of a 90 degree angle, so I'm not sure why the bend would be necessary.

If you put your free foot down at 90', you are going to take one hard splat. Having heel to instep does not determine the angle, just the positions of the feet relative to each other. For those with open hips, who can actually achieve 180', Mohawks are a piece of cake. For those of us with very little turn out, Mohawks are a challenge, requiring very fast rotation of the hips to avoid that awful splat.

[Aussie Willy]

Keeping to the back of the blade rather than the toe pick and also making sure you step onto the edge, not a flat, can help make mohawks smoother.

[Clarice]

If you put your free foot down at 90', you are going to take one hard splat. Having heel to instep does not determine the angle, just the positions of the feet relative to each other. For those with open hips, who can actually achieve 180', Mohawks are a piece of cake. For those of us with very little turn out, Mohawks are a challenge, requiring very fast rotation of the hips to avoid that awful splat.

I don't exactly put my free foot down at 90 degrees, but I bring it in that way, heel to instep, with a straight free leg. If my forward edge is moving on a circle, my back edge will end up on that same circle, but I never have to open up to 180 degrees (and I do have open hips - spread eagles are no problem). As I transfer weight, the forward edge turns off the circle as the back edge turns onto it. My feet stay in the same relationship to each other throughout the turn. The knee of the skating leg is bent before the turn, straightens as the free leg comes in straight, and then the new skating knee bends again after the turn. (This is what gkelly and Debbie S. seem to be saying, too.) I've never thought about it as a rotation of the hips, but I guess maybe it is. My point is, it's not necessary to open to 180 degrees, and Mohawks can be done without bending the free leg as you bring it in. For dance, you wouldn't want to do it that way. You may believe you're making an adaptation for having closed hips, but I say it sounds like you're doing them they way they're supposed to be done, at least according to my dance coach.