Alternating three turns

Also called Continuous three turns, Consecutive three turns

Forward outside three turns down the long axis, changing foot between lobes, until the check holds without thinking.

Down the long axis

Not checked yet. The drill details on this page are a first draft by a non-expert, and no coach has seen them yet. Read them as a starting point and check them with a coach. Corrections are very welcome.

The run LFO three LBI · step forward · RFO three RBI · step forward · repeat

The pattern on the ice, one line for the blade on the ice, coloured by edge.

shoulder to hip —on the —

LFO three LBI · step forward · RFO three RBI · step forward · LFO three LBI. Negative twist means the shoulders are held back against the hips, which stores rotation before a takeoff and checks it on a landing.

Each lobe holds one three turn, and the turn sits at its top, half way round. You come out of it on the back edge, hold that edge until the lobe is finished, then step forward onto the other foot and start a lobe that curves the other way.

The drill is about what happens after the turn rather than the turn itself. The rotation that carried you through the cusp keeps going unless you stop it, and the drill asks you to stop it every time, on alternate feet, without the back edge flattening. Coaches watch where the turn lands on the lobe: early or late means the rotation started at the wrong moment.

Taken slowly it is a test of control; taken with speed it becomes the entry many skaters use for spins and for jumps from the back inside edge.

Some tests alternate forward outside and forward inside three turns in one pattern; others set them as separate exercises. The inside version is the same run from forward inside edges.

This drill trains

Left forward outside three turnLFO to LBI: half a turn into the circle, changing edge and staying on the same lobe.
Right forward outside three turnRFO to RBI: half a turn into the circle, changing edge and staying on the same lobe.

Built from

Left forward outside edgeLFO: the left foot travelling forwards on an outside edge, tracing an anticlockwise lobe.
Right forward outside edgeRFO: the right foot travelling forwards on an outside edge, tracing a clockwise lobe.
Left backward inside edgeLBI: the left foot travelling backwards on an inside edge, tracing an anticlockwise lobe.
Right backward inside edgeRBI: the right foot travelling backwards on an inside edge, tracing a clockwise lobe.

Found in 6 independent sources: coaches' public teaching and published skating-skills tests, taken as base guidance and written for the guide.