Falling Leaf - when is it a split??

I have been trying to put in certain "interesting" moves in my students' programs...
Of course, one of them is a falling leaf, which is actually not too hard to do as a little hop over.

In the ISI system, the "split falling leaf" is a required element in Freestyle 6 test. Which means it cannot be performed in freestyle events at lower levels. But well, the regular "falling leaf" without the split should be ok, right??

WRONG!!

Rather, it totally depends on the judges. A student of mine went in for competition with a little falling leaf - at least I told her to make it little. I was away for my own competitions during that time, and I was later told that this girl was marked down (waay down) for doing a "split falling leaf".

Curious, I asked her to do a falling leaf the next lesson. Nowhere was it close to a split!

Russian Open Announcement

Recently, I received the announcement for the first adult competition in Russia was released. It is also available on the Russian Open website.

The competition will be held in Nizhny Novgorod, which is about 200mi from Moscow. I did a quick search and found a website, Visit Nizhny, which has interesting and useful information about the place, and even getting there and around. More importantly, it is in a language I can understand!! :-)

How exciting! I would love to go - if I can plan my vacation leave and expenses... oh, and that new program!

Pictures from Oberstdorf

I finally got around to putting up some pictures, and also a clip of my program from the ISU International Adult Figure Skating Competition held at Oberstdorf on 1-3 June.
I have also written something about my experiences there.

Link to page