We Stand Corrected
Good thing super viewer Halfabee knows more than we do:
Just wathced your show on Spotting. I’m a recreational figure skater and must say that some corrections are in order.
Dancers spot but figure skaters do not. Watch a figure skating competition on TV and you definitely won’t see any skaters’ heads whipping back and forth while they spin. Here’s more of what YOU ought to know (Sorry… I’m sure you’ve never heard THAT before.)
Figure skaters spin too fast to spot. That’s just the facts of spinning around on a thin piece of metal while standing on a sheet of ice.
In addition, it’s just not possible to spot in certain spinning positions, such as a layback (http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2006/olympics/2006/writers/02/09/figure.skating/T1Cohen.jpg) , a camel spin (http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00373/camel%20spin.JPG), or, even more convincingly, a Biellmann spin (http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00373/biellman%20spin.JPG).
The physics of spinning are pretty simple. Anyone who’s ever played with an office chair knows that if you start spinning with your arms stretched out and then pull them, you start spinning faster. Figure skaters often start spinning with their arms spread out and pull them in to spin faster.
Imagine that you have a top. OK, of course you have a top…. I mean, imagine you one of those toys that spins. You know what I mean. You spin one of those suckers and it just keeps going. That’s because it’s weight is evenly distributed around a center axis of rotation. If you had a “head” on top of the top that kept spotting (turning back and forth), the top wouldn’t spin nearly as well. The same applies to figure skating spins. Figure skaters turn their heads INTO the spin. That helps to keep everything distributed more evenly over that center axis, which helps them spin longer.
Go get some ballet and some figure skating videos and watch them in slow-motion. (Ha! I’m SO gonna make you watch figure skating. =P)
So, why don’t figure skaters lose their lunch? The answer is boring. You just get used to the sensation of spinning. Also, don’t eat a full meal right before you get on the ice (who eats a full meal right before they work out?) Nobody wants to clean up frozen vomit.
15 Comments
Starb37
I think that it’s so funny that he is poking fun at the “guy behind the camera” for being a professional dancer when at one time, they were BOTH dancers.. and yes, they never wore tights. I can second the refuting of the theory along with NeuroBallroomNinja (I know who you are, but do you know ME?)
NeuroBallroomNinja
Considering that the “guy in front of the camera” is actually my older brother, I can authoritatively refute that theory. He’s not wearing tights. In face the “guy behind the camera” and myself have sworn an oath never to wear tights. . . ever. Tights on men are more than just a little creepy. If the ladies want to wear them that’s their prerogative, and some times its necessary, but they’re not for me. Let me just say, there’s a reason why I’m a ballroom dancer.
Soul Sister
Meandering, I will second that theory. I like the way you think.
Also, male ballet dancers are called ballerinos. Ballerino comes from the word balerine, which in Greek means tight-wearing-crazy-person. There you go.
Meandering
Why don’t more people wear tights? They’re comfotable, they keep certain things in their place and rather flattering to the backside. Besides I think the guy in front of the camera actually is wearing tights. Who will second that theory?
Ingrid
@NeuroBallroomNinja, I now remember what it was with the 7 or 8. Every Viennese Waltz (music) is built up in groups of 8 x 3 counts. And I thought my ballroom instructor once told us that you should turn the other way every “block”, but it can also be my bad memory making that part up on my own, as I said, it has been a while… ;)
NeuroBallroomNinja
No problem. And what is this “used to stuff” I still spin in my desk chair occasionally. ;)
Marc
Thanks neuroballroomninja for backing me up.
On a odd note, I too use to love spinning to make myself dizzy when I was young, especially on rotating chairs.
AnotherSqueezedRadish(or Turnip?)
@Laura B
When I was a kid my brother and sister and I used to do that to, but we added another bizarre element to it. If we were indoors we’d have a thick blanket spread on the floor, as soon as the one who was spinning got so dizzy they couldn’t spin any more the other two would grab him/her and lay them down on the edge of the blanket (if they couldn’t make it there on their own) and roll them up in it like a big burrito. It was the most bizarre feeling, being that dizzy, but rolled up in a pitch dark “blanket cocoon”.
What can I say, single parent family, not much money for an atari (yep, that long ago), so we had to entertain ourselves. We never thought of ballroom dancing though ;)
NeuroBallroomNinja
No one has ever told me that you should do a certain number of turns before you go into another figure, but from what I recall international standard viennese waltz only has about 6 or 7 figures in total. That’s why professionals do so many turns. Its one of the only things your allowed to do. But you have to admit when a turn is considered the basic step there isn’t much you can do about it.
Laura B
My kids love to spin to become dizzy! They think it’s funny to try to walk in a straight line afterwards.
Ingrid
wow, nice explaining, ok, I am convinced ;) …
Now I come to think of it, you are right about the vienesse waltz about turning two ways equally. Isn’t it so that you should do 7 or 8 in a row and then turn?(it’s been a couple of years since this has been explained to me.) I love dancing the Viennese Waltz….
NeuroBallroomNinja
Well, if you’re still unconvinced maybe you’ll listen to this. I’m a neurological science major and a ballroom dancer (hence the screen name). Go ahead and watch some video footage of professional ballroom dancers performing a Viennese Waltz. Chances are they execute several natural turns, a closed change, and then follow up with a few reverse turns just for good measure. Not only is this entertaining to watch it also counteracts disorientation. When you start spinning in one particular direction the fluid in your semicircular canals (its a cool little structure in your inner ear) remains stationary at first, but with time the fluids pick up inertia and they start spinning along with the rest of your body. By turning the opposite direction you provide a counter angular velocity which will slow down the fluids that were already spinning.
By the way, the dizziness some people experience while they’re still spinning usually has to do with an entirely different system the body has for regulating balance. I would go into it, but then I’d have to explain somato-sensory neurons, and what a colliculus is, and their relationship with the visual pathways, and I’d end up being here all night.
I’ve tried this technique before during a Viennese and it works. The trick is to keep the number of natural turns and reverse turns relatively even, and make sure you shake things up a bit with a close change or a burst every now and then. Keeping the number of consecutive turns down to a minimum doesn’t hurt either. ;)
P.S. The last part of my screen name come from the fact that I study jujitsu as well. Just in case you were wondering.
Ingrid
If that is true, won’t that make you even more dizzy? The fluid continues to spin because of the slowness of the medium, it can’t stop as quickly as you can. If you than turn the other way, won’t it take a while for the fluid to adapt to spinning in the other direction increasing the effect of being confused, (you go one way, your fluid goes the other?) and also, after a small amount of time won’t the fluid be adapted, so that when you stop, you still have the same effect accept, this time, in the other direction? (you stop, your fluid continues?)
Hmm, I’m sorry Marc ;) I’m not completely convinced about your technique …
Also, don’t also become dizzy while spinning and not only when they stop.
Besides, I have heard about that before (spinning in the other direction) I tried it and it didn’t work….
Marc
Another way to recover after becoming dizzy from spinning is to spin in the opposite direction. This occurs because the fluid in you vestibular system (inner ear) rotates in a direction while spinning. When you stop spinning, the fluid continues to spin due to inertia. This causes your brain to become confused… because your vestibular system is telling it that your head is still spinning… even though you are not… and you become dizzy. If you spin in the opposite direction directly after spinning, you counter-act the inertia of the original spin. Thus you reduce your dizziness!
Ingrid
It’s keeping me up allright, (looking at the clock, 2:30 in the morning) I was about to go to bed and checked in, and look at that, first comment :D (I never have the first comment, since I’m always you know, asleap around this hour.
Anyway, nice technique, I should keep that in mind. Except, one of my hobby’s is ballroomdancing, and I’m guessing this technique won’t do you any good in a Viennese Waltz.