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Crazy is one of the first slalom tricks that shows up poor weight transfer — most skaters learn a working version without realising their technique is off, because there's no standard way to break it down.
Slalom Laboratory's take: tricks consist of the same repeating phases as walking (push → glide → recovery). Breaking them down makes errors visible.
Key Concepts
- Linkage — smoothness between movements; the #1 thing that makes slalom look fluid
- Weight shift — what drives linkage; can't be fixed with arm swinging or upper body adjustment
- The walking cycle is the direct foundation for slalom movement
Walking Cycle → Slalom Movement
| Stage | Action | Phase |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Full weight on one foot | End of weight shift |
| 2 | Bend knee, lift trailing leg | Start of centroid shift |
| 3 | Reach lifted foot forward | End of centroid shift |
| 4 | Land via forward lean | Start of weight shift |
| 5 | Shift weight onto landed foot | End of weight shift |
| 6–9 | Repeat, other side | — |
Even though walking feels natural, there are good and bad ways to do it — same as skating. Bad weight shift can go unnoticed because the path still looks right from the outside.
Weight shift is the highest-priority thing to get right. Everything else (arms, posture, head) is secondary.
See driving_leg for how the driving leg works in this cycle.
References
- Slalom Laboratory (YouTube)