I hate when I think of ideas and I'm sitting at a desk, unable to test them out.

Is it wrong, or at least not as good, to wait a beat after picking in for a flip, and then jumping? My flip problem has to do with not transfering weight...so I just decided that if I think "3-turn, arm placement, pick in, jump off right toepick" that maybe I can make all body parts work together as a happy little flipping family.

But then when I watch flips it always seems people are instantly in the air after picking.

I want one beat, just a morsel of a beat! Maybe long enough to bend knees a bit more.

Signed,
Obsessed

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If you consciously reach back and bend your knee you will get that beat automatically. I do a rocker-like entrance that makes it very easy to reach back. It is shown on the Lussi jump vid and most of the elite skaters use this entrance rather than a curved basic 3turn. Some of them actually take off from a BO, making the jump a "lip". IMO, the rocker-like entrance makes the jump straighter and gives more air time and a better reach for the vault.

Kay

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Are these downgraded the way flutzes are?

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Flutzes are meant to be lutzes, but take off an inside edge rather than an outside one...

Lips are meant to be flips, but take off an ouside edge rather than an inside one...

Either way, its an improperly executed jump.

Right- but are lips punished the way flutzes are? Or do judges just have a vendetta against bad lutzes? (Or are fewer skaters doing flips wrong?)

Its just that, while I've heard of lips- you just don't hear about that downgrade much. Where it seems like it's rare to see a lutz NOT downgraded lately.

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There was an excellent presentation on the IJS at the PSA conference, in which it was said that lips must be downgraded just as flutzes.

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Fewer skaters are doing flips wrong. It's also not as noticeable as a flutz for most skaters. Doing a lip actually makes a flip harder, while flutzing makes a lutz easier, which is probably why you don't hear about lips as much as flutzes.

Plus, flutz is just funner to say.

Johnny Weir lips his flips and he does get dinged for it.

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Yes, for some reason, it seems to be the men who do most of the lipping.

Back to the original question, though. . . Yes, if you bend your skating knee more deeply and reach back farther, it will automatically give you more time to transfer your weight because it takes time to pull yourself all the way back and straighten your skating knee. But you can't transfer your weight to the back foot (picking foot) if your weight is on the front of your skating foot. That's why leaning forward is such a no-no on flip and lutz takeoffs.
To keep your weight farther back as you reach back and pick, make sure you arch your back (imagine someone is pulling you backward by the back of your bra strap)and keep your weight towards the heel of your skating foot, not the ball of the foot (toe scratching is a sure sign your weight is too far forward). Then pick in and pull yourself back and up, with your back still arched.

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Instead of waiting the beat after the pick, try waiting an extra beat after the 3 turn and before the pick. I find that most of my flip problems come from either leaning too far forward or rushing the entrance. Also, have you tried a mohawk entrance? I find that my flips are much better that way, and now I only do them from a mohawk.

Thanks guys! Good tips. I probably am leaning too far forward as well. I'll test 'em out !

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Revised Official 2010 Goals checklist
Skate __
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Kimmie Meisner has a bad "lip" as well. Arakawa and I believe Ando also have this problem. I always thought Arakawa's was one of the worst lips. I think Brian Joubert has a lip too!

It is out there...I think it is a little harder to notice because so many skaters do the flip off the three turn so the timing right before the take off is quicker than the lutz. It seems to me that they just let the skating foot flop to the outside just as they are leaving the ice.

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If you skate faster, it makes everything look better!

I'm a big fan of having a solid jump "rhythm" on the flip. When I was learning it, my coach taught me "down-up-down-up-down." Bend your need on your forward edge(down), come up for the three-turn(up), bend again as you pick(down), vault and rotate(up), and bend your knee again on the landing (down.) Each part of the jump takes the same amount of time to execute.

I've used the same method for my axel and it helps in SO many ways; I bend my knees more, I don't rush the entry to the jumps, and I anticipate the landing, which helps me know when to check and usually makes for better runout edges.

Everybody's different ... this is just works for me.

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Flips should be one fluid motion from beginning to end. I think pausing after picking would kill your momentum and look funny.

Right. You don't pause, but there is a bit of time between sticking the pick in and leaving the ice. During that time you are pulling yourself back with the pick so that the skating foot comes back to catch up with the picking foot by the time you leave the ice.

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I think a slight (read: not long) after the 3-turn or mohawk is okay...I will often take some time to make sure that I have fully reached back to pick and that I am standing up (I will sometimes break at the waist a little)...but taking an extra beat after the pick would be difficult because of how quickly you should be jumping up...it would mess up your rhythm...

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"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

Guilty as charged! My coach likes to remind me that flips aren't called toe salchows anymore for good reason. I feel that I've only ever done a couple real good flips in my time, and hundreds of lips.

The ones I did manage to pull off felt wonderful, but it's a very hard thing to make yourself throw yourself into, or at least it is for me. I've never been able to get myself to do a second good one in the same session.

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