what is that coach's name?

[sue123]

At my lesson today, my coach was telling me about a figure skating coach who can barely skate himself, but he was an amazing coach in that he was able to apply physics to getting faster spins, and balance, etc. She was telling me he came to the rink once, and taught them all these spin techniques tthat she uses to teach. Apparently, he figured out the technique from spinning a coin or something? Does anyone know who I'm talking about? My coach told me his name, but I forgot it.

What else did she tell me about him? Not much else. I think *think* his name may have started with a G, but I'm not sure.

[icedancer2]

I'm wondering if that was Gus Luzzi?

[sue123]

I think it might be, it sounds very familiar. Thanks. Do you happen to know who he's coached?

[icedancer2]

Well, John Curry, for one.

But I think, and I could be wrong and will be stand corrected -- I think he was generally the type of coach that people would study with for short periods of time, and get a lot from in that period. I believe that I read in a story about John Curry was that John was not such a great skater with not such great jump technique until he took some lessons with Gus. One of his techniques was to have his students learn to jump in a very small space, the size of a "patch" -- without the big wind-up and lead-ins that are very common in the skaters we see now.

I also seem to remember that Paul Wylie spent some time with Gus and that he also benefitted from the technique.

I'm sure there are others on this board that know more than I do about this. Maybe I'll "google" Gus Luzzi.

[icedancer2]

It's spelled "Lussi" --

In my quick google-search I find that he coached Dick Button, Dorothy Hamill and John Curry, among others.

Apparently he was a skier--

And great skating coach.

[flippet]

There are some videos of Lussi's technique. Rainbo has them here: http://www.rainbosports.com/shop/site/department.cfm?id=20F1BC7D-475A-BAC0-52874DA3E6743738