Lutz help

[newskaker5]

This is my last jump to learn before the axel and it just feels so weird :( I so want to get it.

I can do the half lutz fine - I just dont feel like I get a good "pop" on the jump like I do on the flip to rotate it beyond 1/2 or 3/4 I think I am checking strong and riding the edge before I pic, but for some reason the "jump" just seems so sluggish - any tricks to get more height and rotation? Thanks!:D

[mikawendy]

Here are some useful links. The first one below has some really useful advice from doubletoe that really helped me when I was learning this jump--her suggestions about pulling back to the picking toe were helpful, as that was the one last thing that I had been doing wrong.

http://www.skatingforums.com/showthread.php?t=20804
http://www.skatingforums.com/showthread.php?t=20956
http://www.skatingforums.com/showthread.php?t=22156
http://www.skatingforums.com/showthread.php?t=14654
http://www.skatingforums.com/showthread.php?t=960

[Sonic]

That thread was SOOOOO helpful. I've been stuck on flip for what seems like forever because I cannot get the darn picking technique right. I'm determined to have another go now when I get to the rink this evening....

S xxx

[Team Arthritis]

coach wants me to do my flip (no where close to Lutz yet) from a MO, 1/2 Flip, MO, Flip. Funny thing is that I have LOTS of trouble on the half flip that throws off my Flip! My 1/2 Flip landing toe on the L foot skids back as I push off into the 2nd MO and thows me all over the place. Flip is coming along other than I keep jumping straight up into the air and flap my arms wildly aka Chicken Flip. http://www.cosgan.de/images/midi/tiere/g070.gif
Lyle

[Petlover]

Team Arthritis, that is sooooo cute! My coach finally just broke me of the habit of picking wide on the half flip, so I have a decent chance at getting my flip soon.

[Mel On Ice]

I had the most awful pick-then-jump cheated lutz. I now have the most awful pickandjump lutz.

Progress!

[lovepairs]

Hi Teamskater5,

Here are some tips for the lutz:

1. Don't drop your left shoulder breaking side ways at your waist when you jump. This is a counter intuitive thing, because it feels as though you should drop your left should, but don't--fight against that.

2. Going into the jump do NOT drop your upper body down, breaking forward at the waist. Not looking down at the ice will help you not to break forward at your waist dropping your upper body down towards the ice. Look straight ahead through the hockey glass at something.

3. Checked arms with left arm in front. People look backwards for a moment..this helps with the check. Keep your arms supple, don't lock them up (not too rigid.)

4. At the moment of jumping, have your left shoulder lead slightly, first, before the rest of your body. Remember, don't fold to the side, dropping your left shoulder. I raise my left shoulder up a little and that seems to make both shoulders horizontal for me.

5. Finally, you have to WANT to JUMP. This part is hard to explain, but all I can say is that you have to want to jump.

Hope this helps! :P

[newskaker5]

Thank you all so much - I will be tryng out all the suggestions tomorrow - wish me luck8O :lol:

[mikawendy]

One more thing that helps me is to think of this jump as being springy as opposed to being stiff. When I was first learning this jump, I was trying to muscle my way around, and I wasn't pulling back and up into the jump. When I started pulling back to my picking foot, the jump felt much softer and springier on the takeoff and the landing.

[WannabeS8r]

I feel your pain; my lutz isn't very consistent, as well. You at least get to 3turn into a flip, but this jump . . . ugh. :roll:
newskaker5, can you land a full flip? It has a similar feeling as the lutz, actually.

[gt20001]

coach wants me to do my flip (no where close to Lutz yet) from a MO, 1/2 Flip, MO, Flip. Funny thing is that I have LOTS of trouble on the half flip that throws off my Flip! My 1/2 Flip landing toe on the L foot skids back as I push off into the 2nd MO and thows me all over the place. Flip is coming along other than I keep jumping straight up into the air and flap my arms wildly aka Chicken Flip. http://www.cosgan.de/images/midi/tiere/g070.gif
Lyle

My coach had me doing the flip by doing a mohowk quarter flip (a half flip except you land on the right toe forward) and then 3 turn then flip. After i started doing the quarter flip or whatever it is before jumping i noticed that this actually helped me to get the flip a little easier.

[b viswanathan]

I totally agree with mikawendy's point. I've learned to pull my jumping foot (left) toward my picking foot (right) *before* springing off the ice (as opposed to plunking the toe down and trying to jump straight up) (CCW). The pull occurs on the ice.

That pulling on the ice gives you a nice spring, and if you keep checked it launches the jump perfectly. When you get it on the flip, try to apply it to the lutz; if you have it already, try to reproduce the pulling motion. You can also work on it by pulling in and jumping straight up without turning; then when you're good at that, start to master the revolution (1/2, then full).

Also, lovepairs is so right: you've got to get past the weirdness of the counter-rotation, and you have to *want* to jump. I think it comes from a sense of *trust*: you have to trust you will take off. I found I didn't quite believe it was possible for a while. Then finally I got around one time, and said "ok, this actually works". That was a real breakthrough.

The lutz has been the hardest jump for me to learn, hands down. It took me a good 6 months to get comfortable at it. And it's the first one I lose when I take time off. So be patient - as we say in Beantown (Boston), it's a killah!

bv

[newskaker5]

Wannabe- yes - the flip is actually my strongest jump - I get lots of height and the rotation seems to come easy. I think what you have all said is true - when I go to the BO edge- I think I lean forward which gives me no spring:frus:

[SkatingOnClouds]

Wish I could help, but I'm just popping into this thread to say I landed my first lutz in over 20 years last night!

It was so funny because it was totally an accident. I was working on 1/2 lutzes and struggling with them. I was despairing how I could ever get my full lutz back when I was under-rotating 1/2 lutzes. I remembered my coach saying that as you pick you have to pre-rotate the right hip (the picking side), which always sounded a weird idea to me as I was taught jump up first, then rotate on all jumps.

So I went into it (left FI mohawk, cross left leg over right, reach back and pick) only focussing on pre-rotating the right hip. Next thing I know, I've landed a full lutz. Took me a few moments to work out what I had done, as I hadn't thought about doing anything other than a 1/2 lutz.

So there you go, that's something that worked for me. Why it worked or whether I will be able to do it again when I try to and get tense about it, time will tell. But I just had to share my good news.

[lovepairs]

Congrats, SkatingonClouds...that's a huge break through and treat to do this jump after 20 years!

B_v...,

Yes, the Lutz jump turned out to be the "bain of my existence!" The reason being is that this jump really comes and goes. This jump actually went on vacation to Florida for 6 months!!! The nerve of this jump! But, I can tell you that the longer I work on it, the less time it takes for vactaion, but it still likes to go away to far distant places from time-to-time. :roll:

[b viswanathan]

Hey lovepairs, it's the bane of my existence, too. I've taken to cursing Mr. (or was it Ms.) Lutz: "curses, you jump-inventor, you!" Mr. Axel Paulsen, no doubt, will be next on the list...

And congrats, SkatingonClouds! Did you get that look - you know, the "did I just do that??" look on your face? After I landed my first one, my coach said, "good, now do it again - and try to look like you meant it!"

So, Newskaker5, how's it going?

bv


Congrats, SkatingonClouds...that's a huge break through and treat to do this jump after 20 years!

B_v...,

Yes, the Lutz jump turned out to be the "bain of my existence!" The reason being is that this jump really comes and goes. This jump actually went on vacation to Florida for 6 months!!! The nerve of this jump! But, I can tell you that the longer I work on it, the less time it takes for vactaion, but it still likes to go away to far distant places from time-to-time. :roll:

[doubletoe]

SkatingonClouds, that is AWESOME!!!
Thanks to MikaWendy's thread references, I was actually able to find that thread (it's the 2nd one of the several she posted above) where I was trying to explain that pre-rotation phenomenon. Here is that post:

I agree with everyone about the need to keep the left shoulder high and the shoulders counter rotated to the right until you leave the ice.

It's also important to make sure you stay on an outside edge (which is helped by rotating the shoulders to your right) and picking directly *behind* the skating foot so that you pick on the same circle as you are creating with your outside edge. However, to avoid flutzing, make that outside edge sort of a flat one, i.e., a diagonal. If you try to make it too much of an outside curve, you will over-compensate and swerve onto the inside edge when you reach back to pick.
The one thing nobody has mentioned yet is what happens with your hips between the moment you pick and the moment you leave the ice. This is where the rotation is initiated, so it's an important piece of the puzzle. You reach back and pick on the big circle you're creating with your outside edge and you pull yourself back on that circle until your feet are about to come together. As you pull yourself back, your upper body doesn't move; it's still completely backward with your shoulders checked to the right. BUT as your skating foot slides back and approaches your picking foot on the ice, your hips start to twist in the direction of rotation (i.e., to the left), counter-rotating against your torso, which is still checked to the right. This is what initiates that rotation and gets you backward over the right side in the air.

[b viswanathan]

Doubletoe,

Re hips:
Yes, twist hips as a unit to the left. But what I tend to do - BIG mistake - is to poke my right hip out while picking/reaching back. If anyone does that, the way to fix it is to concentrate on keeping your hips squarely above your skates and in line. No poking out to the side allowed - stay straight over the axis. (That's why the hips should work/rotate "as a unit", evenly.)

If you're doing it wrong, you'll look a little like one of those come-hither 50's movie starlets with a hip thrusting out. Might be sexy in high heels; totally unsexy in skates (especially when you flop)...

BV

[doubletoe]

Doubletoe,

Re hips:
Yes, twist hips as a unit to the left. But what I tend to do - BIG mistake - is to poke my right hip out while picking/reaching back.
BV

Right, it's definitely important to remember to keep both the torso and hips rotated CW/ to the right (assuming you rotate CCW in the air) until your pick is in the ice and you are actually starting to pull yourself back with it. It's only then that you start to rotate the hips CCW/to the left, while keeping hips and shoulders level.

[SkatingOnClouds]

SkatingonClouds, that is AWESOME!!!
Thanks to MikaWendy's thread references, I was actually able to find that thread (it's the 2nd one of the several she posted above) where I was trying to explain that pre-rotation phenomenon. Here is that post:

I agree with everyone about the need to keep the left shoulder high and the shoulders counter rotated to the right until you leave the ice.

It's also important to make sure you stay on an outside edge (which is helped by rotating the shoulders to your right) and picking directly *behind* the skating foot so that you pick on the same circle as you are creating with your outside edge. However, to avoid flutzing, make that outside edge sort of a flat one, i.e., a diagonal. If you try to make it too much of an outside curve, you will over-compensate and swerve onto the inside edge when you reach back to pick.
The one thing nobody has mentioned yet is what happens with your hips between the moment you pick and the moment you leave the ice. This is where the rotation is initiated, so it's an important piece of the puzzle. You reach back and pick on the big circle you're creating with your outside edge and you pull yourself back on that circle until your feet are about to come together. As you pull yourself back, your upper body doesn't move; it's still completely backward with your shoulders checked to the right. BUT as your skating foot slides back and approaches your picking foot on the ice, your hips start to twist in the direction of rotation (i.e., to the left), counter-rotating against your torso, which is still checked to the right. This is what initiates that rotation and gets you backward over the right side in the air.

Hey Doubletoe, would you like to come to live down here and coach me?
Only joking of course, I love my coach really. You usually seem able to explain things so that I can understand them - eventually, when I read closely.

I am skating tonight, so I guess I will try the lutz again then. I am sure my coach will want to see it, as she didn't see my accidental one.

[SkatingOnClouds]

Waah! How unfair is this: went skating tonight, determined to try my lutz. Within the first 10 minutes I fell over - I am sure it was one of those mushroom pumps, couldn't be that I just tripped over my toe-pick :oops:

Banged my right knee which was very painful. It loosened up a bit, but flips, lutzes and loops were off the agenda for the rest of the night. Dang !!!:frus:

[Sessy]

3. Checked arms with left arm in front. People look backwards for a moment..this helps with the check. Keep your arms supple, don't lock them up (not too rigid.)


I'm people. It also helps to get over the fear of landing atop of somebody. :twisted:

[Sessy]

Right, it's definitely important to remember to keep both the torso and hips rotated CW/ to the right (assuming you rotate CCW in the air) until your pick is in the ice and you are actually starting to pull yourself back with it. It's only then that you start to rotate the hips CCW/to the left, while keeping hips and shoulders level.

Now I know why every time I practice my flip and lutz I keep thinking about the counter-body-movement classes we had in dance class! :o