Puck Drills for Figure Skating

[Isk8NYC]

There was a comment in this week's practice thread about a backward power pull drill that used a hockey puck. (It's hard!) The skater has to perform backward power pulls while keeping the free foot toe on the puck at all times.

I use hockey pucks for a lot of drills while teaching, especially forward crossovers on the wall. That underpushing foot just slips right into place and the muscle memory starts developing. ("Oh, you mean I have to CROSS my legs?")

Pucks are really great for teaching beginning toe jumps or correcting crooked toe-ins and hammering. Not that I have them actually JUMP with the puck, I just use it to "grab and draw" the puck with the proper knee bend and check position.

Does anyone else use hockey pucks for drills while coaching figure skaters?

[slusher]

I hate puck drills. Hate hate hate hate. I know they're good for you supposedly and one of our coaches uses them all the freaking time but I have found that just the slightest touch required to keep toepick on puck is pulling the body off keeping centre. I would much rather do pulls with my leg held nicely an a position which is higher than two inches off the ground. It's probably a better drill for the elites who have control of their core, not so much for intermediate type skaters.
You had to ask ;)

[Tennisany1]

My dd does the same back power pull with a puck in one of her classes. She said it was hard at first but now she has the hang of it she can see it really helping her leg strength.

[RachelSk8er]

I think on the regular power pulls it's good because it does get the skater to focus on using the knee, ankle and blade and not using the free leg to yank herself through them.

Aside from just plain backward power pulls, my coach makes me do the diagonal power pull-quick rocker choctaw pattern off of Junior with these. I imagine the similar pattern on senior will come with the same torture. It just scares the crap out of me on anything more than power pulls because normally you don't focus on keeping weight/pressure through the free foot (like you have to in order to keep the puck in place) so it often goes flying from under me and I'm afriad of tripping over it. I only get it out on early morning sessions that are basically empty.

I haven't seen them used for anything other than power pulls and the jr/sr patterns. My coach is really the only one at our rink who regularly gets them out and we all HATE it.