Audrey Weisiger discusses some extremely beneficial exercises for lutz.  One of the biggest challenges in coaching is to get our young skaters to stay on an outside edge on the lutz take-off.  Audrey has tons of great ideas that she’s developed over the years to address this issue.  This video is packed with great information.

Editor’s Note:  I see a large percentage of coaches push their skaters to get through single lutz far too quickly.  In their rush, they don’t focus on the outside edge and this invariably causes flutz problems down the road.  I know there’s a strong urge to just get a jump to happen at first and then work on fixing it.  But it seems that most top coaches address the outside edge from the very beginning and demand that their skaters master it.  It takes patience and self-discipline as a coach to make sure our skaters are doing it right, even while they learn it for the first time. -Trevor

In this video, Audrey shows a drill that can be thought of as an “inside-out rocking horse.”  It’s a simple drill to understand but it’s not simple for most young skaters to do.  It’s a very powerful drill as it introduces movements that most skaters have not experienced prior to working on lutz.  In particular, the “pigeon toe” internal rotation of the hips and feet is often a completely foreign feeling to young skaters.

Audrey shows variations on the drill including moving the feet in opposition and having one foot (toe pick foot) still.  Then she goes on to talk about another helpful drill, the back pivot.  As she says, most young skaters have a very difficult time with this particular pivot since the direction is counter to their normal rotation.  She then adds another drill, a two foot gliding drill which she builds upon by having the skater “pull” the outside edge but end on both toe picks to feel the internal rotation of the feet and hips.

Audrey also discusses the hip position on the reach back.  She does not encourage an open hip during the reach and she explains why.

Later in the video, Audrey discusses arms.  Notice that she encourages her skaters to have close arm movements that are more linear.  In particular, she’s trying to avoid large movements where the arms go around and she explains why that movement can result in a flutz.

Editor’s Note #2:  In the last minute or so of the video, Audrey talks about “guard arm” which she’s already talked about in other videos on this website.  This part of the presentation came from my observation during filming that I use the “guard arm” to prevent my skaters from swinging their arm all the way around.  I learned this from Page Lipe and it’s been another effective tool to reduce flutzing.  But Audrey mainly uses “guard arm” to improve air position as she explains.  So if you felt like the last minute of the video didn’t really go with the rest of it, that’s why.  It was just part of the discussion we were having during filming and I thought you’d find it interesting. -Trevor

Audrey is an Olympic coach and we are very lucky to have her contributions to iCoachSkating.com.  Please leave a comment for Audrey or other members below.

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