Edge Class – Part 7 Power Pulls With Hockey Puck (Chris Conte)

Choreographer Chris Conte continues with his class on edges and power generation. As noted in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6 this class was in Korea on one of Chris’s visits and you’ll notice Eun Hee Lee translating for her Korean skaters. Please excuse the audio on this video as it was taken during the class with no wireless microphones so it can be difficult to hear. Nevertheless, the ideas demonstrated in the video are important and worth observing even without quality audio.

In this video, Chris shares a wonderful drill that is actually pretty challenging. But once a skater has mastered this, they pretty much have back power pulls mastered. By placing the free skate on a hockey puck and keeping it there while skating, a skater learns power generation and proper alignment. It also helps with some turns and develops better knee rhythm for all skating movements. Chris notes that it improves the free leg “draw” movement and position on power pulls and it helps develop the proper extension for certain turns like counters. Note that it also applies to forward pulls and forward one-foot skating. It’s very hard and taxing on the skating leg.

Chris shows how to learn this initially at a standstill by the wall. Only the bottom toe pick tooth should touch the puck. This allows the free foot to turn easily on the puck. Chris describes in detail the movement of the actually power pull with the puck. Notice the movement and placement of the hockey puck depending on the skating edge (inside or outside). Chris explains and demonstrates a number of ways to get going if a skater is uncomfortable starting from a standstill. Notice the very strong shoulder twist Chris uses to help generate power.

At the end, Chris relates this to jumping and notes the hockey puck drills are fantastic for flip and lutz take-off development. The demonstration of the lutz reach is priceless.