Skating Edge Power Tip: The Blurb Drill (Nick Perna)

Nick Perna gets back to first principles and provides more detail about what he calls the “blurb.” Nick uses the term “blurb” in many of his videos here at iCoachSkating.com. (He also calls it the “dip.”) In this video, Nick explains: “Essentially what we’re doing is we’re going to be bringing ourselves from a state of balance to a state of unbalance to create the cut or the push.” This is the secret to generating power in skating. We have to be willing to unbalance ourselves to generate power.

Nick continues by explaining and demonstrating that we can unbalance ourselves in various ways such as from a standstill, from changing the edge, or from transitioning from a shallow edge to a deeper edge. He summarizes, “The definition of the blurb isn’t that its actually changing edge or not changing edge. It’s…using our leg and our foot to unbalance ourself and then create the push.”

Next Nick notes, “I like to say there’s no such thing as a candy cane shape in skating. Everything’s a question mark shape.” He goes on to explain and demonstrate what he means. He goes on to tie these concepts to jump entries as well.

This is a GREAT video, mainly because it addresses a critical principle that most skaters and coaches don’t really think much about.