The Lutz Divot Farm

Every freestyle session has lutz corners.  My rink has all four corners as lutz corners because we have some lefties.

The lutz jump is a jump where you reach back with one foot, toepick in and pull back your other foot, then leap off the ice/rotate/land.

The toe picking part looks like this (Scott Hamilton)

Less accomplished skaters hammer  that toepick in and pop up. I'm told it's not good technique, and coaches should correct it, but given the state of my rink's lutz corners, hammertoe lutzes may be the norm.

The other day I went to public when I passed the first lutz corner and there were over a dozen holes in the ice. Not toepicky holes, but big friggin' cause you injury holes.

Several of them were the size of my palm and a half an inch deep after grooming! I thought, "Is somebody raising these for export? It looks like a divot farm!"

When I told a gold skater at my rink about the 'divot farm', she told me about the time she tripped backwards in a divot and twisted her back.  I don't know how long she was off the ice for that.


It used to be common for skaters to go around at the end of the session to go around with a bucket filled with slush and fill the divots in. I've heard about this, but never seen it. I'm not even sure coaches remember  it used to be done. Gone away....gone away....the skaters of yesteryear...

When I see a Coach Coaching from the Boards---At Public Skate

Me.

How I feel

Stepping into the Black Boots

One of the hockey skaters (that's a guy in hockey skates who doesn't play as far as I know) told me he wanted to skate in figure skates. There were things he wanted to do on the ice he couldn't do in hockey skates.
"You have skates," I said. "I gave you  a pair when my guy friend quit. skating Do they fit?"

"Yeah, they fit, but they don't have blades on them."

Dude, spend the $80 to get some beginner blades.

 Moving on.

After some further discussion, he reveals his fear is that he will trip over the toepicks.

He says he skates on the forward part of the blade (shrug/some hockey thing/whatever) and is afraid that he won't be able to transition to new blades.

"You have knee pads?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Wrist guards?"

"Yes."

"Then what's your problem?"

As near as I can make out, apparently he thinks tripping on toepicks will be like this:

Or this:

When in reality, five year olds trip on their toepicks and get up from it.  I'm 20 years older than he is, maybe 25, and I get up from falling. And I can't remember the last time I fell from a toepick.

I've written about this before. That movie The Cutting Edge has a lot to answer for.

I suppose it was cruel of me not to tell him the real danger of figure skating isn't falling forward, but falling backwards. Hockey players are never afraid of that!