Skating Fridays

Brian Orser and Doug Haw Seminar – Part 2

Day 2. Most of the skaters in my group were complaining about being sore from the previous day, but I was miraculously OK. I had a private lesson with Brian Orser earlier that morning but will get to that in another post.

The morning started off with another off-ice warmup with various exercises. Then we got on the ice for instruction from Brian and Mr. Haw, where we spent a lot of time on the lutz entry. Some key things Brian wanted us to focus on:

• He can usually tell if a lutz will be good while watching the skater set up the jump
• Move one body part at a time
• Start with the arms, then the leg
• Then move the head to look back, then move it back forward
• Reach back, rotate the arms (moving the free arm all the way to your chin), making sure to move the head LAST
• Jump
• A good lutz will take off pigeon-toed
• Keep the arms in the fully rotated position prior to takeoff. There is a big difference between ROTATED and ROTATING. Don’t be ROTATING!

Here are some videos that I took of the set up and an actual lutz, as demonstrated by Brian.

We each got to try the lutz, and then we moved on to the toe loop. We did single toe loops then attempted double toes. While I haven’t been working on mine for very long, my former coach said that mine was really close! So I’ll take it!

After jumps, we had a break and then ballet class, where my current ballet teacher came in and helped. I was already familiar with the exercises so it wasn’t too difficult or a new concept. Then we had lunch and another off-ice warmup.

Spins came next. We worked on combo spins, where Brian asked us to “snap” to the second position so we could gain speed. Then we worked on cannonball sit spins. I saw them looking my way for a brief second and when Brian called us all over, I mentioned to him, “Adults can spin too!” His response? “I know. That’s why I’m having you demonstrate next. Yours was the best in the group.” HOLY MOLY! I got to demonstrate my cannonball spin so that was very cool. Finally, we worked on broken leg sit spins and sit behind spins.

Once spins were done, we had a warm-down session and were done for the day. I stuck around to watch the higher level skaters, as they were on the ice after we finished. It was fun to watch them do their on-ice warmups (same ones as ours) and then attempt more difficult spins.

All in all, it was a great seminar and I’m glad I got to participate! I’ll write about my private lesson next week.