Power skating? | Golden Skate

Power skating?

lulu

Final Flight
Joined
Aug 4, 2003
I've heard this term a lot. At first I thought skating with a lot of power meant the skater skated with a lot of stregnth and emotion. Now, I know that power skating is also a technical attribute, and is one of the criteria for the COP-Power and Speed.

But my question is, how exactly can you tell if a skater has a lot of power in their skating?
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Good question Lulu - Yuka Sato is one of the speediest skaters on figure skates but you would never know it. She doesn't flaunt it.

Joe
 

mzheng

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 16, 2005
lulu said:

But my question is, how exactly can you tell if a skater has a lot of power in their skating?

One example I can think of is Irina S. She used to be refered as powerful. Good ice coverage, fast in speed, higher in jump. But not as gracefully.

I'm also wondering if one can generating speed on ice gracefully. Yuka? Fummie? or Michelle? Are they as fast as Irina when you watch them in person?
 

lulu

Final Flight
Joined
Aug 4, 2003
Thanks for your answers guys. :)

I agree, Irina S. does seem to be a very powerful skater.
 

hockeyfan228

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Re: Re: Power skating?

mzheng said:
I'm also wondering if one can generating speed on ice gracefully. Yuka? Fummie? or Michelle? Are they as fast as Irina when you watch them in person?

Comparing Slutskaya at 03 Euros to Kwan and Suguri at 03 Worlds, Kwan was not as fast as Slutskaya, but she had more speed than I expected. Suguri's first minute and a half of her LP and last 30-45 seconds of her SP (circular footwork into final spin) were comparable to Slutskaya, but she varied speed greatly throughout her programs, and her stroking was louder than I expected. You couldn't hear Kwan's blades. Volchkova and Kostner for the first 2/3 of their LP's, and their SP's at '03 Euros were comparable in speed, but you don't see the work involved. Sebestyen was nearly as fast as Slutskaya throughout both the SP and LP at Euros '03 (and Worlds '03).

Volchkova, for example, can cover the ice in about four, seemingly effortless strokes, compared to Slutskaya, who needs many more strokes, mostly "in your face." Kostner flies across the surface at full speed when she has energy, but she died at about the 2/3 mark in her Euros LP and both her quali and LP programs at Worlds '03. (She had a full Junior season last year as well as Senior Euros and Worlds; this year, she's skating in Seniors only.) Volchkova was much stronger at Worlds; she had had pneumonia in December, and didn't have much practice time before Euros. Sebestyen shows a lot of power throughout, but doesn't "pump;" she also has more subtle variations in speed that reflect the music.
 

Brandenburg

Rinkside
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Stroking

As several people have suggested here, for power skating look for power stroking first. Without that, the possibilities are very limited. The Russian approch to teaching stroking is clearly the gold standard here. Although I don't want to borrow their whole methodology, I would love it if US instructors (the people who teach children their basics) would use the Russian approach to stroking and give our young skaters a stronger start. Ilia Kulik answered a question of mine about this a year or two ago and did say that the Russian approach to teaching this basic skill was a bit different that ours. While he praised much that we did here, he did say that their approach to stroking (longer, stronger) was better for the developing skater.
 

icenut84

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
A powerful skater isn't just someone fast, although that's definitely an element. They would also have strong movements and edges, big jumps and flying spins, and probably fast spins too, I reckon. Irina is a good example of a powerful skater, while someone like Sasha Cohen or Kristi Yamaguchi is a lighter skater (not lighter as in weight, but not as powerful in the same way).
 

mzheng

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 16, 2005
Re: Re: Re: Power skating?

hockeyfan228 said:

Suguri's first minute and a half of her LP and last 30-45 seconds of her SP (circular footwork into final spin) were comparable to Slutskaya, but she varied speed greatly throughout her programs, and her stroking was louder than I expected. You couldn't hear Kwan's blades. Volchkova and Kostner for the first 2/3 of their LP's, and their SP's at '03 Euros were comparable in speed, but you don't see the work involved. Sebestyen was nearly as fast as Slutskaya throughout both the SP and LP at Euros '03 (and Worlds '03).

Volchkova, for example, can cover the ice in about four, seemingly effortless strokes, compared to Slutskaya, who needs many more strokes, mostly "in your face." Kostner flies across the surface at full speed when she has energy, but she died at about the 2/3 mark in her Euros LP and both her quali and LP programs at Worlds '03. (She had a full Junior season last year as well as Senior Euros and Worlds; this year, she's skating in Seniors only.) Volchkova was much stronger at Worlds; she had had pneumonia in December, and didn't have much practice time before Euros. Sebestyen shows a lot of power throughout, but doesn't "pump;" she also has more subtle variations in speed that reflect the music.

Thanks for the answer. I never attend the actual competetion only couple of COI. And in this year's COI, I've seen Michelle, Fummie, Irina, Elena in COI in person. But the backgroud and musical was too loud. Can't really hear any blades sound. How about the blades sound of Irina? Dose the 'quiete' counted as the 'cleaness of the edge', one of the basic skating element in OVERALL cat of new CoP?
 
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hockeyfan228

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Re: Re: Re: Re: Power skating?

mzheng said:
How about the blades sound of Irina? Dose the 'quiete' counted as the 'cleaness of the edge', one of the basic skating element in OVERALL cat of new CoP?

There are only a few references to blade noise in the CoP documentation, but the telling one is "quiet skating except for appropriate deep edge noise" in #7. I heard Slutskaya's blades pretty consistently at Euros, especially during cross-overs. (Suguri's got louder as the program went on. By contrast Volchkova's were very quiet.) Whether the judges call that "appropriate deep edge noise" is to be seen.
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2003
"Power" is technically the ability to accelerate, ie, force x time. A skater with high power can accelerate quickly; a skater with low power takes a longer time to accelerate or does not accelerate to as high a speed.

IMO, some of the top Russian skaters have been among the best "power" skaters I've seen, though of course not all of them. My list of top power skaters:
Ilia Kulik
G&G
Bechke & Petrov
Irina
Berezhnaya & Sikharluridze
Mishkutenok & Dmitriev
Sasha Abt
Plushenko
Oksana Baiul (in her day)
(The time I saw Yagudin live was during his "problem" period with COI. He skated his program at half-energy, so I can't make an assessment, other than I was disappointed.)

Other skaters that come to mind (not limited to):
--Shen & Zhao became great power skaters during their last two or three years as eligibles. --Fumie Suguri starts out with great power in her LP but tends to fade in the last third. I think this is just a problem with training, though.
--Brian Boitano. Amazing power skater. Like Kulik, so strong and so technically over the "sweet spot" of the blade that the acceleration looks effortless.

Power ice dancers include, but are not limited to, IMO:
Grishuk & Platov
Anissina & Peizerat
Gorsha Sur (can't say Renee Roca, but she does have beautiful line, and skating with Gorsha certainly improved her power)

Anyway, those are just some examples. In order to get power you need several things. One is great strength in the hip extensors (gluteals, hamstrings) and knee extensors (quadicreps) to get a lot of force into the PUSH in back stroking. Another thing is the ability to get the center of gravity of the body over the relative center of the blade, what I call the "sweet spot" of the blade. You can be on an 80-degree angle on your blade and still have your center of gravity over its center if you've had the right technical training, especially if you've had it from a young age and you're also genetically endowed so that figure skating "applies" easily to your body. "Sweet spot" skaters are the ones who make little or no noise even when they skate at high speeds. G&G were masters of the sweet spot. I was lucky enough to see them live in '94 with COI and it was SO clear why they won over Mishkutenok & Dmitriev, whom I love as well. G&G had absolutely breathtaking speed, so much so that it clearly separated them from all but a couple of the other skaters. Plus their blades made absolutely no noise. It was almost eery. M&D were gorgeous, but you could see the effort.

Anyway, other things you need for great power is great endurance. It's not enough just to be able to lift five times your body weight with your quadriceps. You need to be able to generate that kind of strength over and over again. This is what I think really separates the gold from the silver. The biochemical system that provides the energy for strength, and for the most part for figure skating in general, is the anaerobic system or the lactic acid system as some know it. This system is not designed to put out a maximal effort for a very long time. Three minutes is about all it's meant for. Of course it overlaps with the ATP-PC and aerobic systems for producing energy, but the ATP-PC system lasts seconds and the aerobic system cannot sustain a maximal effort. So those skaters who can train their bodies to ENDURE that last minute or 90 seconds of a LP are the ones who are going to have an edge, if they have everything else, over other skaters in terms of power and maintaining the necessary energy output.

To use an example from track and field, the 400 meter race is known as one of the most grueling races in track because the runners have to sprint to their absolute physiologic limits. Runners who do the 400 meters talk about their legs going "dead" during the last 20 to 30 meters of the race. This is not because lactic acid is "burning" up the muscles. It doesn't work that way. Rather, it's because there isn't enough lactic acid left to run the anaerobic cycle. Anaerobic means without oxygen, btw, and anaerobic cycle refers the biochemical way in which energy is produced for short term, high intensity activities.

So for me, "power skating" refers to those skaters who with their stroking, especially their back stroking (a) can accelerate quickly; (b) can accelerate to a high speed; and (c) maintain that ability to accelerate throughout the length of the program. If they can do it on the "sweet spot" of the blade they not only will make little noise with their blades, but it will also be easier for them to accelerate. The best skaters for me have an underlying "power" ability, quiet blades, and all the artistic stuff on top. "Power" is kind of like a great chassis and engine on a car. If you have a great chassis and engine you can put a lot of not-so-good designs on top of it and it will still be a good car. But if you put an aesthetically beautiful and aerodynamic design on top of it, you've got yourself a Jaguar or a Porsche.

A lot of skaters are top of the line Chevys or Hondas (no reference to Takeshi), but you KNOW when you see a Porsche start skating on the ice.
Rgirl
 

Ladskater

~ Figure Skating Is My Passion ~
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Elvis Stojko comes to mind. If you watch him stroke you will see how quickly he covers the ice using very few strokes - that's what "power" skating means. Actually power skating is taught here in Canada to hockey players to improve their skating abilities. Some figure skating coaches like Karen Magnussen teach it.

Of course, figure skaters and hockey players skate differently.
 

curious

Final Flight
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Power skaters-Plush,Yags,Artur D and Mishkutenov,Elvis and Brian Boitano. women definitely Irina.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Re: Stroking

Brandenburg said:
As several people have suggested here, for power skating look for power stroking first. Without that, the possibilities are very limited. The Russian approch to teaching stroking is clearly the gold standard here. Although I don't want to borrow their whole methodology, I would love it if US instructors (the people who teach children their basics) would use the Russian approach to stroking and give our young skaters a stronger start. Ilia Kulik answered a question of mine about this a year or two ago and did say that the Russian approach to teaching this basic skill was a bit different that ours. While he praised much that we did here, he did say that their approach to stroking (longer, stronger) was better for the developing skater.
____________________________________________________

I'm a stickler for not going with a particular country as being the 'best'. If the Russian method of teaching stroking is the best than what happens to Nelidina? Sokolova?, and where are the others? Russia's best female skater, imo, is Irina although Vika does have excellent stroking.

Other international skaters with excellent stroking are Carolina, Yokina, Arakawa, Fumie, MK, Jenny, Sasha, Bebe, none of which use the Russian method if such a method exists.

IMO, beautiful skating has no nationality. Check out Sasha Abt, Stephane Lambiel, Matt Savoie, Jeffrey Buttle, and so many more.

Joe
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
POWER SKATING. I forgot. I'm not sure if we have come up with a definition. I do see it in SPEED skating. In FIGURE skating, my most vivid memory is watching Ms Witt huffing and puffing to skate faster and with accentuated cross overs to prove her power.

Sorry, it's not my cup of tea. For the Ladies, I prefer excellent stroking with speed in context with the music - A Giselle type of lady. for the men, similarly - A dashing Warrior or Prince type of guy.

I leave Power for those Short and Long Track guys and gals.

Joe
 

mzheng

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 16, 2005
Re: Re: Stroking

Joesitz said:
____________________________________________________

Other international skaters with excellent stroking are Carolina, Yokina, Arakawa, Fumie, MK, Jenny, Sasha, Bebe, none of which use the Russian method if such a method exists.

Joe

Agree about the nationality comments. But I would remove Jenny, Sasha, (not sure of Uokina and Bebe since I did not watch her so much and compare her with other elite on stroking) add Sarah in this group.
 

Jaana

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Country
Finland
Ilia Kulik gains his power and speed out of nowhere and keeps it on really effortlessly as he flies over the ice. That is evident even on TV, but of course it is even better live. The effortless looking speed and jumping were the things I noticed at once in his skating as I saw it for the first time in 1995.

Marjaana
 
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Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Ilia is a fine skater with excellent stroking and power, although I am not exactly sure what power is.

But Jaana, I was just listing 'eligible' skaters - not pros.

Joe
 
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