- Joined
- Feb 17, 2010
I always get in trouble when I say things like this, but the problem with the Lutz is that it is not a ladies' jump.
Almost every woman doing lutzes in the early-to-mid 90's took off from the correct edge. Yamaguchi, Ito, Kerrigan, Harding, Baiul, Bonaly, Sato, etc. took off from the proper edge, so I think there's more to it than it isn't a woman's jump. I think there's been a rush to do a lutz at any cost early on with the ladies because most of the women doing the jump have been doing it since age 13, and I don't think that was the case with the women from the 1990s. Now that a bad lutz isn't being rewarded, and good skating is, maybe these young girls can chill out and focus on developing good technique that will allow them to attain proper jumps as a mid-teen, rather than working on the lutz at age 11.