If judges were strict with prerotation?
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Jason Brown is not great re: takeoffs (flutz instead of lutz) but he has a nice running edge on the landing and of course great extension.
Hamilton rotated fast, and had a nice, classic lutz takeoff. Lots of pop. Back in those days the emphasis was height first, rotation later. So you tended to get higher jumps (a little more frenetic and less consistent perhaps).
Boitano had a great lutz, and as a power-based skater, he wasn't pre-rotating much.
Browning was an edge jumper although he had a great toe loop. His lutz was pretty much non-existent except one season (1992 I think?) He did a 'flip' which was probably the worst and clearest 'lip' (outside edge) I've ever seen. Plus his technique was absolutely horrific, on his 'flip'. It always looked rushed, he had a very short reach back on his pick, his picking (right) foot almost went in sideways (hard to explain), DEEP back outside (luzt) edge... But his edge jumps went straight up and rotated after. His toeloop had a very open hip on the takeoff and always looked a little pre-rotated, but I think it was just that he flew into it and it was all part of the speed and natural attack. Hard to explain. But his axel was absolutely enormous.
Stojko. Meh. Correct technique on all jumps, though his landings were universally poor in terms of posture. Axel technique was great, lutz was true (very telegraphed), flip was good, edge jumps hit and miss but true.
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Hey thanks for this! Could you do one more? Orser?
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Now I want to know about Plushy, though I hope I don't regret asking 
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You opened a can of wormsNow I want to know about Plushy, though I hope I don't regret asking
Kidding. To be honest, Plushenko had fairly unique technique. He could be off in the air, sometimes almost horizontal (Okay, not THAT bad...), and yet still land pretty smoothly. Could land on an inside edge, or too much on the toe, and kind of skid his way out of his landings, but he had typically really good exit position.
I think his axel technique was really strong. Limited pre-rotation, good leg/knee thrust, good height.
Lutz - Browning called his lutz a loop, which I thought was interesting. I had always thought it was a weird lutz, but never bothered to slow it down and look. But if you pause the takeoff, it looks like he's performing a loop! He has a good back outside edge, but then switches to the full-blade takeoff on the right foot... So correct if you look at the lutz/flutz foot edge, but wrong if you consider that he doesn't really vault off the right foot, but rather switches to a loop takeoff. So I'd say not great... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JJjIzNOkLk
Toe loop is great, salchow is fine, Flip if a lip (clear back outside edge), loop is fine.
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Okay, I'll be honest, I didn't really like aspects of Orser's skating, but the man had springs. His split jumps, flying spins, delayed axels, etc - huge! All jumps no question on rotation. His axel had some of the best leg-thrust/attack ever, maybe a bit more skid than some...? Finished the rotation way before landing. I just personally always hated his entry and his hands parallel to the ice bent at the wrist. Sorry
Just hated that. He kind of stalked the entry...(?)BUT - tons of bounce, great posture, etc.
Lutz - awesome. Watch the opening lutz from his 88 Olympic free skate. Just about perfect. Edge perfect, great vault, notice he's in the air within quarter rotation of picking, huge height and finishes rotation with time to spare. Beautiful.
Flip gave him issues, but it was off the correct edge, and had a vault/spring where he was into rotation almost immediately - similar to Kostner.
I liked his salchow too. Pretty much Orser had few flaws when it came to jump technique.
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- Feb 19, 2010
Yes and no. Do all skaters pre-rotate? I would say that, yes, by virtue of science and motion it is inevitable that a skater will rotate AS they are leaving the ice. They HAVE to, because a jump is not purely a vertical motion; there is rotation involved, and a jump occurs as a skater is moving forward at a high velocity.
As a result, just about 100% of skaters, as part of the takeoff process from running blade to vertical lift, HAVE to have movement in the direction they rotate - for most skaters, in a counter-clockwise rotation. Typically this is about a 1/4 or 1/3 - but it's not really prerotation a la (eg) Eteri girls and others. Think about it. NO skater can technically pick for a lutz, jump straight up and then rotate. The nature of a jump is that it's rotational, circular.
HOWEVER, there is a difference between the natural and unavoidable pre-rotation that occurs as part of the transition from ice to air, versus skaters who cheat the takeoff by relying on poor technique, or 'muscling' the upper body around before they're even remotely in the air. Almost zero skaters, for example, jump straight off the blade on an axel, other than Emanuel Sandhu. 99% have slightly less than 3.5 revolutions as a result. But not all are cheated.
Anyway... at the end of the day, we're trying to 'catch' the skaters who clearly pre-rotate or under-rotate. Most of the time they're pretty clear... though it's hard to say whether all cases are penalized.
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Kwan didn't pre-rotate over 180, except in a couple instances. And she still jumped UP before initiating a fast rotation in the takeoff phase, which is the more correct (and more difficult) technique, as compared to spinning off the ice and back-pumping to obtain the rotation.
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I'd say Jason has pretty strong technique generally with the exception of Lutz. His 3F is one of the nicest I've seen, but he has edge issues on lutz. His axel isn't very efficient necessarily, but it's not bad mechanics.
Boitano and Orser from what I remember had very good technique. Not sure if any edge issues etc though. Boitano jumped high and nice, and that's what I can remember. Orser was no slouch here either.
Stojko I can't remember much other than he jumped huge jumps (especially monster quads). From memory he didn't prerotate much but I can be totally incorrect.
Browning had very... awful technique on many jumps, but strong axel, salchow, toeloop from memory.
Somebody else mentioned plushenko - he did prerotate flip and lutz, and have axis issues (he often tried to pull in very quickly and this sometimes put him off, but he had height to correct foe the landing). His edges seemed fine.
Plushenko from memory had probably the best axel technique I've seen, both with takeoff and mechanics. and I'm sure his salchow toe and loop were fine.
Whats interesting for me is Mishin teaches many students- like Tuktamysheva, who have very different technique to Plushenko. Either this is because of previous coaches who set different base technique, or more supportive of the fact that some people have a natural tendency to prerotate - and its more to do with that than necessarily coaching. (That's not to excuse other technique flaws that are related to coach - e.g. upper body usage, leg usage, arm usage).
If judges were strict with prerotation the American GOAT Michelle Kwan wouldn't have win anything.
Michelle Kwan's Lutz, 2002.
Wrong edge, full blade assist, pre-rotation over 180.
(Anna Shcherbakova hadn't been born yet.)
Nobody cared, as long as she is not a Russian.
One can always take the time to read comments on the topic by none other than Kwan's coach, Frank Carroll. How Frank teaches means Kwan will look different than Yuzu, Boyang, and Nathan. Surely something more constructive can be said other than - blah blah blah no one cares as long as not a Russian. On a side note—excessively slow video speed and poor video quality on Kwan's lutz isn't helpful. Not for me, anyway.
Preventing Change of Edge on Lutz Jump (Frank Carroll)
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Jump Principles – Speed and Pre-Rotation (Frank Carroll)
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Yuzu, Boyang and Nathan' 4lz take-offs are just mwaah. Yuzu doesn't even pre-rotate. Boyang does it barely, not even full 90 degrees.
But that Nathan Lutz take off in the video is not the same as Yuzu and Boyang. It's good, but if you want to trace the origins of prerotation it would be Yuzu/Boyang Lutz number 1 perfect and then number 2 Nathan's as the absolute start of prerotation....the line ending in Valieva. His picking in is sideways and he's already starting to turn his body a lot before leaving the ice. I'm not 100% confident it's before 90 degrees, it's more like 100.
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No it doesn't? That lutz is just fine.
Javi's is wonky with the way he doesn't stay on the edge and transfers over to the other leg (with a sizable pre-rotation) to do the jump, but still better than Eteri technique.
Shoma's is weakest of the group, but at least he doesn't wrench his whole body around the circle on the takeoff and isn't doing the 3/4 pre-rotation that skaters like Valieva have been using on the jump.
Yuzu's Lutz with the 0 pre-rotation makes it so hard on himself, in fact sometimes his toe-pick was even less than 0 pre-rotation, taking off in the opposing direction of the circle. Kurt Browning did the most extreme case of that, which is why the jump was so difficult for him. He also did that on his Flip, some of his Triple Flips had more air rotation than quite a few of the "quads" we see these days.
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Let's not exaggerate on triples, 1/2 prerotation is acceptable and I'd rather see some of these excessive prerotations being marked down in GOE btw. But on quad lutz etc I do agree, Shcherbakova and Trusova would not get it ratified. I find it ridiculous and plain wrong that they get the same amount of points including lit GOE for it as Boyang Jin once they land it on one leg.
On lutz the maximum prerotation before leaving the ice for good should be capped at 90-100 degrees with a minimal amount of it being preferred but sadly unless the tech panel is being allowed to use slo-mo on it ... it all doesn't matter.
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Invented I don't know.
Focusing on them is a lie and does not help to solve the problem (assuming there is a problem).
Personally I'm not superconcerned about prerotation, but flutz and full blade assist make all the jumps look almost the same.
The problem is the judges once again.
If those cheap entries with "nominal" (1) edges and pick jumps that touch the ice with the pick but pushe with pratically a full blade (2) do not result in GOE limitations the skater are absolutely right to go that way, espcially if it helps with consinstency.
(1) by nominal I mean that the edge is simply shown (sometimes even just for a second) but it's not working
Look at this Yuna Lutz (and all the other is the video it's marvelous) and see ho the edge is "working" on the outside (and how deep the outside is) at the moment she puts the pick on the ice. The left feet is defintely turning clockwise going into a counterclockwise jump and that is what makes the Lutz amazing (and big scorig)
Who should say "this gets the entry bullet and can go over 3 GOE and those straight flutzed entries do not" if not the judges?
(I fear my adored Zenya may be one of the worst in setting the trend because when you dominate for years as she did people get from you)
(2) of course nobody pretend a jump ON the pick without flexing the ankle to push, but the is a point at whitch the perception change from pick to blade and it should be punished (by GOE)
Side note on the video: the difference in athetic power with the current top skaters is astonishing.
There will always be some pre-rotation. Excessive pre-rotation--for example, more than a half turn--is what needs to be looked at.
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Look, now that they have Technical Callers, this shouldn't even be an issue. When you're in the rink an edge change is not a quiet thing. An edge caller also has replay video, right. I'll say it again. I could hear Sarah Hughes as she switched to an inside edge and "Flutzed" right in front of me in 2001. These tech callers with "Selective" calling really upset me. Johnny and Tara talking about Bradie Tennel's UR's and her not receiving a call makes me believe that this will always be an issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-oDCpXSP4U&t=12s
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- Dec 9, 2019
As per ISU rules, ½ turn prerotation is a downgrade, excessive prerotation but less than ½ turn is a call in GOEs.
I think each skater has their strengths and weaknesses. Someone mentioned Kamila Valieva for her Lutz, but her 4T is a real decent quad, not deserving the indecent GOEs it gets, but still deserving positive GOEs. Sasha Trusova's 4T too is good.
Yuma Kagiyama is trying to add more quads but his issues with 3F and 3Lz (basically the same jump in his skates) should be addressed.
Someone taught a wrong technique initially cannot get a perfect technique but we can see that something can be done, with Shoma Uno's progress on prerotation when he was in Champéry. It was maybe just my impression.
And Yuzuru Hanyu not only has a near-zero prerotation on his 4Lz, he has a delayed rotation on his 3A and a near-zero prerotation on his 4A.
He said that he had tried to learn another technique and didn't succeed.
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