New ISU rule changes: "Flutzing" addressed

[Mathman]

Who are known for excuting great lutz?

Brian Boitano. I also like Kevin van der Perren.

 

[mskater93]

Ladies - Yamaguchi had great Lutzes

 

[morninglight]

great lutz

Thanks all. I like Jeff's lutz I have gotten to know Kevin Van Der Perren for the first time. He is nice!

How about the other current top men and top ladies?

 

[Mathman]

Ladies - Yamaguchi had great Lutzes

And she could still do it right up to her retirement at age 29.

Kristi landing her first triple Lutz

 

[Mathman]

How about the other current top men and top ladies?

I would say Miki Ando of the current ladies.

 

[feraina]

I have a question about this. Can one tell the difference between a Lutz and a flip by examining the tracings on the ice afterward?

Well, yes... With a flip it should definitely be an inside edge all the way. With a lutz, even the most text-book lutz will flatten out before take-off. One of my former coaches (a former UK men's champion) actually claimed that everybody leans over to the inside edge momentarily before take-off, and that it's only bad if the inside edge is held long enough to be obvious.

I don't know if he was right. I'd like to see the tracing of one of these elite skaters who's known to have a true lutz.

Joesitz -- I wasn't commenting on whether flutz should be counted as a bad lutz or a flip (although personally I think it should be the former), I just wanted to know why you thought a flutz is easier than a flip. I'd think that it's at least as hard as a flip (when it's really badly flutzed), and sometimes harder, because most skaters do at least attempt to hold that outside edge for a while, and counter-rotate their body against the direction of jump rotation, both of which add to the difficulty.

 

[anya_angie]

Praise God in Heaven, hand-assistance spirals are level 1! Hence we'll be seeing a lot less of them. HOPEFULLY. But I bet we'll be seeing much more Fan spirals out there now *sigh*

 

[dancindiva03]

This makes me wonder a lot about the next few seasons. Will Sasha bother to come back? Hers is a very obvious flutz with a looooooooooooooong inside edge prior to take-off, I don't know if that is something she can fix at this point in the game. She's not known for her consistancy on jumps anyway, and trying to fix the flutz might give her a lot of grief in competition.

The same problem might really affect Caroline Zhang in the coming season. Her flutz is severe and I think should get a full -3 GOE. Can she correct the problem and keep her consistancy? I'd venture to say no, at least not in the short term. What she has on her side is youth, she might be able to correct the problem eventually. I honestly doubt it, as it really is a HUGE flutz, but she worked hard to get her jumps fully rotated last season so maybe she can do the same with the flutz.

 

[feraina]

The same problem might really affect Caroline Zhang in the coming season. Her flutz is severe and I think should get a full -3 GOE. Can she correct the problem and keep her consistancy?

I'm really curious to see what she manages to do about it in the off-season. It sounds like in the interviews that she and her coach are working on this. Actually, it looks to me like her flutz was getting better as the past season progressed. I think the high kick on her lutz take-off is worse than the flutz.

 

[hockeyfan228]

IMHO it's that sudden explosion into the air in the opposite direction that makes the Lutz so cool to watch. Compared to the other jumps, where the skater just kind of lifts into the air. I think only men can really do it to full effect, owing to greater upper body strength.

Perhaps for triple Lutzes, but for me, the other part that makes a great Lutz that is rare among triple Lutzes is the extreme counterbalance that Janet Lynn and John Curry used to do between the extreme [Edited to change this to outside] edge held on the working leg and the pick leg on double Lutzes.

(I'm still looking for the non-jump that was specified in the docs. ETA: I can't find it, but I think it had something to do with landing on the wrong leg and not counting. I guess a toe loop that lands on the wrong leg is a flip.)

 

[chuckm]

Many of the European skaters don't flutz, but they do lip, and up to now, they weren't getting the deduction that the flutz was sometimes getting. There may be a lot of very unhappy skaters out there.....

 

[gkelly]

(I'm still looking for the non-jump that was specified in the docs. ETA: I can't find it, but I think it had something to do with landing on the wrong leg and not counting.

Ah. Could you be thinking of the fact that a forward-takeoff jump that *takes off* from the other leg, usually called an "inside axel," is not included in the scale of values and therefore counts as a transition, not a jump?

Quoting from a document called "Judging System ISU First Aid for Technical Controllers and Technical Specialists" that I downloaded at some point and can't find online now:

An Axel type jump taking off from the forward inside edge
is a non-listed element and therefore does not receive any
value.
Therefore does not receive any value and does not occupy an element box

It's not a mistake on a regular axel takeoff, though; it's a specific, intentional, different jump that as of now does not have a point value. There's no penalty for doing one because it doesn't block a jump box, and there should be a slight reward in the transitions score.

Landing on the "wrong" foot is also not listed as an error with a specified GOE reduction. What this same document has to say about that is

landing on either foot All jumps may be landed on either foot. The call goes for the jump, independent of the landing foot; Judges will reflect this in the GOE if necessary.

So an axel landing on the left back inside edge (for a counterclockwise jumper), often referred to a "one-foot axel" and usually performed in the past either as a transitional move or in combination with a double or triple salchow following, would be called as a single axel. If it's obviously done on purpose and done well, it should get 0 or positive GOE.

I could name several skaters whose used to do these in the 1980s and 1990s.
It's not really worth doing the way the current scale of values is set up because if you do it in isolation as a transition move it blocks a jump box and is only worth 0.8 points (same as a normal single axel), and if you do it in combination with a salchow the combination is probably more difficult than putting a double toe after the salchow but it's worth less.

I have also seen, very rarely, from a juvenile skater in the 90s and I think from Brian Orser in the early 80s, a combination of double salchow landed on LBI edge into another double salchow. Again, according to the quote above this would count as double salchow-double (or triple) salchow combination and would be worth the same as double (or triple) salchow-double toe. So probably not worth doing. But legal according to this guideline.

If I made the rules the second jump in a combination would get a bonus, so they would be worth doing, but they didn't ask me.

I guess a toe loop that lands on the wrong leg is a flip.)

Nope, it's the takeoff that determines what the jump is, not the landing. A (CCW) toe loop that lands on the left back inside edge would still be called as a toe loop.

Now, there's a difference between landing on the left back inside instead of right back outside because it's cool and unusual and you want to show off how well you can control that back inside edge landing and maybe put a salchow (or even a flip) after it, and landing on the left foot because you failed to get your weight over the right landing side in the air and therefore landed on the wrong foot by mistake. In the latter case, the back inside edge will not be controlled, the other foot will probably come down right away, with an attempt to push onto the intended RBO landing edge if the skater can manage it, and the judges will lower the GOE to reflect a two-foot landing.

 

[hockeyfan228]

Thank you so much gkelly

It was the "inside axel" I was thinking of. I just couldn't find it in the pile of documentation I actually printed out starting in 2003.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

So an axel landing on the left back inside edge (for a counterclockwise jumper), often referred to a "one-foot axel" and usually performed in the past either as a transitional move or in combination with a double or triple salchow following, would be called as a single axel. If it's obviously done on purpose and done well, it should get 0 or positive GOE.

That makes sense, but what if that Inside Axel was landed from a triple air turn before the triple salchow or flip?

I guess it would still get a 0 base and a WOW from the audience, and possibly a +1 extra for the combo.

Joe

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Hockeyfan - Is it actually written that jumps are determined moreso by the position of the skater's body rather than the edge the skater is taking? It's difficult for me to see a body leaning one way and an edge the other way. I think the rockover from outside to inside edge puts the body in position for a nice flip. I would say the 'attempted lutz' was lost when the rockover took place.

 

[gio]

I'm really curious to see what she manages to do about it in the off-season. It sounds like in the interviews that she and her coach are working on this. Actually, it looks to me like her flutz was getting better as the past season progressed. I think the high kick on her lutz take-off is worse than the flutz.

If she is really motivated to do so, she will relearn it. From what I read in this forum it seems that she is a hard working person, so she might relearn the jump. If she thinks it is worth doing so, she will.

About good triple lutzes. I like the solo 3lutz that Shizuka did at the 2004 Worlds. It had a WOW factor for the viewer and for the commentator. The Dutch Eurosport commentator went nuts and started shouting "fantastish, fantastish". I've found the video on fsvids, if you want to watch it.

 

[Mathman]

Hockeyfan - Is it actually written that jumps are determined moreso by the position of the skater's body rather than the edge the skater is taking?

Most of the descriptions of the Lutz jump that I have read emphasize both the "counerrotation" of the body and the take-off edge as the defining characteristics of this jump. In this document, for instance

http://www.skatejournal.com/jump.html

it says:

"Counter-Rotation

"There are three basic counter-rotation (or counter-revolution) jumps including the lutz, toe walley and walley. Counter-rotation jumps are characterized by the skater gliding into the jump in the opposite direction to which he will rotate in the air. Counterclockwise skaters will glide clockwise into the jump but will execute the rotation in their natural counterclockwise direction...

"Lutz Jump

"The lutz is a counter rotation jump, meaning the skater glides into the jump in the opposite direction to which he will rotate the jump in the air. CCW skaters will glide clockwise into the jump but will execute the rotation in their natural counterclockwise direction. The juxtaposition of directions in the lutz makes it a difficult element."

It's difficult for me to see a body leaning one way and an edge the other way.

As I understand it, it's not the lean but the rotation. Your blade is curving (slightly) clockwise, but your body (led by the upper body) is preparing to rotate counterclockwise.

This doesn't happen with a flip. I think that is why the ISU regards a flutz as a flawed Lutz instead of a flip.

 

[layman]

I'm really curious to see what she manages to do about it in the off-season. It sounds like in the interviews that she and her coach are working on this. Actually, it looks to me like her flutz was getting better as the past season progressed. I think the high kick on her lutz take-off is worse than the flutz.

It's actually the high kick that causes the flutz. There's no way that the skater can hold the outside edge with an entry like that. The free-leg is swinging up in the air at the point that the skater starts to jump and rotate, so the body is almost all the way around before the pick goes in and it's impossible for the skating foot to hold an outside edge...because by the time the skating foot leaves the ice, the skater has rotated onto the inside edge of the blade. It's always the high kick that precedes the edge switch, as we saw with Sasha Cohen, Jenny Kirk, Tara Lipinski, Sarah Hughes, Irina Slutskaya, Victoria Pavuk (and plenty of others), and now with Mao Asada and Caroline Zhang.

 

[antmanb]

Okay, maybe two solo ones... but three? who has time with the six or seven triples you have to jam in there as well!

The many skaters outside the top ten who don't have a full set of triples. And actualyl you don't even have to go off the podium to see skaters without a full set of triples. Honestly i don't see any reason to zayak the double axel like they have in pairs.

Ant

 

[antmanb]

I think many of the European skaters who do perfect lutzes are probably annoyed and may have complained through their coaches that.skaters who are unable to execute a proper lutz should be heavily penalized - not just a simple judgement on how bad the flutz was. This gives credence that a flutz is a ligitimate jump,

But those European skaters with perfect Lutzes often have 'lips instead of flips. In the aldies division there are very few skaters with true Lutzes and Flips...Emily Hughes is one of them though.

Ant