How to Do a Single Lutz Jump - Ice Skating (journeybacktotheice) 5 MINUTE FRIDAYS

Hello and welcome back to another episode of my 5 Minute Fridays series here on YouTube. It has been a while since I have posted a 5 Minute Friday video and that is because, long story short, I ended up putting the footage for the LUTs video somewhere else and I couldn't remember where I put it and then I finally found it editing a video like a year later. So here we are finally finishing up the 5 Minute Friday series for this video. Since I am missing some of the footage for the LUTs, I have added in a few clips that are more recent and I have been asked since starting this series if I would do a video talking about the single axle and I will do a 5 Minute Friday video for the single axle. But with all that being said, let's get right into today's video. In the last video, I talked about how to do a single flip and if you've missed any of the other 5 Minute Friday videos, I will leave a link to the playlist down in the description box below, but I will also leave it here on screen as well. In today's video, I'll be going over how to do the single LUTs in figure skating. The LUTs jump is very similar to our flip jump, however, instead of taking off from an inside edge, we'll be taking off from an outside edge. That is usually what makes the LUTs pretty difficult and why most skaters do not enjoy LUTs. I will say that not every skater is going to have a perfect LUTs every time they do it and that is true with any jump or spin or any element in general in skating. And so yes, I am someone where I have gotten a clean LUTs called with some wonderful positive GOE, but like most skaters, I have also gotten a few edge calls here and there. So that is my reminder to you to not be too hard on yourself, especially when you are first learning the LUTs. So there are a few different ways that you can enter the LUTs jump. A lot of skaters will start out by doing the traditional entrance, which I will show on screen here, but nowadays you will see a lot of skaters doing a straight line LUTs, basically cutting down the center of the ice. And that is because with a lot more competition switching to IJS, especially for even lower levels now, it's more common to try and do a difficult entrance or something unique that's going to give you a little bonus point. For this video, I will be showing you the entrance going straight down center ice. I am going to start by taking either one to four steps into my jump. I am then going to push onto a forward right inside C step. You are going to cross one foot over the other like I am doing in the video. While you are doing this, you want to make sure that your upper body is up nice and tall. You're not leaning too far forward and you're not leaning too far back. You also want to make sure that your arms are still in that L position. A lot of the entrance for the LUTs is very similar to what I talked about in the single flip video for my 5 Minute Fridays series, so I will leave a link for that down below and I will kind of gloss over that for this video. Very important thing to note for this jump, but for a lot of other things in skating, is that your shoulders are kind of the steering wheel for a lot of your jumps. So it's very important when you are picking your topic in the ice to take off for your LUTs that you're not dropping your shoulder too far to one side or dropping it back or forward. You want to make sure that you're keeping it pretty level so that when you take off, everything is gathered nice and close together and there's no weight shift that's going to throw you off. Another important part for our single LUTs is making sure that your reach is nice and strong. Your leg isn't bent and close to you. You want to make sure it's out back nice and extended. And just like our single flip, once we put our toe into the ice and we launch up into the air, we're going to go up into that H position. We want to make sure that our arms are nice and close and then we want to check out into a very strong landing position. And that is basically how you do a single LUTs in figure skating. The hardest part about this jump is making sure that you take off from an outside edge. There are a couple exercises you can practice like a half LUTs along a line. Mostly it just takes a lot of practice and even I am still working on perfecting my LUTs. I hope you found this video somewhat helpful. Make sure you check out the rest of my 5-Minute Friday series where I go over all the other single jumps in figure skating and stay tuned for the 5-Minute Friday video I'll be doing about the single axel. I will see you in the next video!