Tight-Turns

Question
QUESTION: Hi. I can't do those turns where the inside foot is leading. They make a player turn sharply. I think it's called a tight turn. Anyways, I have no idea how to do it and I'm trying but it's not working. How should I distrubute my weight and on what foot and what edges should I use? I just need to know how to do a tight turn.

ANSWER: Good Morning,

Here are some tips/pointers on how to do tight turns:

- keep your feet close together, about a foot apart.
- make sure to keep knees bent throughout the turn to keep balance
- transfer your weight to the inside leg when doing the turn, your hips act like the steering wheel and transferring weight to inside leg will help with a quick tight turn.
- You want to lean in on the turn as well, but try and keep shoulders as parallel as possible to ice so body is well balanced to accelerate quickly coming out of the turn.
- With the inside skate, you are on your outside edge, and your outside skate you are on your inside edge.
- Your outside skate glides next to your inside and both change directions simultaneously.
- Once you are facing the direction you want, accelerate with a quick crossover to get back to top speed.

Hope these help improve your tight turns, and remember practice is needed to master any skill. :)

Have a great day and please let me know if anything else I can help you with.

Thanks,

Guy

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi. I went out and tried it and your advice of using the hips to make the turn sharp helped A LOT. But I couldn't shift my weight to my inside leading leg. I tried but I kept putting weight on the back leg. I focused on putting my weight on the front leg throughout the turn but I coudn't. Should all the weight be put on the leading leg? And isn't the inside leg the leg that is leading? I know the bottom line is just keep practicing but could I be doing something wrong?

Answer
Hi,

Glad to hear you were able to improve on tight turns. For the weight ratio from front-back foot, I would say about 2/3 is front with 1/3 on back ready to push off of. I was able to find a good analysis video that you could watch that might help since its something to look at with an explanation. The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoEY0r4YSLM

Hope it helps!

Thanks,

Guy