This past April we wrote an article called “Edgework”, which more or less highlighted how important it is to NOT use the heels of your skate blades when tight-turning. If your weight is back on your heels when tight-turning then you’re going to increase your chances of getting bumped off the puck by an opponent. You’re also going to throw yourself off balance, eliminating that good upper body posture you’ve been practicing all Summer. Remember, perfect posture is precisely what has been enabling you to puck handle, pass, and shoot with proper biomechanics so you can generate more scoring chances.
It’s a fact that there are 3 distinct phases to a proper tight-turn, and mastering the middle phase is the most important. The middle phase (even if only in such a position for a split second during a tight-turn) means we have created a wide base with our feet both level, and unstaggered. And most importantly, we are moving through this middle phase of the tight-turn on the neutral part of our skate blades.
Neutral = Balanced.
So how do we measure how “neutral” we are during training?
Watch the video and listen closely to how little noise this player is making when carving into the ice during the arc phases of the turns.
