Learning the butterfly

[Redlight 0]

So last night was the first time I've ever worn pads which were made with the butterfly technique in mind.

Granted they are old Vaughn Velocity V1/V2?s but they are like going from the stone age to the space age for me.

Within the first few minutes of warmup I managed to come down hard onto the ice with my unprotected knee when the pad spun around. I think I overcompensated for my years of wearing my pads really tight and ended up setting these pads too loose.

After about 60 minutes of warmup and scrimmage Its clear to me the biggest hurdles are;

• training myself to drop into the butterfly when appropriate when all my instincts tell me to stand up
• learning to land on the inside of the pads with my feet flared out instead of a knee-forward/feet behind position

I'm already leaning towards some knee pads for extra protection, although the thigh boards didn't seem to bother me or get caught up in my pants.

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Redlight

[hb4167 6]

To be honest, knee pads are amazing in comparison to thigh boards. Especially the thigh boards of today that are designed to go up inside the pant, as opposed to the old school boards that were actual thigh SHIELDS. I highly suggest bringing your pads and skates to the LHS and trying them all on with knee pads to get an idea of the feel. Its an adjustment and first, but I personally fell in love after a skate or two.

In regards to landing your knees on the landing gear and flaring your feet out, I would also suggest working on some stretches that help increase flexibility. However, that wide aggressive butterfly stance comes from muscle memory more than anything (in my opinion), flexibility just helps you get wider. You just need to reprogram yourself mentally.

[Redlight 0]

So after being on ice for 3 or 4 sessions with my "new" pads, my knees are bruised and sore.

On many drop-downs, I am missing my knee block stack entirely and mashing my kneecap onto the ice.

Have I got my pads strapped too loosely? Are they over-rotating? I am wearing them pretty loose after experiencing some MCL soreness.

[Law Goalie 147]

Just to be clear, the idea that pads rotate is a confusion. Watch any modern goalie demonstrating butterfly -- and almost any other -- save movements: the pads stay facing the puck at all times.

What really happens is that the patella rotates 90 degrees behind the pad: from facing forward, through back of the pad, to facing down at the ice through the knee-block. Only pads that are extremely tight at the knee (or enormous knees, or knees with enormous knee-pads), lacking sufficient space for the knee to move, will resist this movement.

Simultaneously, the thigh moves out from behind the thigh of the pad, performing a 90 degree anticlockwise rotation while still facing the puck. This movement can be resisted by any strap on the pad that is connected to the lateral (outside) gusset (usually the female end of the strap) that is higher than the top of the calf: for this reason, many goalies have their knee-straps 'angled down', connecting at or above the knee on the medial (inside) edge and angling down below the knee on the lateral side. (This is also why thigh-boards suck: they actively resist this rotation, unless they are strapped so loosely as to be basically useless.)

As this rotation occurs, the toes also rotate from facing the puck, moving down toward the ice -- usually closer to 45 degrees than 90. If the toes of your skates are connected too tightly to the toes of your pads, the stiffness of the boot will prevent yours toes from rotating with your knees. If you lack superhuman flexibility, this may cause a serious degree of pain from the knee down to the big toe, and damage ranging from gradual to catastrophic. This is where sliding toe-bridges and/or slack in the toe-ties becomes important.

The misnomers 'over-rotation' and 'under-rotation' generally refer, respectively, to pads that are tilted slightly backward (toward the goal) or forward (toward the puck) in the butterfly position, when they *should* be a straight 90 degree wall. Typically, 'over-rotation' is caused by excessive looseness at the knee, causing the goalie to exert pressure on the trailing edge of the knee-block and 'tip' the pad backward; 'under-rotation' is usually, but not always, caused by knee-pads or (more commonly) pants pressing against the back of the pad and tipping it forward, though this can be exacerbated by overly tight knee strapping. this is simply to say that what these terms denote is a symptom rather than a cause of pad issues.

In order to protect your knees from the ice impacts, you need knee-pads. At this point, even volleyball-style slip-on pads will do; ANYTHING will offer better protection than nothing.

If your knees are missing the knee-block when you butterfly, it is probable that they are too loose *at the knee*. The biggest mistake many people make in strapping pads is to tighten and loosen every strap proportionately. The next time you're going on the ice, drop into the butterfly in the dressingroom and see if you can 'wiggle' your knee off the knee-block. If you can, tighten those straps (Velcro elastic, leather, whatever) in various combinations until you can no longer 'fall off' the knee-block. If you find that in this static position your leg 'jams' on the straps at or above the knee on the lateral side (female end), trying either A) angling those straps downward, and/or B) loosening them until the pressure goes away. Once you're feeling comfortable, check your toes: if you feel a 'tugging' sensation on your toes as you sit in the butterfly, pulling the toes upward and away from the floor, loosen your toe-ties immediately.

For what it's worth, you can generally feed two 'male' leather strap ends through one 'female' buckle, (cue tasteless jokes) if you need to use one connection point for two straps: for example, putting the knee-strap and the upper calf-strap through the same buckle. With quick-release nylon straps, you can simply feed both straps through the slots of one male buckle, then clip that into a single female buckle on the lateral gusset.

[Redlight 0]

As usual, your feedback is detailed and incredibly useful.

Thank you very much.

[forbs02 20]

My husband is currently learning to butterfly. I showed him some basics and he realized he has poor external hip rotation (he is an athletic trainer, so he is a biomechanics nerd). Every time he would go down he was exposing a ton of kneecap because he couldn't "flare" his legs properly. He started a hip strengthening/stretching program and has gained a ton of mobility in the past 6 weeks. You can google a ton of exercises to help you learn how to stretch your hips so the movement is easier. Another thing that worked for him was making his stance wider, making the drop to the ice easier.

As Law mentioned, tighten up the elastic straps to keep your knees on the block and possibly loosen the toe ties. Those two adjustments will help a lot. The rest of the straps can be fairly loose.

[Law Goalie 147]

Very good points. A wider stance makes releasing the inside edges during the downward (and rotating!) drive of the knees much, much easier. One of the basic exercises I make all my little goalies do is to take a wide, deep, shot-ready stance, then very gradually bring their knees lower and together until their cowlings hit the ice and their blades slip out; once you've committed that 'slip-out' point to memory, you can exploit it as part of a dynamic butterfly.

Maria Mountain has some awesome stretches and exercises for goalies on her Youtube channel; very bright lady.