My 10 yr-old brother is attempting to learn the backward swizzle and is having a hard time. Most of the time, when he gets to the widest part of the swizzle, he tips forward alot and gets scared. (he's also been wearing one of those weird recreational blades that's not quite a hockey blade - does that have something to do with it?) Does anyone have any tricks to keeping the upper body stable? Reminding him to stand up straight and bend his knees isn't helping, lol...

I know many of you are experienced coaches that must have some trick to helping your students with these problems.

Thanks!

Try having him not swizzle out quite as wide as he possibly can. It's easier to draw the legs back together if they are not fully extended to start with. Back swizzles are a hard thing to learn, since they use muscles in a different way than nearly anything we do off-ice. So if he currently back swizzles about 18" wide at the widest point, just have him go say 14" -- and yes, remember to hold his upper body vertical. It will be easier if he isn't trying to split his legs quite so far apart. And it's nearly impossible (unless you've been doing back swizzles for a while) to do back swizzles with all your weight pitched forward, which is what it sounds like he's doing.

Good luck to both of you!

Also, make sure he bends his knees - most beginning skaters tend to try to skate backward bent at the waist instead of the knees. Tell him to sit into it.

Teach him the difference between his waist and his hips---it's often hard for a beginner to see/tell the difference by just looking at someone else skating.

Put your hands on his hipbones, and say 'bending here is okay', then move up to his waist and say 'bending here is not'.

When he starts to feel the most 'tippy', have him instantly squat down farther with his knees (and consequently get a tighter angle in the hips, although it's *not* bending over), and shoot the hands a little further out forwards (10 and 2, not both at 12) as if they're on a table. Most people follow the instinct to bend at the waist when feeling unstable---he needs to break that pattern and get used to getting lower at that instant, which will stabilize him.

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In teaching classes, one thing that I have found useful to keep kids from going up on their toes is to tell them that the heels have to keep touching the ice the whole time.

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