I am a beginner and have some questions about forward skating.

The way I skate now, it would be hard to tell I am a complete beginner when forward skating because I resemble intermediate skaters when simply coasting forward at a moderate speed. However, that is part of the problem, I have to be going at a moderate speed to look 'normal'.

When I watch the skate instructor forward skate, she goes forward slowly and does a T-pushoff for example, with the right foot. In this case she will glide on the left foot alone and her right leg will be extended outward to the side and straight and she can pull in that right leg whenever she wants to. Then she can alternate to the other leg.

At moderate speed, the ability to hang that leg out straight and glide on the other lone skate is masked because you are exchanging the skate on the ice fairly quickly. However, I can't do what the instructor does very well. With a lot of practice I am now able to come somewhat close to what she does. When I pushoff with the right foot, I can go straight on the left foot and hang out the right foot (not completely straight) for a little while. But only on the left foot! When I do this with the right foot on the ice, #1) I can't do it very long, meaning most of the time I almost immediately have to bring back the left foot to the ice to maintain balance. And #2) on some occasions when I am able to balance a little longer on the lone right skate, for some reason I don't glide straight, but I start curving to the left, suggesting that I am on the inside edge.

So two questions, when doing this simply forward skating, the skate that remains on the ice is supposed to be on a slight outside edge brought about by bending at the knee, right? And second, how can I correct what's happening to me on the right skate? Am I simply not bending enough at the knee? Are there any exercises I can do to improve these balancing acts when not on the ice? I feel this balancing for a long time on one skate is a critical skill in progressing to more advanced moves.

I have asked some of these questions to the instructor but I can never formulate the question in a clear and coherent way. Not that I've done a better job here. But I hope the gist of my question has gotten across.

Thanks for any suggestions!

First, in Forward stroking (pushing from foot to foot), you are initially on a bit of an Outside edge, but naturally, as you glide, move to an Inside edge. Therefore, what you are describing on your R foot is correct. Every stroke should begin with a bent knee, rise gently up and bend again as the free foot takes the ice. The pushing foot should push smoothly with equal pressure throughout the push (no big shove at the end). You can go quite fast and yet stroke slowly and keep your free leg extended the whole time. You can also stroke quickly and go slowly. It's a matter of push and balance. As you progress, both will improve, giving you more control. The skill differences between your L and R feet might be a matter of being better naturally with one foot (everyone is) and/or the quality of your boots/blades. You are right that the ability to balance on one foot is important. Off ice, you can work on this by picking up one foot for a count of ten anytime you are standing around waiting (on line, for an elevator, etc.).

Some terminology might help you speak with your coach:

• skating foot = the foot you are standing on
• free foot = the foot that you are not standing on
• skating arm/hand/shoulder/knee = on the same side as the skating foot
• free arm/hand/shoulder/knee = on the same side as the free foot
• extend the free leg = "hang that leg out straight"

Hope this helps.

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This is just a matter of posture and balance, plus strength in the leg. Lots of people have a tendency or preference ... such as, they feel fine when they're turning in one direction, or they feel just fine when doing cross-overs in one direction, or feeling more stable on one leg as compared to the other. To overcome that problem, one can first try to work out how they are positioned or how strong the feel on the 'good' side. And then try to apply that feeling on the weak side....to work on the weak side. The more you work on the weaker side, the stronger it will become over time. So if you feel unstable on the weak side, just work on that side more until it gets better and better. Whether the 'weaker' leg requires more strength or more muscle control, or whatever, if you keep working on it for long enough, it will get strong. And as for gliding on either foot, the more ice time you have to work on that skill, the better you'll get at it. It's a matter of having your boots fitting well, plus shifting the hip so that the weight goes right over the gliding skate.....and once your leg, feet, and body get very strong from all that skating and practice, you'll be able to maintain the balance and control to glide for ages.

But if you're a really good skater already and the skate veers off unnaturally, then maybe the skate on a particular foot might need some adjustments.

In order to improve your stroking so that you're more comfortable skating on one foot, practice one-foot glides that do not involve pushing/gliding at the same time:

1) Stroke around the rink to pick up speed.

2) Glide on two feet with your feet no more than shoulder width apart, your knees bent, and your arms out.

3) Lean your weight to one side while remaining on two feet.

4) Pick straight up the foot that you're not leaning on. Do not push it or attempt to stroke with it--just imagine that you're a puppet, and someone is pulling that foot up vertically.

The longer you're able to hold one-foot glides as described above, the better you'll be able to hold stroking pushes as well.

Good suggestions. Having just gone through this not all that long ago ...

a. Avoid the temptation to "fall into a stroke". You need to be able to get that
weight on the one skate and hold it, eventually indefinitely.

b. Don't worry too much at first with a lot of knee bend ... however ... after
you think that you are comfortable with your balance start pushing yourself (and you will do this forever) to get more knee bend. This will initially throw off your balance, but you will recover.

c. Try and make sure that your knee, however deeply it is bent, is aligned up with your toe (same direction).

d. I had and still do have problems with alignment. There should be no bend in the waist AT ALL. That doesn't mean that while you keep your back straight you stick the glutes out. Don't think of it as a "sitting down" form. Do the following. Go to the dasher boards. Put the back of your skates perpendicular to the boards. Hold the rail behind you. Start bending the knees, keep the back straight (chin up). Your arse should NOT touch the boards. Feel the pull in the lower back? That will become your friend. Enjoy your new friend. You will become close friends. Get the habit (it if exists) to lean, out right now. It is harder to break later and you will have to break it.

e. Focus on being able to be perfectly perpendicular (blades) on the ice when doing this gliding. Forget about edges when gliding like this. You will probably find that your weak side will take longer, but be very meticulous about getting that full straight up and down on the glide and able to hold it.

f. wrt weight distribution on the skate ... I don't know if it is best to clean this up earlier or later ... I wasn't really told about this until I got into private lessons, probably cuz they didn't want cracked skulls on the ice. When gliding, you want to be in the middle or slightly behind midpoint. Your speed will increase. Your initial reaction will be that you are falling backwards and you might and you probably will at first. That helped me BTW, with posture also (and with knee bend) It helped (I'm still working on it) straighten me up as well.

Don't get too far ahead of yourself and don't get frustrated. Right now, you need ice time. Plain and simple. You'll find folx who can help you out.

Good luck

I have been coaching for 10 years and what I notice on basic stroking skills is that once the skater understands that the upper body doesn't lunge forward on the stroke, and that all strokes start with both knees bent, and the stroking foot is the only thing that really moves (and on forward strokes - that foot moves opposite the direction you will ultimately be traveling in.) things start to become more secure.

So you could try this- start with both knees bent - back straight. Keep skating knee bent and push your stroking leg to an extention. If you look at the path the stroking foot creates in comparison to your skating foot - you will see an approximate 45 degree angle for the stroking foot to the skating foot.

Hold the position - (skating knee bent, free leg extended, back upright).

When you are ready for the extention to end - you rise up on your knee, (so both knees are more upright not locked knees, but definitely upright) REBEND so both knees are bent again, and stroke the same way on the next foot.

Rebend being important. :-) Good luck!

Ohhh...and don't worry about what edge you will be on after the stroke....more important is that you keep yourself balanced right now - no tipping to get edges. I suppose it is important to get a nice stroke off the inside edge.

Ohhhhhh....lol, and another thing that I work on. As the stroke is happening, both feet are moving across the ice. Then you can talk about utilization of ice as the stroke occurs...etc....I LOVE teaching open strokes - the foundation of all great skating. I could go on for hours!

A bad habit that I picked up in the last coupld of weeks is that (and it generally is only on one side) is that I have a "hitch" in the stroke that also generally results in the TP slightly getting into the action. I wasn't aware of it until I LOOKED AT MY STROKE. And sure enough, for a split second that skate was stopped in time and space and as a result was rolling to the pic. It is easy enough to fix (just focus on doing the stroke right ... no other way to put it really.)

My coach is really a stickler for form and boot placement on the extension. I think I was focusing too much on that and allowed a lazy shortcut to enter my stroking. It was a big change going from casual stroking to "deep knee bend ... long extension ... and the leaving of ice contact occurring so much further back in the extension" than I ever thought was possible.

Interesting that you looked at the stroke mark made on the ice...this is an excellent way to see if you are stroking with good technique!!! I have all my skaters look every once in a while. If you look at the way the blade comes off the ice, the stroke mark should continue to "V" out and away from the skating foot. Inefficient stroke technique will often show the mark curving back TOWARDS the skating foot. (as in sculling motion - or swizzle motion where toes are coming together)

I love taking a mark in the ice and attempt to figure out what was being done, and what probably happened. I call it a C.S.I. on the ice and the kids love it. We can tell if the jump was most likely landed, if not, what happened to make it unstable....so much fun.

Yea, the last time that I did something right , my coach actually got on all fours on the ice "See, see, THAT is an outside edge. Not great. But see how it is different from......" Of course, at 6:45 on Saturday am, for this rink, on a FS session when I have the lesson, one can do that without fear of obstruction, generally.

Skate to music. I love it when we have ice dancers on the ice playing the dance tracks because skating to a specific rhythm helped me tremendously when it came to keeping both sides even. It's really hard for me to skate off the beat, so dance music was really great for holding glides.

For example, listening to a waltz you push 2, 3, push 2, 3 and end up holding your glide evenly on each side. For music in 4/4, you can push, 2, push, 4 or push 2, 3, 4 push 2, 3, 4.

My power skating instructor has a great exercise for increasing glide length. You start off getting four strokes to get down the long axis of the rink, crossovers or chasses around the end, then three strokes to get down the other long axis, crossovers/chasses, two strokes, then one stroke on one foot, cross/chasse, one strok on the other foot. I'm proud to say I can finally do each foot one stroke down the rink. Now I have to work on not losing speed the last quarter of the rink or so...

I'm glad that I checked in before heading out for a practice session. This sounds like a great idea for us newbies. It will force one to also "get back" on the skate on the glide, as well as helping the stroking.

Everything that has been suggested sounds like it would be helpful for you.
Just one more thing: Are your skates in good condition, do they fit you properly and are your blades mounted and sharpened properly? It's quite possible that your balance is not as good on your right foot, but it's also possible that your right boot isn't giving you enough support or that the blade of your right skate is mounted too far to the outside of the boot, putting you onto an inside edge. When just stand still on both skates, do you feel your right foot leaning a little to the inside or is it nicely balanced right in the middle?

Hey thanks very much everybody. So many useful suggestions. I can't wait to practice on Wednesday.

The skates are essentially brand new. They are bauer supreme 1000. I bought them in 2000, but I have only used them about 5 or 6 times since. Fit is ok, I probably should have bought a slightly smaller size. I didn't notice any problems in the balance, but I will look more carefully into this next time.

Wow, that's amazing, one stroke can get you down the entire rink! Any specific song name you recommend?

And all this time I thought you were on figure skates!

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Great exercise, quarkiki2--I'll have to try it. I've only tried just traveling as far as I can starting from one push from a T position. You should see me as I run out of gas, lol! I start flailing my arms around as though I were swimming, as if it would make me go any farther. Sometimes I feel like doing the same thing when I'm practicing the waltz 8 and that last FO edge just peters out before I come back to the center of the 8!

edited to add: quarkiki2--does your power skating instructor make you do this in both directions (preferred and nonpreferred)? I can imagine doing this the direction I like for crossovers (CCW), but CW would just be eevilllle.

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Sorry, I should have put that information in the original question. I assume it won't change anything you said however.

If you want some good tips about hockey skating....

http://www.edgeofexcellence.com/sa.htm

Well, I am the farthest thing from an expert around here ... buy yea, some things will change, some won't. Comparing notes with my hockey buds, posture differs greatly between figure skating and hockey skating. Forward lean in hockey is apparently pretty important ... a relative no-no in figure skating. Although I have only tried hockey skates a couple of times, I would think that going from "learning to skate (and stroke)" in hockey skates and THEN going to figure skates, could be hazardous to your health wrt now stroking on or near the pix. But a lot of the basics of skating and most important, balance acquisition are still the same, I would think.

Well, you won't have to worry about a toe pick (the pick on the front of figure skates), which can be a good thing!

In terms of differences between figure and hockey skaters, figure skaters tend to focus on the form and position of the body by using long, elegant lines. Hockey skaters tend to use shorter, more powerful pushes without extending the free leg off the ice. However, I'm not sure if there's any reason why you couldn't focus on the type of skating you enjoy doing irrespective of the skates. In classes, we get little boys in hockey skates all of the time learning longer stroking pushes. Just have fun and enjoy skating!

Wow! I don't think I've ever gotten so many replies to a post I made on On Ice before!

To answer some of the questions about my power skating exercise, yes, the instructor makes us do this on our preferred and reviled side. That side's not quite as good... She also makes us do it with spirals around the hockey circles -- diagonal across the long axis. That one makes your bum hurt. She puts us through boot camp, lol, but it's so worth it.

I don't have a particular song recommendation for skating with the beat. Almost any song will work as long as the beat is not too fast. I've been spoiled because I have ice dancers on my favorite freestyle and they have one of the standard ice dance CDs that usually makes everyone nuts because it's repetitive, but I like it because the music isn't too fast and the time signatures change from 4/4 to 3/4 (waltz). I practice 3-turns and swing/cross rols to the waltzes and other footwork to the tangos/fourteen step, etc.

So, I would say that any music you like or are comfortable with would work. A lot of times, rinks will play a radio station during public skates, ours does. If you choose to use headphones, please pay extra attention to what's going on around you…

Well, I misread the exercise and thought it was to do the entire length of the rink on one push from a standstill . Actually, I've done it across on one push from standstill, and that's also a good exercise. I saw a kid doing it in her lesson and decided to try it myself. Didn't make it all the way the first couple of times, which was sobering. The condition of the ice also makes a difference.

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Re: taking one push for the length of the rink from a standstill

I try this using the width of the rink - it's entirely much more manageable and not as depressing because I'm bound to make it all the way across. I haven't practiced this in ages though, thanks for reminding me to do so!

If the hockey skater wants to go very fast, their push out to the side is very long. That's why the hockey skater tries to bend quite low before the push to the side, to get the most out of their leg extension.

You can only do the explosive hockey starts (on your front edges) on hockey skates....that is, toe picks wouldn't allow for that.