I know several tips to get kids to stroke correctly w/o toe pushing, but this is a very difficult skill for a lot of LtS children. Interestingly, most of my adult students learn it readily. I wonder if the kids have done so much public skating w/o instruction before ever taking a lesson, that they have developed a bad habit that is hard to break. This is my guess, anyway.

Of course, I demo the correct method. I show the kids the diff b/e toe pushing and stroking. I position the free leg while they hold the boards. They do upright arabesques w the leg in the correct pointed out pose. We do t-position push-offs. I have them turn out their feet in a V and march like penguins then start pushing. I have them pretend to be riding a scooter and push, push , push w the turned out free foot. Inevitably, when they try to put it all together, they turn the toe down to the ice and push w it. I want to put duct tape over their toe picks. In this case, I think hockey skates have an advantage b/c their are no picks and the skater cannot toe push. Hockey kids have less trouble learning this, in my exp.

Any other ideas?

Kay

__________________
Visit my figure skating journal
http://www.skatejournal.com/

Oh I think probably every coach has trouble getting all LTS kids to "get it." One thing that I do is the repetition of "bend, turn, push". It's repeated over and over and over in my Alpha classes. I also have them stand holding on to the boards and practice doing said actions. And even the kids who can somewhat do it in class probably don't try to skate like that if they come for public skating. So what can you do...

__________________
- Ashley

Funny you mention that. I tell my students: "this is how you skate from now on, even at public skate". You are probably right. I doubt they practice it. It probably goes straight out the window.

Kay

__________________
Visit my figure skating journal
http://www.skatejournal.com/

Practice stroking? No way- that's not fun!

I've noticed that even the kids preparing their pre-pre are unlikely to spend much time (at least compared to the adults) on their forward stroking, they concentrate on their other moves because "stroking is a nobrainer" and these kids toe push their way to a pass, because it's pre-pre.

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

And then they get higher and can't pass because of the toe pushing.....although a test session I was at they didn't pass all but 2 skaters (including giving all but 1 pre-pre a retry) because of toe pushing....even myself...and I generally watch that closely and don't do it all that often (usually the first push on my CW power circles, but I've worked on that).

__________________
Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

That is funny, because my daughters favorite thing to practice is stroking. She would stroke for hours if you let her! And she takes it seriously. I wish she would take the fun stuff more seriously lol! Its more fun for me to watch, haha.

I do an exercise with my Alphas where you stand with your feet in a V. Then you push out skating leg (like 4 inches) but don't lift the freeleg and then pull it back in. You do the push out and pull back like three times slowly and then you actually push off into a stroking position. It reinforces that you should leave your blade on the ice and not flip the heel up and push with the toe.

There's toepick pushing and toepushing and toepushing exists in hockey,it's just harder to see.
On a hockey circle, glide forward on LFO edge. Bring right foot beside the left, in a turned out position as much as they can go and step on that foot and push away from that circle. To be able to get off the first circle and onto the next requires knee bend and butt involvement. Don't worry about trying to stroke the length of the ice, it's just an exercise for the position of the feet during a stroking push. It's a moving T-push on a figure 8, did I say figures

I like that one - going to try it right away! I too have used all of the methods that kayskate has outlined, and still have kids who toe push. One thing that I've noticed is that kids who have rollerbladed before ever ice skating do not toe push. I wonder if it would work retroactively. BTW, this is a problem that all coaches struggle with. I know a very experienced, very high level Russian coach who has the same problem with some of his little ones. I think there is no single cure, we just have to keep plugging away at it and keep trying new methods when we find them.

__________________

Does bending forward at the waist or having the arms too far forward exacerbate toe pushing? If so, maybe those are things to look for if a student keeps toe pushing despite doing many different "anti-toe-pushing" exercises?

__________________
Ask me about becoming a bone marrow donor.
http://www.marrow.org
http://www.nmdp.org

We were taught that you put your feet in a V position and pushed from there; the turning out to push came later. We were also taught that if your toes turned in, you would go backwards; if they were turned out, you would go forwards.... it works! Very little flow, of course, but that came later.

__________________
Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Great exercise. Will try this coming wk. Thanks!
I do not know if roller blading would work retroactively, but I have thought of trying it w those kids who really need help and are serious about skating. When I look back at my own skating, I started on quads w/o toe stops (old fashioned cheap street skates ca. 1973). You cannot toe push on those things. I don't think I ever had a prob w toe pushing on ice.

Kay

__________________
Visit my figure skating journal
http://www.skatejournal.com/

Realized today that it won't help with certain skaters. Little student today pushes foot in front without bending knee, then tries to get over the skate after it's out there. Lots of people do that - adults too, so that particular exercise will not work for them unless you can get that knee to stay bent - which is the task from H*ll.

Putting your feet in V position already gives you the turnout needed if you maintain that as you push. That's why we teach the V push.

__________________

In some of the exercises I outlined previously, I would get kids into a V position so they can push w the inside edge. When they actually push off, they turn their pushing foot in so they can dig the toe into the ice. This actually takes more effort than just pushing w the blade. IOW, they *don't* maintain it.

Kay

__________________
Visit my figure skating journal
http://www.skatejournal.com/

I'm going to try this with my daughter! Her toe pushing has improved, but she still does it from time to time. Her coach gets on her about it though.

Try having them make the push much smaller. I've found that the problem can be that they want to take this huge stroke that they aren't ready for. And since they don't have nearly the control or balance, they must anchor to the toe pick.

Demonstrate a super tiny little "baby push" and explain how much better that is than a ginormous push off the toe.

Funny story: I was teaching a pre-alpha class and explaining the V angle of the foot, and while demonstrating sliding the feet back and forth w/ no angle, I said "You don't want to do this, the Michael Jackson moon walk thing."

At the end of class I asked them to recall 3 things they learned.

A little girl raises her hand and says "Don't be like Michael Jackson."

I responded, "In more ways than one." Heh heh.

Tim

__________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
People dream of flying, birds dream of skating.

I liked all these ideas and will use them with my next LTS class tonight!!! Thanks!!

Tried the V push w 2 classes. Got some decent results w the better class. I will keep using this technique. The kids like to do it too.

Kay

__________________
Visit my figure skating journal
http://www.skatejournal.com/