Learn to Skate Click on one of the badges for a description of what is involved
Learn How to Skate
Just about anyone, young or old, large or small can learn to skate. You do need a certain degree of physical fitness, but as long as you are still able to jog a little, you can certainly learn to skate.
A Bit About Edges Ice skating is performed on the ‘Edges’ of the ice skate blades, and many references are made to these edges in the following paragraphs. It will help if you know what we mean by this.
A properly honed ice skate will have a concave groove cut into the base of it, giving you two distinct ‘Edges’ in contact with the ice. These are known as the inside edge (the one closest to you big toe) and the outside edge (the one closest to your little toe).
Posture
By far the most important thing to get right from the outset is your posture. Get this wrong and nothing else will work. For figure skates, you should have your knees bent, your body upright, chest out and you head up. The weight should be over the instep of your foot, not the toes, or the heels. This is true for both forwards and backwards skating. Imagine a straight line going from the top of your head, through your neck and shoulders, down through your hips, and finishing at your feet, just in front of your heels. The only part that doesn’t sit on this line is your knees, as they should be slightly bent. Make a point right from the beginning of trying not to slouch forwards from the waist, or tip your head forwards. You may be able to get by to start with like this, but none of the more advanced moves will work and you will find yourself having to unlearn this bad habit before you can move on! You should always be able to twist your upper body 90’ clockwise and anticlockwise without throwing yourself off balance. Skating with Hockey skate blades is a little different, you need to keep your weight further to the front of these blades, as the lack of a tail at the rear makes them less forgiving if you get your weight too far back. On the plus side, you have no toe pick to worry about on hockey skates.
The Basics So you’ve got you boot fitted correctly, the blade isn’t blunt and you are ready to venture onto the ice for the first time. The first thing you will notice is that the ice is VERY slippery. Don’t’ worry, you soon get used to it. Just track round the edge a few times allowing yourself small gentle glides between steps. try to extend the glide each time, and have your hand near the rail just in case. Concentrate on keeping your weight slightly forwards as you move. If you weight goes too far back you will find yourself unexpectedly sitting on the ice nursing a sore bottom. With figure skates, don’t lean over the skates, try and stay as upright as possible, with you knees slightly bent. Be careful not to let you ankles bend sideways. The skate should meet the ice upright. You will see many newcomers to the sport skating with their blades at almost a 45’ angle. This is not right!!! Don’t let it happen to you! As your confidence builds and your feet learn how to react you will be able to move away from the edge. You probably have your feet set too wide on the ice to help your balance, so practice bringing your feet closer together. When you feel comfortable completing one or more circuits of the rink without touching the support rail, you will need to learn how to stop on ice skates. There are many obstacles on a busy ice rink, people crossing your path, falling over in front of you, skating in groups so being able to stop quickly and in control is a vital skill if injuries are to be avoided! There are several methods you can use to stop when ice skating, some of them are easy to learn, some will take a little time. We will start with the easy ones
HOW TO STOP ON ICE SKATES
Drag stop
Although not officially recognised as a stop, the simplest skill for a beginner to learn is the Drag Stop. It simply involves letting one foot trail behind the other, turning the blade sideways so it lies flat on the ice and applying pressure to the back blade so it ‘drags’ you to a stop. Start with the skates well apart to help your balance, and as you improve try and bring the trailing (braking) skate closer to the leading skate.
Snow Plough and Half Snow Plough
Slightly more difficult to learn is the snowplough stop. It is very similar to the stop used in Skiing where both skis have the toes pointed inwards and the heels outwards, so they form a V Shape. In skating you need to bend your knees a little and push your heels out so the blade skids along the ice instead of gliding. The difficult part to begin with is getting one of the blades to cease gliding and skid sideways on the ice. This is particularly true if your skates are sharp or the ROH is too deep. Most people find it easier to let just one skate scrape, while the other one continues to glide. This is called the Half Snowplough, as only one skate is doing the braking. Practice taking the weight off one skate slightly and pushing the heel of that skate outwards. As long as you keep the pressure off it should begin to skid on the ice. Which skate you use depends on which one you personally feel most comfortable gliding on. It doesn’t necessarily follow that if you are right handed your right skating leg will be strongest! Many right handed skaters, myself included, prefer the left leg for skating. Now staying close to the side, work on applying more pressure to the braking skate, trying to maintain a straight line. As you get better at it, you will find you can bend your knees a bit more more and sit back a little, and you will stop very quickly.
T Stop
The T stop is an advance on the drag stop above. The difference is that the OUTSIDE edge of the back blade does the braking, as opposed to the inside edge for the drag stop. The trailing skate must be kept close to the leading skate so it can be angled inwards slightly to bring the outside edge in contact with the ice. Careful though, don’t bring it too close or you could contact the tail of the leading skate and the result will not be pretty! The more you lean back now, the more the blade will cut in, and the greater the braking action will be. With practice you will be able to judge it accurately and come to a complete stop very quickly with this method.
Parallel stop, or Hockey Stop
Impressive, but very tricky for the beginner. You need to turn both skates sideways quickly to break the forward motion, then bend your knees and lean back, stopping very quickly in a shower of ice. To start with, it can be developed as an advance of the half snowplough stop. In much the same way as with the half snowplough, break the forward glide of one skate, but now put all your weight on the braking skate while you bring the other skate off the ice and place it back down parallel to the lead skate. Do this quickly and you will stop. Once you get the hang of this, you can try turning both feet together. You’ll need to be brave for this one, pick up some speed, then bend your knees a little more than usual. When you want to stop, quickly push up from your knees to take the weight off the skates and swivel your hips through 90’ so both the blades are sideways to the ice. (Your shoulders should still be facing forwards, it’s only your hips that swivel). Now let your knees bend again. Get it right and you will spray a shower of ice and stop very quickly. Get it wrong and you will find yourself flat on the ice trying hard not to swear! As its name implies, this stop is much better suited to hockey skates, as the narrower blade and shallower rocker make it easier to break the glide as the blade isn’t cutting quick so deeply into the ice as a figure skate blade.
Bad Habits Die Hard
Don’t let them get a hold in the first place!!! The best way to learn to skate is undoubtedly to take lessons from a qualified instructor right from the beginning. Most ice rinks have resident skating instructors who are qualified to take you from absolute beginner to competition standard (if you want to go that far!) in the most comprehensive way, either on an individual basis or as part of a group. Ask at your local rink to find out what is on offer.
The instructors will hold a National Ice Skating Association (NISA) qualification permitting them to instruct, and they will be working to a set agenda. As your skills improve you will be awarded merit badges from 1 to 10, 1 being the easiest. and 10 the hardest to achieve. Each badge requires the skater to master 4 separate tasks, each of these tasks having been carefully designed to lead you on to the next stage. Practice each task until it becomes second nature and don’t get disheartened if it takes a while. Just enjoy your skating and it will come right eventually. You can progress on further from here, but you must have individual coaching at these levels, so we will not be covering them here. Click on the picture of the badges on the left to see what you need to be able to do to achieve each level
Youtube, a superb skating resource
If you want to see what others are doing in ice skating (or anything else for that matter), and learn a little more about the sport, pay a visit to www.youtube.com . There is a wealth of informative videos here to help you at any level while you learn to skate, from the basics showing you how to stop on ice skates, to how to perform quad axels!
times allowing yourself small gentle glides between steps. try to extend the glide each time, and have your hand near the rail just in case. Concentrate on keeping your weight slightly forwards as you move. If you weight goes too far back you will find yourself unexpectedly sitting on the ice nursing a sore bottom. With figure skates, don’t lean over the skates, try and stay as upright as possible, with you knees slightly bent. Be careful not to let you ankles bend sideways. The skate should meet the ice upright. You will see many newcomers to the sport skating with their blades at almost a 45’ angle. This is not right!!! Don’t let it happen to you!
T Stop