"Stroking isn't forward or backward, it's side to side." You don't push forward with the toe picks, you push forward with the side of the blade. To get a feel for stroking, stand with your feet together, then slip one of your feet behind the other, and angled so the toe points out. Push with the side of the "behind" foot, and transfer all your weight to the "front" foot. Bring your feet together again, and do the same with the other foot. This will have you traveling forward on one foot, then the other, on the inside edge.
Your arms should be out to the sides, relaxed, and your hands should be palms down and about waist level. Later on, to add finesse, extend the pushing leg behind you as much as possible at the finish of each stroke. You should extend your leg with the entire edge in contact with the ice and don't pick your foot up. Just let the leg extend until it's no longer on the ice. You should feel the strain in your buttocks muscles. Once the leg is lifted, the free leg should be straight and the toe of the free skate should be pointed.
When you first start skating backwards it is very difficult to watch where you are going. Get a friend to skate beside you and watch for you. Later on, when you don't have that escort, ALWAYS watch where you are going!
1) Start by pushing off the boards. Just a gentle shove, then coast until you feel secure with the general idea. A helmet isn't a bad idea, by the way!
2) Get your posture/balance right - your body should be upright, chin up, with your knees bent - if you normally lean forward while skating, this will seem like leaning backwards. If you do lean forward or let your head/eyes drop you'll find yourself scraping your toe picks.
3) Get your feet at a normal track width - not necessarily clicking heels, but less than shoulder width. Many skaters let their legs spread out when they feel insecure, but you can't "stroke" from that position.
4) At this point try to keep yourself moving with a "sculling" motion -- moving both feet out-in-out-in as if tracing coke-bottle curves.
5) Next, you need to get comfortable with gliding on one foot, so that you can be pushing with the other. Just pick up one foot - half an inch is fine - and glide on the other. This will require that you get the gliding foot centered under your weight! (see 2 above).
6) Finally, you are ready to stroke - just push one leg out and to the side while you glide on the other, then at the end of the stroke, pick up that skate and set it back alongside the other. Alternate feet, and as you get the hang of it, you'll find that you can maintain and build speed.
7) Expect it to take a while for you to get comfortable, just try a little backwards action each time you go out to skate. You also want to get in the habit of looking over your shoulder to see where you're going. Looking only at where you've been leads to surprises.
Cross-overs are much like walking sideways up a set of stairs. They are done on a circle and since you are moving, you will be leaning into the circle and will be stepping "up" into the circle. For both forward and backward crossovers, the skate on the outside of the circle crosses in front of your other skate.
If you are doing it correctly, like climbing stairs, you are sequentially transferring your weight to the inward (upward) skate, and then balancing on it as you swing the other foot into position for the next step. If your weight is not balanced on your skating leg then yes, you will lose your balance (but this isn't how it's supposed to work).
Try thinking of it this way: All of your body's weight should be balanced over the tracing. What you are doing in crossovers is changing which foot is carrying your weight. You place the "new" foot under the center of gravity, and push the other foot out of the way.
Suggestions for cross-overs are:
1) DO lean into the circle
2) shoulders are NOT square to the trace or arc, they are turned INWARD towards the center of the circle and the arms should extend along the line of the shoulders.
3) knees should be well bent the entire time
4) don't raise up between strokes, stay down
5) for freestyle, a good crossover is deep with legs crossing above the knees; for dance, crossovers should be more shallow.
6) strokes on both feet are power strokes, done with a clean edge leaving the ice. (On forward cross-overs it may be helpful to think of pushing with the heel of the inside foot in order to alleviate the common problem of scraping your toe pick.)
7) definitely all strokes are with edges.
BASIC RULE: You don't turn a 3. You get everything into the right position, and the 3 TURNS ITSELF. YOU are not the agent. Physics is.
Posture is a key element in 3-turns. Your body must be upright and centered over your skating foot. Looking down during the turn spells trouble. Your head is heavy, and if you look down or lean forward, you are putting weight into the circle, which will pull you off balance and into the circle.
If the 3-turn scrapes, it usually means you are forcing the turn with your hip.
How-to for forward 3-turns (turn from forward to backward):
1) A 3-turn is always done on the arc of a circle. At the beginning of the turn, rotate the upper body so that your shoulders and chest are parallel to the arc of the circle and facing toward the center of the circle, and your arms are extended along the arc of the circle itself. Your head faces the direction of motion. Your free foot is close to the skating foot and over the tracing. Keep your legs in this position relative to each other throughout the turn (if they are touching as you start the turn, they should be touching in exactly the same way at the end).
2) Remember the pre-check. And remember that the check consists of BOTH having the forward arm forward AND having the back arm BACK. The back arm should be rotated to the point where you can feel the pinch between your spine and your shoulder-blade. The check isn't strong enough if it doesn't hurt a little.
3) Remember down-up-down. It is absolutely critical. Before the 3-turn your weight should be back on your blade (not on the tail, but at the back of your instep. When you lift UP on the knee, your weight rocks toward the toe. When you finish your 3, the weight rocks back again. Step into the turn on a deeply bent knee, lift UP at the point you want to turn, and sink down again after the turn. The UP does 2 things: It reduces the weight on your blade, making the turn possible, and it rocks your weight from under/behind your instep to closer to the toe, reducing the amount of the blade that is on the ice
4) Don't think about turning at all. Get your upper body into position (rotated) and hold the lower body, complete with feet) unrotated. Your body is like a spring, in which the upper end is twisted, but you haven't let the lower end follow. Then release the spring by releasing the lower body/feet/legs (while rising UP) to allow the lower body to rotate to match the upper body. The lower body will do this ON ITS OWN without your turning anything. If you think about turning, you will force the turn and it will scrape. Try this: Step into a FO edge for a 3 turn. Skating knee bent. Rotate your upper body to a strong position. Rise UP on the skating knee. Don't think about turning at all. MAGIC! You turned anyway! AND, because you weren't thinking about turning, the 3 was not over-rotated.
5) After the turn keep the free arm over the tracing.
Don't fall into the bad habit of looking at your tracing after the turn!
How do ice dancers do those lightning fast three turns? Actually, dancers' threes are supposed to be done with as little body motion as possible. The shoulders are rotated into position and held still through the turn. The hips rotate 180 degrees in a flash if the shoulders are rotated adequately. The hard part isn't holding the edges or checking the turn, but ensuring that the body posture and foot location is perfect. If they are, then all that moves is the hips and the skate, causing very little check to be needed and very little recovery at all. If posture is not correct, the turn requires more energy.
The thing to keep in mind is that the skater moves their body, and as long as the skates are on an edge, the ice moves the skates -- therefore as you move faster on the ice, the skates just kind of follow along. Turn your body and your skates will follow!
In forward three turns, you do the "up" part of your down-up-down at the cusp of the turn on the toe (or just before the toe) of your blade. In backward threes the weight starts off forward, then is rocked back, and then forward again. It doesn't take much. Just consciously touch the top of your boot with your toes.
While you don't want to be so far back on the heel that you fall backwards (really unpleasant), you cannot accomplish back threes with your weight on the forward part of your blade. If you are sitting back appropriately on a nice edge, this will sort of make itself happen.
For backward 3-turns:
-- Hold the free foot in front of and over the skating foot, so that the blade is right over the seam of your skating boot. This keeps your weight over the skating foot instead of somewhere out to the side, and will thus make you less likely to have to put your foot down after the turn.
-- BEND YOUR KNEE (the skating knee) and sit on it.
-- Get solid on a good back edge, from crossovers, or swizzles, or whatever, then turn your entire upper body outside the circle (back faces the center of the circle), and look back over your shoulder to where you will be going. The object of this is to get all those extraneous body parts ALREADY into the position they will be in following the turn, so that when you turn, you only have to worry about the stuff below your waist.
-- before the turn, make sure your thighs are touching. Feel the relationship between them. During and after the turn, don't let that relationship change. They should remain touching through the turn, and at the end of the turn, they should still be touching, and your free blade should still be suspended above the seam of the toe of the skating boot.
-- deepen the edge, by remembering the down-up-down. the first "down" deepens the edge, and aims your heel into the circle. The "up" lightens the blade and lets the turn happen. the second "down" settles you onto your forward edge.
-- do it to music -- a waltz may be best, but whatever is on the PA system is better than nothing. this helps you even out the mechanics, and not wait too long on one stage, or hurry any other stage too much.
-- don't bend at the waist. Keep your abs under control and your torso upright.
-- CHECK following the turn. Remember that in the turn, your lower body just turns under the upper body, and the upper body should be almost unaffected by what happened below your waist. Keep your arms along the tracing, and don't let them swing around following the turn. You may found that the easiest approach when learning BO3s is to do swizzles in a circle, then pick up the outside foot, get into position, then turn. For BI3s, you may find it easier to do a FO3, then step/push to the other BI edge, as if you were doing consecutive BI edges, and do the 3 from there. This is how these appear in 3s in the Field, and the sort of push you get to the edge brings the free foot into the proper position all by itself.
|
