Hello! I don’t know whether folk would be interested in my story of progression or just find it all a bit boring but here it goes, it may be of interest to other skaters at my level and will document my progress:
When I was 18 I used to have my own hockey skates and used to skate with no great skill at Hull Ice Arena for a bit. Then I got a bit older, moved away and stopped skating. I'm now 32 and as such my parents have long since thrown my Bauers out (I know!!!) but I've been going to Altrincham and now Widnes, using their rental skates for a bit and have totally caught the bug again.
I often look with envy at all the teenagers who skip effortlessly round the ice, dodging and weaving, backwards crossovers between unpredictable children and generally having a wicked time!
I used to roller blade as a kid and as such I seem to have an above average level of skating skill for a beginner. When I started back on the ice it usually took me perhaps 10-15 minutes and I was fully comfortable on the ice and skating forwards with confidence. So much so that I've decided to enrol in a 4 week lesson session at Widnes, which by the way, is actually pretty good value - £40 odd quid for four half hour sessions and the public skate afterwards.
On my first lesson (still using rental skates) I skipped straight through level 1 right onto level 2/3 and thoroughly enjoyed it. As such, I’ve gone out and bought some new hockey skates after being aggrieved at the rental skates!
Now a little about my skate buying experience:
In short, I have awkward feet. Both feet are different sizes and they are basically flippers – good for swimming. I went into Al’s Skate Shop in Deeside with a view to buying something akin to the Bauer NS skates as I read they were a fairly wide fit and were relatively inexpensive. I usually wear size 10-11 shoes so went in expecting to buy some size 10 skates. Got my feet measured and imagine my surprise when the girl in the shop brought out a pair of size 8.5s! Couldn’t believe it! I just have short, wide feet!
Tightened up the laces and stood up in them. Not at all convinced. They felt really “plastic-y” and definitely pinched in at the sides. They weren’t that far off, but felt wobbly round the ankles when done up tight and I had some real comfort concerns. I wasn’t really expecting to pay any more but I asked to try some other, wider skates, which ultimately meant paying more. A lot more.
So instead it was recommended that I try some Bauer Supreme S29s as the shape suited my foot more and I could get a wide double E fit. Put my feet in them and instantly felt 100% better. As such, I knew that if I went skating in the NS’s I’d have been in discomfort and annoyed at them. It was a lot more money but I got them sharpened there and then and also baked. Its perhaps a little OTT for a relatively new skater but I’d rather have confidence in them and feel comfortable than feel hesitant and unsure in ill fitting but cheaper NS skates. I’m pretty happy with my purchase and a quick note to say the girl in Al’s Skate Shop was brilliant the whole time, very helpful and really sorted me out.
Now back to my current progress, going by the 1-10 level skating thingy. I really wanted to have lessons to learn to skate properly, rather than just plod on my own and keeping up all my bad habbits when learning via youtube! Its still early days, so here goes my level by level summary, based on having had one lesson so far, and skipping level 1 as I was more than capable of it.
Level 1:
* Sit and stand on the ice: 100% - no problem here, I’ve fallen enough and am well practised at getting up!
* Moving forward on the ice: 100% - tick!
* Two foot glide and dip: 100% tick!
* Stepping around on the spot: 100% tick!
Level 2-3 (I’ve grouped these as the lesson was a mix of the two):
* Forward lemons: 50% - actually much more tricky than I first imagined to be but it totally opened my eyes to using my weight and bending my knees more to achieve forward motion, rather than simply throwing my feet forward in forward sweeps. I really haven’t mastered this yet. A particularly awkward bit of it is switching from the outwards step to bringing the feet back together again – I tend to lose most of the momentum at this switch point. Sometimes I can keep it going, but its really inconsistent. Needs more practise.
* Forward two foot glide on a curve left and right: 100% - no problem at all.
* Forward stroking: 30% - actually pretty hard. I don’t know why I tend to find this difficult. Keeping on foot straight and simply bending my knees to push the other foot out. For somebody who can happily speed round the ice forwards, its actually quite dumbfounding that breaking the technique down into the forward stroking is actually quite eye opening! I never got the hang of this seemingly simple thing, more effort needed. At this point I will note that it feels really weird, almost like my progress is going backwards given I can confidently skate forwards without any hitches!
* Forward one foot glide: 90% - both feet, wobbly at first but soon got the hang of this. Just gotta practise a bit more to be more confident. Again what was eye opening about my lack of skill was that I realised just how difficult it was to corner on a one foot glide, at speed. That needs more work.
* Backwards marching across the ice: 50% - OK I think looking back on this, I actually totally cheated! I didn’t use the technique the tutor taught us. Instead I reverted to a backwards weaving shimmy and was confidently across the other side of the rink before the rest in my class had gone 2 m. I was really surprised at my progress in this and by the end of the public skate I was able to skate backwards for long stretches at a time and even go round corners and avoid people. There is no doubt that I don’t have a great technique, but I can keep some decent speed and do forwards to backwards transitions – at a fairly decent speed – I need to practise this when increasing my speed – but my top speed for this is limited by my backwards speed! I can definitely feel like I can increase my backwards power to go faster but then I get the wobbles and have to slow down. One thing I haven’t really nailed though is the backwards to forwards transitions, for some reason this continues to perplex me a bit. Its basically the reverse of forwards to backwards but for some reason I can’t quite “get it”.
* Backwards two foot glide – 100% no problem with this.
That’s pretty much all the skills I have at the moment. A couple of areas that I need to learn soon, or are in the very early stages:
* Stopping: I urgently need to learn to stop confidently though, particularly as it will provide me with useful unpredictable child avoidance skills! I have tried the T stop, using the rental skates, but I can’t get the blade position right as I either dig in too much at the heel or toe and it spins me out a bit. Snow ploughs are kinda difficult for me as my feet naturally sit at about “five to two” on the clock face. I don’t generally find this much of an issue skating, but turning my feet inwards feels a bit unnatural. I haven’t attempted a snowplough yet. Hockey stops look the most fun, but they are a little off in the distance yet.
* Crossovers: I saw people doing this so looked it up on youtube and found out the that there was a term and it was called crossovers! Decided to have a bit of a go at it after my first lesson. I kinda get it when going anti-clockwise. Its sort of falling into it and letting your inside foot slide away. I’m at a very early stage with this and sort of started to understand this a little, completing one or two awkward crossovers. A long way to go with this. Clockwise is much further behind in progress – I think because of the anticlockwise rink rotation rules.
So a bit of a long read – but I’m hoping in my next lesson that I can be taught properly to stop and further improve my lemons. What has dawned on me is that keeping momentum by just shifting your weight it crucial. When I see advanced folk just shifting across the ice effortlessly, they don’t seem to be putting in giant foot glides to “sprint forwards” and gain speed like I have to. So I’ve come to the basic conclusion that they are simple being really efficient in transferring their weight and momentum directly to their skates to provide good acceleration. Food for thought.