Skating Lessons: Session Two
I attended my my second skating lesson on Sunday and I can already feel improvements. My goal is to feel comfortable that I know what I should be doing, though after only five sessions I’m expecting that I may not be strong at executing. In my first lesson the biggest item I realized needed work was my stops. Trying to stop was my biggest reason for falling, and my number one thing to improve on in my second session.
I was happy to see that I absolutely was improving. I was feeling confident in my stops and could really feel my skates grip the ice when I set my edges for a stop. Feeling good that I was improving I asked the instructor to show me what I needed to know for the next two skills I wanted to work on; crossovers and backwards skating.
Skating backwards is much harder than I expected. Trying to isolate my feet so that they aren’t working against each other is my biggest challenge. When I try to get one leg to push, my other leg tends to do the opposite motion. Pretty much making me spin or nearly split. My instructor had me work on some backward swizzles, where both legs push out together to propel you backwards, so I could start feeling how the edges work backwards. This got me moving, but is definitely not efficient. I will be working on isolating my pushing leg and keeping my balance leg lined up with my skating direction next session.
To end the lesson, my instructor taught me the basic crossover. The motion of the crossover is not as odd as I thought it would be. I definitely need to improve my balance, but the instructor said I picked up the basics pretty quickly. I will be adding the crossover to my warm-up skates and balance drills. I think I’ll be able to improve this one pretty easily.
All told it was another successful lesson. I’ve been enjoying this process and have already signed up for an adult beginner hockey clinic with the New England Senior Hockey League. The clinic starts in mid-June, so I’ve also signed up for another set of lessons at another rink so I can get more practice before I suit up to learn hockey. In a future entry I’m going to post some sites and videos I’ve found interesting, as well as some details about the clinics I’ll be doing to help inspire those who have wanted to start their own journey towards playing hockey.
