Must-Learn Skills for Beginner Figure Skaters

Hey, it's Stace here from Next Step Tutorials. In today's lesson, I'm going to be showing you all the skating elements that every figure skater should learn first. So I get so many skaters that contact me saying, hey, Stace, I am a recreational skater. I love getting on the ice, skating around on public sessions, but what elements do I do after just gliding around forwards? Well, in today's lesson, I'm going to show you five elements that you can insert into your next session. So let's start with element number one. So the first element we're going to start with is stroking. And what I mean by that, we are getting comfortable just pushing to our left foot and our right foot. So we're going to go arms up. We're going to always bend our knees. We're going to go push, together, bend, push, together, bend, push, together, bend, push, together. So there's a difference between what you might be doing, which is this here, or maybe just a little bit of feet on the ice. And then I want you to focus on that bend and push, bend and push, bringing those feet together, re-bending in the ankles, and pushing off, bend and pushing off. Now let's go back down the ice. I'm going to pull up in my upper body. I'm going to bend and go push, together, bend, push, together, bend, push, together, bend, push, together, push, together, push, together. And with this, you can go around the rink as much as you want. So again, pulling up through our upper body, bending our knees, pushing to that foot, bringing the feet together, bend and push. Now the next element we're going to be looking at is forward swizzle. So when we do a forward swizzle, we want to start with our heels together, turning our feet out, pressing on our inside edges. So we're going to go arms up. We're going to bend, push, and accelerate forwards, and bring those toes back together. Then again, heels together, bend, press, accelerate forwards, toes together. And with this one, you can start off where it's just a nice swizzle, meeting your feet together, stopping your body, going back to the heels and pushing forward again. And then when you get a little bit more comfortable with that, you can keep the flow going so you don't have to stop every single time. So it's going to look like this. So always arms up, bending and driving our knees over our toes, bending from our ankles, and we go pushing to our heels and rise. Then again, bend, press, and rise, bend, press, and rise. And let's go back again here. Turn the feet out, feel pressure, bend, press, and hold, bend, press, and hold, bend, press, and hold, bend, press, and hold. So just nice, easy forward swizzles. Again, just remember, you want to focus on pressing on our inside edges, pushing forward and trying to get that acceleration moving forward. So if you're enjoying this lesson, I want you to click on the link below in the description for your free PDF guide on the 90-day hassle-free plan. We have laid everything out for you so that you don't have to think for your first three months of getting started with skating. It goes over finding a local ice rink, getting a coach, enrolling yourself in skate school, getting equipment. It's just going to lay everything out for you. That way you don't have to think we've done it for you. So when you're ready, give it a click. All right, the next element that we're going to be looking at are pumps. A pump is very similar to a swizzle, but we just use the one leg over and over again. So it looks like this. So I'm going to pull up, I'm going to go right arm in front, left arm back, and I'm going to pump with my right foot. So I'm going to focus on the bending and then rising up. So right foot, we're going to go down inside edge, pull up, bend, press, and up, bend, press, and up. And you can see I'm engaging in my knee and ankle work. Now we're going to go the other way. So left arm in front, right arm back, bending, press away, and draw it up. Re-bend, push, and up, push, and up. And as you can see, you don't need a lot of ice to practice this. So if you find that a public session might be a bit busy, you can practice this exercise using just a bit of ice. But again, I want you focusing on the feet, pushing on that inside edge, drawing it up, re-bending, pushing out, and drawing up. Now, after you get that step down, we're going to take those same pumps and we're going to alternate them down the ice. So I'm going to start with my right foot. So I go right arm in front, left arm back. I'm going to bend, push with that right foot, draw it up. Now slice the arms down, and we're going to go the other way. Left foot pump, draw it up, slice, pump, up, slice, pump, up, slice, pump, up, slice, pump, up, slice. All right, now we're going to go back down the ice, but the difference is I'm going to do two pumps with my right, two pumps with my left. So I go right arm in front, left arm back. I'm going to go pump one, pump two, slice the arms, position. One, two, slice the arms, pull. One, two, stretch it up. One, two. Now a helpful tip that I want you to remember when doing pumps, make sure those feet come back together. So after you do this first pump, draw the feet in. Make sure it doesn't look like this because we're not using our power all the way. So feet come back together, pump out, draw it in, pump out, draw it in. Okay, now the next element is going to be backwards skating. And what we're going to do when we do backwards skating, we're just going to learn how to transfer our weight from one foot to the other while gliding backwards. So we're not going to get too fancy with the swizzles or the pumps right now. It's going to be about weight transfer, going from one foot to the other, one foot to the other. And you can see my body. I get my weight over the right, over the left. Push, press, push, press, push, press, push, press. Now, if you don't feel comfortable yet picking up your feet, that is perfect because you're going to keep your feet on the ice. And I'm going to show you how to do this. And what we're going to do is just work on that leaning, leaning because it's all a feeling and getting confident and comfortable with this backwards skating. So the very first thing that we're going to also do is make sure no one's behind us. So I'm going to check, okay, no one's behind me and I'm going to just keep my feet on the ice, but move them and transfer. So here, here, little lean, little lean. And then, okay, I'm getting a little bit more comfortable. You can start picking up, pick up those feet. Backwards skating is one of those things, whenever you're on a session, people are like, oh my gosh, you can skate backwards. It takes a bit of time, but just remember, transfer your weight from one foot to the other. If you don't feel comfortable picking up your feet, just get that lean going on while skating backwards and please make sure no one is behind you. So you don't run into them. All right. Our last element that we're going to be looking at is stopping on the ice. Now, a lot of times in public skating, I'll see skaters either drag their foot or they'll slam into the barrier or they'll just fall over. We want to be able to stop effectively. Now, what does that look like? The first thing that I want you to do when we're stopping is I want you to go to the barrier. I want you to go feet parallel. I want you to bend your knees and I want you to push those feet out and then walk your feet back in. Bend and push out. You want to think about taking a very thin layer of ice off when you focus on that stopping. Now, I've had a lot of skaters that say I feel more comfortable pushing my right foot out. Perfect. Or left foot out. So when we take this stop off the barrier from here, you might find that you have one foot that you like more and that's okay. I want you to think about arms in front of your body. So you're going to push, bend your knees, and then try to push your feet out and hold. Now, don't go too far out with your feet because you don't want to wind up in a split, but just enough to where you can stop your feet and feel stable. So we're going to go pushing, bend, and stop. Good. Now, let's go back the other way. A little bit of speed. Now, here's my bend. Now, think about taking a thin layer of ice off, hold. And again, bend and press out. Now, after you finish the stop, try to just pause that position. Okay, I've come to a complete stop. Now, walk your feet back in. Arms up, pushing, bend, slowly push those feet out, hold, and walk your feet back in. Remember with stopping, try not to be sharp and aggressive because that's where a fall could happen, where you just push your foot out too fast and that body weight will keep going and you'll have an unnecessary fall. So think about just taking your time, bending, push those feet out, pause, and then walk them back together. Now, as a fun little bonus, we're going to put all these elements together. That way you can start practicing them and make your practice more enjoyable. Now, I'm going to start this little sequence backwards. So I'm going to go. Okay, no one's behind me. Arms up, transferring that weight, bending and pressing. Good. Now, we're going to turn forwards. I'm going to lift my arms up and I'm going to start that stroking, bending and pushing, transferring the weight. Now, swizzles, bend and rise, bend and rise, bend and rise. Now, hear those pumps. Pump, together, slice the arms. Pump, together, slice the arms. Pump, together, slice, pump, together. And then we're going to do our stop, bend, push those feet out, pausing, walk your feet back in. And that's how we start connecting elements. Like you could go down the ice doing stroking all the way down, then come back the next side with just swizzles. Then we can go maybe two swizzles, two pumps, two swizzles, two pumps. So you can get so creative with skating when you start learning different elements. All right, that concludes our lesson today. These are the elements that every figure skater should start with on their figure skating journey. Now, hopefully you've enjoyed it. If you have any questions about anything, Mitch and I are here for you. So just leave a comment. You can message us on Instagram, on Next Edge, and I will do my best to get back to you. But just remember, take your time, enjoy skating, have fun with it. Invite your friends to public skating, get involved. It's a wonderful hobby to start. Thanks for watching Next Edge Tutorials and looking forward to seeing you in our next lesson.