Players starting to play Youth Hockey can practice their skating skills right at home.

Skating requires balancing on one leg and this can be practiced at home.

Understanding your body’s center of gravity and its tipping point is key.

When this is learned, as to how far you can bend in one direction without falling, it will help you stay in an up-right skating position.

Balancing Exercises:

You can practice your skating technique with balancing exercises at home.

Try standing on one leg with your shoes on, or in your bare feet.

When you get really good at balancing on one leg, you can try it in your skates,

on a carpeted floor.

Balance on one leg:

Make sure your knee is bent or flexed slightly forward; now try to keep your balance.

Try to bend slightly at the waist: forward, and side-to-side without falling.

Discover your full range of balance; this knowledge will help both your skating stability to remain up right and your bending agility for playing hockey without falling.

Skating stance and Shifting your weight:

In your start skating position your feet should be hip width to shoulder width apart, both knees flexed forward all the times so they protrude forward beyond your toes.

Never lock your knees or skate straight legged.

Bend at the waist about 45 degrees with your head leaning slightly forward.

Now lift one foot up off the floor about 2 to 4 inches for only a few seconds, and shift your body weight to your standing leg, keeping your balance and remaining in a semi up-right standing position on one leg.

Note: Parents should be close by to prevent your young child from falling.

Practice this every few seconds, lift one foot off the floor, shift your weight fromone leg to the other, keeping your balance then shift to the other leg.

Try this for a couple of minutes to get the feeling of the rhythm of skating.

This might take some practice for younger kids 5 to 6 years old to keep their balance.

Knees must remain flexed forward at all times.

That’s all Skating is, basically shifting your weight from one leg to your other leg while taking short strides or steps at the beginning of the skating stroke.

You then increasing them to longer strides or steps as you start moving forward or backward.

Now practice pushing outward with the stroke leg skate and glide forward with your on ice skate to develop a smooth “stroke” and “glide” skating movement.

Skating is simply a series of stroke and glide on one foot, stroke and glide foot movements.

These two movements can be practiced at home in shoes or in skates.

To Skate Forward:

Push your stroking blade's inside edge into the ice, pushing it outward and backward like the letter “C.”

Power comes from your upper leg, down through your knee, then calf and anklefinally pushing outward through the ball of your foot.

Push the skate outward to its full extension of 180 degrees.

You should reach your top skating speed after about 4 to 5 skating strokes.

Your other skate, the glide skate, and the one supporting your body weight will glide smoothly forward for a few feet then it becomes the stroking skate.

Remember, keep your knees bent on both legs at all times.

This alternating stroke and glide foot movement while shifting and balancing yourbody weight from one leg to the other creates forward or backward motion.

The faster you move your feet, the faster you move forward or backward.

After you have conquered the forward skating skills you will want to start developing your stops, starts, strides, turns, breakaway speed and

180-degree pivots from forward to backward or backward to forward.

All of these skating skills will be required to become a very good hockey player.

To become an even better skater or hockey player, I suggest you go general skating every chance you can, or play shinny hockey as often as possible on a frozen river, pond, backyard rink or municipal outdoor rink to develop your skating & hockey skills.

And should you fall learning to skate, and most beginners will, shake it off and get right back up and start over again. I highly recommended you wear a hockey helmet and a thick pair of gloves for added safety when learning to skate on ice.

Some Community arenas have aluminum learn to skate devices that you can hold on to.

These will help you from falling and are designed to keep you in an upright skating position.

They also provide enough foot room to allow you to develop your stroke and glide correctly.

Start skating from a standing or stopped position:

To begin skating from a standing or stop position, turn your skates outward in a

“V” formation to about a 45-degree angle for each skate.

Make sure both knees are bent and protrude over your toes.

Bend at the waist with head leaning forward.

Now push one skate outward and backward to your legs full extension like the letter C.

Then it’s the other skates turn to push outward and backward using it’s inside edge.

Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke using alternating feet as there is no glide when starting from a stopped or standing position.

This is sometimes called a 4 Stroke Start and will get you moving forward in a hurry.

Most Coaches consider skating to be the single most important skill to learn and master for all young hockey players wanting to play well or get to the next level.

Practice makes perfect and will improve your skating skills I guarantee it.

Taking Power Skating classes is another option for learning to skate but can be expensive.

Best of luck with your skating development and I’m sure with practice, it will improve dramatically.

John Shorey

Author - “Hockey Made Easy”

www.HockeyMadeEasy.com