Jada Solo Dances

Welcome back to adult basic skills! Are you learning how to skate or picking it back up as an adult? Take a look at my basic 1 post to make sure you have those skills mastered.

If you’re here, you’ve mastered forward swizzles and you’re ready to move across the ice with some spunk. Adult basic 2 skating skills are crucial to your building blocks as an ice skater no matter your sport or discipline. One-foot skating and turns are skills you will use at every level of your journey! Watch the video above and save this post for your reference. Happy skating!

1. Forward skating across the width of the ice

For this skill we’re going to go over scooter pushes. We’re gonna start with our feet in a T position with one foot’s instep behind the heel of the other. Bend both of your knees, keep your chest up, and you’re gonna push your back foot behind you. You should feel your blade almost snag against the ice when you push off. These don’t have to be long pushes—you’ll learn proper stroking technique in level 3. Just practice shifting your weight from two legs to one leg with that pushing motion

2. Forward one-foot glides, R and L

Pick your favorite forward skating movement to gain some speed. Stand in a 2 foot glide, then slowly lift one of your legs up. Try to get your boot to the ankle of the other skate for stability. You want to make sure your free hip is higher than your skating hip. Don’t worry if you can’t do this well immediately. These are new muscles that haven’t had the chance to work yet. See how long you can hold this glide for—shoot for 3 seconds.

3. Forward slalom

Two feet on the ice for the rest of the video! For this skill we’re going to pretend to be skiiers down a mountain. Let’s start at the wall. Stand with your feet parallel, and bend your knees so that your left foot is on a slight outside edge and the right foot is on a slight inside edge. Straighten your knees. Then bend again but this time the opposite. Practice going back and forth from outside edge to inside edge, outside to inside, left and right.

Taking this across the ice, let’s pretend we have some kind of obstacles in the way. Gain some speed, 2 foot glide, and bend your knees just like we did at the wall. Your skates should switch directions a little every time you bend your knees again. It might look less dramatic than mine…maybe like this?

4. Backward skating

We’re finally going to start working backwards! I teach backward wiggles to new skaters, so that’s what we’re gonna do. Now going backwards requires you to lean a little forwards on your blades which is completely counterintuitive, I know. So bend your knees a little bit but now lean just slightly towards the balls of your feet. Let’s do the twist! This might feel familiar to the forward slalom we just went over. You can also try to do this from a running start by pushing off of the boards. Notice how when I’m twisting, I’m basically wiggling my butt and bouncing in my knees.

5. Backward swizzles (4-6 in a row)

These should be a piece of cake! Remember the rocking horse from the last video? Same thing, only now we’re actually traveling across the ice. Hold that pizza position, lean forwards a little bit, and bend your knees to have your heels meet each other. Once they meet, lift up in your knees, move your toes together, and repeat!

6. Two-foot turns in place

Okay last skill of the day! We’re going to start with our arms out in an L shape. Twist just your torso and up to the left or counter clockwise and bend your knees. This next part is complex. As you straighten your knees, you’re going to want to snap your lower body to meet your upper body, basically undoing the twist you just created. But we’re not staying there because now we need to check the turn. Don’t worry about what checking means yet. Just know that we’re finishing the turn by creating a twist in the other direction. We’ll learn how to turn while moving next time, but this is what you have to look forward to.

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Please note that I am unaffiliated with US Figure Skating in the capacity to deliver programming virtually, and all posts using their content are available for me to use as a US Figure Skating member and protected under Fair Use.