Vinnie Langdon: How To Ice Skate For Beginners

Hi, I'm Rick Durburg from Rick's Outdoor and one thing I love more than camping and fishing is ice skating and we're here at Vacaville Ice Sports in Vacaville so we can teach you how to ice

skate

from start to finish. that you can come ice skating with me hey, welcome to Ville Ice Sports, how are you? I'm okay, when you first get to the ice rink, you have to decide what type of ice

skate

you're going to order and there There are basically two types of ice skates, there are figure skates and there are hockey skates, what's the difference? between the two?

There is not much difference between hockey skates. They have a radio. If we inflated this and made it larger, this section of the sheet would be a large circle. If we were to enlarge this section of the figure skates, this section of the blade would also be a very large circle, the only difference is the toe box. If you've watched any kind of ice skating television, you know all about toeing. the toe is only used to do assisted toe jumps, we won't go that far in this episode, so you have the option to choose between figure skates or hockey skates.

Another thing to point out that will be very important later is the leaf and we will see a close-up of this leaf. You'll notice that it's not just one edge, there are actually two edges, there is an inner edge and an outer edge, and when they are sharpened, they will actually sink. in the middle when you're skating, you don't want to skate with the skate facing up, you're going to want to skate with the inside edge or the outside edge and we'll cover it a little bit more when we go out on the ice. When you're lacing your skates, it's very important to start at the tip and make sure everything else is loose, pull them together, and while holding one lace, go to the next highest lace, pull on it, and then pull on the one behind it. up, pull the one behind you to always keep the laces you've already tightened, tight, gradually go up from the toe to the ankle when you get that far, most of the top skates have hooks to keep them tight. around the hooks, if you have custom skates like these you may also have a tongue hook so make sure you go around that too, hold them tight all the way to the top and then take them off, make sure you don't have If you have custom skates, You'll also want to put on blade guards.

If you have rental skates, you don't need to worry about this, but with custom skates like these you'll want to keep them as sharp as possible. as much as possible okay let's hit the ice one thing that's very important before you jump on the ice if you're wearing skate guards make sure you take them off if you step on the ice and you have the ice your skate guards are on . You will fall on your back, every lesson starts at the wall and when you go to an ice rink you will see a lot of people hugging the wall.

You can get to the wall, but we want you to get out on the ice. as quickly as possible, so we start on the wall, learn the skill, then go out on the open ice and look like we know what we're doing. The first thing I want you to do is start to feel a firm grip on your swords. On a wall he plants a blade in the ice. I want you to slide it back and forth and I want you to feel the ice grip the edge of the blade. Do it only on your inner edge back and forth when you feel that. solid grip now turn around stick your other blade into the ice back and forth back and forth I want you to feel where the edges of the blades are because the blades are what dig into the ice and if your blades are stuck in on good, firm ice, you won't be as afraid and you'll skate much better and you'll have a lot more fun, okay, back and forth, back and forth, on the other side, back and forth, back and forth and back again, now we have To take that skill and do something else with it, the first skill you need to learn is twizzle.

With the twizzle, you separate the skates and let them slide back together. Separate the skates, let them slide together again. to show you how to do it and I want you to try it. Separate them. Let them slide back. Basic swizzle, pull the skates apart, put them back together, put them back together, then you can do it with one side and keep the other straight. Notice I'm pushing one side out while keeping the other side straight out and what's happening. I'm going in a circle, if I do it the other way around, I push one out, keep the inside straight, so it's very important to start with the basic movement, spread them apart, let them come back together, separate, come back together later if you can , move forward like you separate them, let them come back together, you can skate backwards doing the same thing and if you can do that, then you can skate backwards in a circle just like you did forward, but first separate them, put them back together, separate them , put them back together as soon as you hit the ice for the first time you ice skate I want you to go around and around and around separate your skates let them come back together push them apart and put them back together well so that sooner or later you will have been practicing the Swizzle around the ice rink.

You're going to fall, that's the next basic skill you need to learn. Joe is going to help me and she will be my student, so do what I tell you. I have it first. Now you must put one foot in front of you. you need to transfer all your weight to this foot, but keep this toe stuck in and lift your body with just the muscles of this leg when you stand up, put your feet together, you're ready, yeah, come on, it works, it works, it works next. maybe we should explain how stopping when you're ice skating is similar to skiing all you need to do is put your toes together and push your heels outwards it's really critical to push your heels outwards if you just put your toes together your skates go to cross you're going to break your leg, okay, I'm going to skate towards you, I'm going to push my heels out, push my heels out, it should scrape the ice slightly, maybe one side will scrape a little more than the another one okay we'll do it again with our toes together and stick our heels out it looks a little funny it feels a little funny but it's the easiest way to stop once you go a little further then we can start moving into T-stops and hockey stops good, so now you know how to twizzle, you know how to get up and you know how to stop, go practice oh.