New skater: Advice and tips?

So HIII everyone this is my first post )

So I am an extremely new skater I only started proper lesson a few weeks ago, and is only up to forwards crossovers ;; I am currently in the midst of convincing my mum to let me skate and extra 2 hours on top of my lesson so I can skate 4 1/2 hours every week. Since I was new I was wondering if everyone has any tips on like learning beginner moves ie I can not seem to get my forwards to backwards and giving myself huge bruises in the process, so yea feel free to leave some advice and tips thanks )

Private lessons help immensely, even if it's just once a week or even once a month. Your coach will tell you want you have to work on and remember when practicing by yourself, then you practice that until you get a good feeling with it. When just starting out even a competitive skater giving you advice can be a huge boost!
And they see things you don't even knew you did or didn't (like stretch your free leg, actually flex your skating knee, have a good posture).

Concerning beginner moves, or basic moves (not sure what the correct term would be, I'm talking about just standing on one foot correctly, being able to stand on your outside edge or inside edge, forward stroking, tree-turns) are very very important. And the basic moves are not easy at all, so don't worry if it doesn't comes natural at first, it will eventually, and most of the time a very small suggestion will help you a lot.

And yes, more time on the ice only helps as far as I know, during the season I'm at the rink from 9am till 5pm (with breaks, but mostly minimum 6 hours skating myself in total). But try to plan your time on the ice a little bit (also have fun of course ), as warmup I do forward stroking and crossovers for a solid hour, even olympic skaters spend a fair share of their time on ice doing forward stroking and basic steps (someone please correct me if I'm wrong).
Another hour I practice on steps and only then I advance to, for me, fun stuff such as jumps and spins.

Btw, forwards to backwards -> do you mean forward inside mohawk?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p-nKfrM2PU
Make sure you are standing straight, not bend forward. And how are you falling? Over your toe-pick?

This is from personal experience and what I remember from back when I started (I was 15 yo, 9 years ago), and everyone's different.

You are getting more ice time and private lessons, that is a great start!

My advice is as soon as you get off the ice from your lesson, write down what happened in the lesson, coaches comments, what you worked on, etc. Then when you practice on your own, review it before you go on the ice and each evening. Then you can go out with a practice plan to maximize your ice time.

If you can, each night do some stretches. My daughter got her splits back when she practiced them while doing homework.

Make sure to get to the rink early enough for a 10-15 minute off ice warm up. Make sure you have a speed jump rope in your bag all the time.

Have fun! If your rink offers very inexpensive opportunities like in-house competitions, and your coach asks you to sign up, sign up! It is fun and you can meet other skaters.

As a general rule of skating, keep your chest over your knees over your toes. That means you need to bend your ankles and press the front of your ankles into the laces of your boots. It also means you should push your chest forward a little while keeping your back arched. That will balance you over the balls of your feet and keep you from falling backwards.

Welcome to Goldenskate!

In addition to all the great advice of the previous posters, I would suggest some methods to organize your on-ice sessions to maximize what you "get done" with limited (and expensive) ice time:

- Decide what exactly you will focus on during the session. It should be a specific achievable goal like "spend 5-10 minutes to practice holding the edge like how my coach demonstrated", and NOT generic or rigid goals like "do 20 mohawks".

- Along with setting goals, also decide what makes that practice session successful. Be realistic. For example, "I felt better control of my mohawk. It's not perfect, but is a good improvement from last week. This is progress, so let me move on to practicing something else." Or, "I'm not getting it at all, so I need to work on this with my coach."

- If your rink has a rink-side mirror, be a Narcissist and watch yourself in the mirror! Or if possible, snap a video of something you're struggling with. Watching yourself skate lets you see what needs correction and helps your body awareness.

- Most skaters have their favorite warm-up routine to get their muscles warmed-up, coordinated and ready for learning new stuff. Work with your coach to come up with a warm-up routine suitable for your current level of skating.

Finally, to your question on tips on basic moves, I would add that it is important to pay attention to what your coach teaches you in terms of the placement of your arms, shoulders, waist, hips, knees, ankles, um, yes, the entire body. In particular, you'll learn a whole range of motion that may be foreign to a non-skater. (E.g. can you rotate your shoulders sideways 90 degrees until they are perpendicular to your hips? You need this for a well-controlled 3-turn.)

vlaurend said:

As a general rule of skating, keep your chest over your knees over your toes. That means you need to bend your ankles and press the front of your ankles into the laces of your boots. It also means you should push your chest forward a little while keeping your back arched. That will balance you over the balls of your feet and keep you from falling backwards.

Click to expand...

I totally second your comment. It took me a while to realize that when people say "bend your knees", they really mean bend your ankles and arch your back.