Thinking about Muscle Control...

[ONskater74]

"As a man thinketh, so is he"

As a learning skater I have so often found myself "fighting" and struggling for control, for balance. It seems to me that a comparison can be made to learning a second language. If walking, running, jumping is our native tongue physically speaking, then figure skating might be thought of a trying to learn a second language, with different rules of grammar, and different alphabets. Anyone who has tried learning a second language as an adult knows how difficult it can be to become "natural" and effortless in reading, writing, and speaking.
I feel that this "unnaturalness" I feel on the ice is like that. If I were to spend 12 hours a day on the ice in skates for the better part of 40 years I have no doubt it would be as natural to me as normal movement on land. As a child my whole control system for movement developed in shoes on dry land, the somewhat flexible apparatus of the nervous system was sort of synchronised to operate in that environment. That is why I slip and fall when I hit a patch of ice...
Jumping forward to the present, there seems to be a mental obstacle moreso than a physical one in terms of learning this new language. I feel as if it is not my physical body that is the limiting factor so much as it is a mental refusal to shift paradigms and fully embrace the body grammar of skating on ice. To give an example: In running around a corner we meet resistance at each step as our feet strike the earth, yet our momentum carries us forward over our anchored foot and we naturally swing the other leg ahead to catch ourselves and repeat the movement on the opposite foot. This is combined with a lean of the body in the direction of the turn.  In skating there is virtually no resistance, it is very slight, to our forward movement. The greater the lean the greater the resistance of the edge as the blade cuts deeper into the ice. So to accomplish a crossover, the swinging of the leg and the transfer of weight effectively we must have this resistance, and the only way we can do this is to lean into the turn. It is this leaning away from one's vertical axis, the reorienting of the body in relation to the visible horizon, that causes me to become overly tense and stiff. In actual fact to execute the movement well we must un-tense and in a word "soften" all through the body to be able to adapt to this new orientation of axis.  To me this is the challenge, to remain in a state of body-equilibrium or balance and allow the physical forces, so natural to us on land, to re-program our nervous system along multilingual lines. How is this to be done?

When I'm out skating, let's say doing back crossovers around a circle, the natural tendency is to emphasise the muscular effort required to execute the element. Arm and shoulder position is fixed, hands palms down, neck and head turned into the direction of travel, knees bent, etc etc. It is a whole lot of "effort" being wasted on an artificial rigidity of posture that looks and feels rather wooden and unnatural. The answer to this, some would suggest, is just ample repetition, do crossovers for 8 hours a day until you get it    Yet I wonder if there is a better way? If we take my theory that the single greatest obstacle for a beginning skater is mental, then would there be a technique we could apply, a mental process, we could use to re-program the control center from the core, rather than working from the outside in? It is like trying to translate land body mechanics into ice body mechanics and coming out with gibberish. We must somehow find a way to operate entirely in ice language. If we try to converse with each other in 2 languages we get chaos. Only when we speak the same language is the unity and understanding and real communication. And in the end all of the arts are about communication, and skating or dance is really an art when you boil it down. So where does this leave me? Well, if we have the mind control center giving the body a bunch of land-language commands on the ice, it is going to be an impossible situation: like an English tourist trying to order lunch in swahili.... you might get a tuna sandwich on whole wheat or you might get pickled goat kidneys. The language gap is insurmountable.

I think the first step for any skater has to be acquiring an understading of the body grammar of ice language. It is so different than land language, you almost have to toss everything you think you know and start from zero. The essence of movement in skating is glide, fluidity, and an almost complete lack of the stop-start friction-momentum tick-tock resistance that comes to us so naturally on land. The key to operating in this new paradigm with ease and grace seems to be abandoning the expectations we have, the dynamics to which we are accustomed on land, and use this potentially endless lack of resistance in the same way we use high resistance on land. The interruption of momentum on the ice is like stuttering is to speech, it is jerky, unattractive and hard to understand. Flow is allowing the body to un-tense, and to become naturalised in this new dynamic.

Of course to just relax the muscles would be to collapse on the ice   The challenge seems to be to maintain muscle control and strength necessary to movement while removing debilitating tension which is just wasted energy. The energy wasted on being overly tense in our body seems to indicate a need to isolate, to identify, and map out which areas of our body are useless feeders. Then to mentally relax them. It takes a lot of effort to isolate, for me anyhow, to allow my shoulders to be loose and free yet to support my whole weight multiplied numerous times over on one foot while gliding around a corner. I really have to think about it, like trying to compose a sentence in Latin even when I know what I want to say or at least the idea I wish to convey...it takes thought to arrange the verb, noun, object etc. graceful skating, like graceful elegant speech is largely a mental process in preparation and execution. Good pronunciation and inflection, vocal shading etc, is like execution of elements, choreography, flow, etc in that it is what other people see, the final picture for public consumption. It is what goes on within us beforehand that shapes these external components.

I think that visualisation, imagining ourselves executing a smooth crossover, or turn, or spin, or jump, is a useful tool, but in the end it nothing more than our imagination. if we lack the language to express our thoughts it will be cryptic and unintelligible to others. The mental aspect of learning to skate is I think a far more important aspect than has hitherto been appreciated. Of course the on-ice practice, lessons, repetition, drills, are essential, but I think a really great method of coaching would involve some totally off ice, in a chair looking at the blackboard, class time. The "Philosophy of Flow 101" 

[icedancer]

Are you taking lessons?

[JSM]

Skating is completely unnatural, and I find that the older I get, the more often I have to skate to maintain it.  I took a month off earlier this year due to injury, I feel like it took me three months to get the 'feel' of the ice back. 

My coach today told me to stop looking like I'm thinking my whole way through the pattern (working on moves).  I could only respond, "I AM thinking the whole way through the pattern!"  It's not natural yet, even after months of practice.

The best way to get better at skating, simply, is to skate.  Unfortunately, like most adult skaters, I have to work to make the money to afford to skate.  Otherwise I'm sure I'd improve much faster. 

[ONskater74]

"The best way to get better at skating, simply, is to skate. "

Are you saying that because you believe it be the absolute truth? Or are you saying it because you feel it is the only way? or are you saying that because everyone else says the same thing?

[fsk8r]

My coach once said you spend X years on dry land learning to walk and use your body there. Why on earth would you expect to happen instantly on a completely different medium? You need to learn to use your body differently.

[ONskater74]

You need to learn to use your body differently-----

Yes, this is what I'm getting at. Learning is essentially a mental process. Whether conscious or subconscious it is the brain that directs and coordinates what our body does. Not everything requires conscious thought to execute, like breathing, the pumping of the heart, organ function etc, and these are not learned. Skating must be learned. My whole train of thought is "Is there a method of learning superior to the present model?" Why do some people of seemingly equal physical ability learn at different speeds and achieve different levels of accomplishment all things being equal? I think the reasons are many.
My experience of contemporary coaching is having someone yell at you from the boards for 15 minutes. Not saying this is everywhere the same.  To devise a method of teaching which is safer, quicker, and relies less upon hammering ourselves on the ice to chip away mistakes, and more upon implanting correct thought patterns in the brain somewhat passively. Mind programming.  Yes, falls are inevitable. Yes, it is a gradual process. Yes, like any physical activity practice is essential. No argument there.

[SynchKat]

My whole train of thought is "Is there a method of learning superior to the present model?" Why do some people of seemingly equal physical ability learn at different speeds and achieve different levels of accomplishment all things being equal? I think the reasons are many.

I think the main reason people learn and achieve at different speeds is simply God given talent.  You can have two seemingly equal people and if one has talent they will be able to pick up skills more easily.  When I was a child learning to skate I started with all the other 5 year olds.  I started because my best friends was starting and I had to do everything she did.  I had no exposure to skating previously other than not letting my parents put skates on my feet.  My mom said she'd look out on the ice and I'd be being tested and moved up through the levels.  That year I ended up in groups with kids 3 years older than me, my brother the same.  All the girls I started with were still at the beginner level.  Not saying I am the a super talented skater, I think I have some,  but this is my experience. 

I love how you refer to skating as learning a new language, great analogy.  If you were learning a new language you would start learning verbs and basics.  Skating is like that too, you learn balance, edges, turns and basics.  I find with adults they don't want to focus on those basics because they are boring.  I think once you get over the obstacle of wanting to learn EVERYTHING and fast you will progress.  It has to be taken slowly.  Like they say you have to crawl before you walk, well same for skating.  You need to get a good base and then work up from there.  It's not a race.

When I started back skating after a couple of years hiatus I started slowly.  I stroked, then I moved onto crosscuts, then moved onto three turns.  I then moved back to fine tuning and did dance stroking working on knee bend and extension.  Then I moved onto the more difficult turns and dance patterns.  I still remembered all the dances but I didn't do them until I had a good base back.  Otherwise it's just an exercise in frustration and means for a lot of corrections in the future.  Oh I was also having to learn to do the dances solo since I had only skated with a partner when I learned many of them so that was another learning curve.

[TreSk8sAZ]

My experience of contemporary coaching is having someone yell at you from the boards for 15 minutes. Not saying this is everywhere the same.  To devise a method of teaching which is safer, quicker, and relies less upon hammering ourselves on the ice to chip away mistakes, and more upon implanting correct thought patterns in the brain somewhat passively. Mind programming.  Yes, falls are inevitable. Yes, it is a gradual process. Yes, like any physical activity practice is essential. No argument there.

All of my coaches have a very different way of teaching. I get on with two of the three better because of that. The ones that I do better with understand how my mind works, and therefore can explain things in such a way that I can understand the mechanics or the feeling of it in order to do the element. One also has me do exercises off ice in order to get my body to feel where it should be. They only coach from the boards the week of a competition or test, otherwise are always out skating with me. Two will realign my body physically if necessary to get me to feel where I need to be.

However, all of these techniques can only do so much. It is up to me, as the skater, to put it all into practice. No matter how much off-ice I do, it doesn't always translate to a practical application on-ice because the mediums are so incredibly different. For example, I can land an axel with no problem, correct form, etc. off-ice. However, on-ice I two-foot the jump nearly every time. My jump coach is always asking me what I feel is the difference, and I simply can't explain.

While I can jump fairly easily, spins and I have a hate-hate relationship. Another skater I skate with fairly often (different coach) has gorgeous spins, but can't jump as well. However, she prefers backspins and has trouble spinning normal spins. Even though we're the same level, the differences in those parts of our skating are huge. It really has to do with body type, athletic background, and simply talent for certain things.

While learning is a partially mental process, when you are learning something physical I think there is a physical component to the learning process as well. It cannot all be learned mentally as, no matter how you rearrange your thinking, it may not translate to the practical application. Just as some learn better visually, and some learn better aurally, there are some that learn better kinesthetically. It comes down to how you learn, and finding a coach that can assist you in a way that you understand, and then putting it all into practice.

[taka]

I think the main reason people learn and achieve at different speeds is simply God given talent. 

Yep, I agree, but I think the way people learn is different from person to person, and this has a big effect too!

Take my friend and I. She is quite a visual learner. A few demos and she can "get" roughly how to do a particular move even if she can't manage to actually do it yet and needs to work on it. On the other hand I have no idea. Unless it is similar to something I've done before, I have no clue what to do from a couple of demos. I need coaches to verbally explain what needs to be done step by step, and which edge / body position / foot etc I need to use. Only then are complete demos of much use to me... so I know what it should look like overall.

I started the 1st time aged 5 too. I don't think I had all that much talent really. I think I got as far as I did, due to being very determined to keep up with my friends and having a definite stubborn streak - not wanting to give up and be defeated by something! Talent is of course a necessity to get to the higher levels with skating, but if you don't have the tenacity to stick with it even if something is hard / not working, you still won't get there.

Overcoming / working with your fear of certain things may be a useful thing to work on off ice to help your skating mentally, (in conjunction with off ice training / fitness / stretching etc) but I agree with TreSk8sAZ, that nothing beats trying things on ice and learning what does and doesn't work there and how it all works together once you add the slippery stuff to the equation! I have a tendency to over think things, and just need to crack on with physically trying them sometimes!
A coach who can work with you, to teach you in a way that works for you, is worth their weight in gold!

[JSM]

"The best way to get better at skating, simply, is to skate. "

Are you saying that because you believe it be the absolute truth? Or are you saying it because you feel it is the only way? or are you saying that because everyone else says the same thing?

I'm saying it because I believe it.  There is nothing quite like skating - other disciplines can get close, but in the end, you can't replicate what you can do ON the ice off the ice.

My muscle control overall can be helped by the things I do off ice, and other training definitely helps!  But advanced skating requires muscle memory that you acquire through hours and hours on ice practicing.

My coach is there to help me to learn - there's nothing like instant feedback from someone who is trained to train you!  Also, more importantly, she stops me from getting into bad habits that could not only impede my progress, but could also result in injury.  And I've had enough of those this year!

[Neverdull44]

I started skating at 7 years old.  So, at 45, alot of it is like walking across the street to me.  But, if I go at a speed higher then I am used to doing a move, then I too start "thinking" of how I am going to control my muscles.  Today, I experimented with loop jumps at a high speed.  I didn't fall, but I was overcontrolling it with my muscles.  I wasn't letting it glide. My muscles were tensing, and it was too much toe pick.   I was, "out of control."

I taught my husband to skate when he was 25 years old.  He had never skated in his life.  I saw the same progression with his learning to skate as I do kids.  I had him going forward and backwards, in 3 months of 3 times a week skating, and all crossovers in the first 6 to 12 months.  I remember specifically teaching him backwards "in and outs."   At first, his muscles didn't grasp it in the right order.  I left him on the rink, and 20 minutes later he was going around the rink.  Now, 20 years later, he is usually the fastest skater on the ice at a public session.  He can do one-footed hockey stops, three turns, two foot spins, and some dances with me (all in his hockey skates).  He's jumped over fallen hockey players during games.  Usually, "in control" is my husband.  I was trying to teach him a figure loop in hockey skates.  That, is his current challenge.  If only, he'd wear some toe pick blades.....but, that's another thread.

Then, there's the rare beginner who gets on the ice, has NO control but has a TON OF SPEED.  It's like they have no concept of fear.  Their blades are going every which way, toe picks dragging, slamming into the walls, etc.  Worst of all, they think they are great skaters.  But, they have no quality of movement.

I think quality of movement and speed developing together just mainly takes time on the ice. 

Wouldn't it be great for someone to do a study of beginning skaters and record their developmental milestones, practice dedication, and age?

[sampaguita]

Wouldn't it be great for someone to do a study of beginning skaters and record their developmental milestones, practice dedication, and age?

I could be part of that study. I have video documentation of my skating starting from LTS.

As for muscular control -- even this eludes me. There are times when I'm surprised that I suddenly can do a particular move that I swear I couldn't do just the past session. And then there are times when it takes me forever to get a move. Unlike most other sports, skating challenges you to move in a way you are unaccustomed to, despite your brain subconsciously telling you that it should just be the same as moving on dry land.

It's been 3 years now since I first started. Although I KNOW for a fact that I found the ice very slippery for my first few LTS lessons, I don't remember anymore how it FELT. I watch my old videos from 2-3 years ago and I'm glad to say that I have improved, but how and when exactly that happened, I cannot say. It seems to me like a gradual process that comes from a combination of practice and learning new methods on how to do the same thing.

I don't completely agree with "practice makes perfect". Doing the same thing on ice repeatedly helps muscle memory, but I've seen girls who have bad stroking even when they're already doing lutzes and are beginning their axels. They skate on the ice 3-5x a week, with lessons every time they are on ice. Obviously, there's a "talent" issue here -- some kids are just naturally better equipped to skate, in the same way that some kids are naturally better at maths. There's also a "coach" factor as well -- the coach may not be a good match for the student's learning style.

However, all of these techniques can only do so much. It is up to me, as the skater, to put it all into practice. No matter how much off-ice I do, it doesn't always translate to a practical application on-ice because the mediums are so incredibly different. For example, I can land an axel with no problem, correct form, etc. off-ice. However, on-ice I two-foot the jump nearly every time. My jump coach is always asking me what I feel is the difference, and I simply can't explain.

I think the difference is in the grip right before the jump -- I have the same issues too with my waltz jump. You may not feel it, but I think the entrance to the jump makes all the difference.

[SynchKat]

Yep, I agree, but I think the way people learn is different from person to person, and this has a big effect too!

Take my friend and I. She is quite a visual learner. A few demos and she can "get" roughly how to do a particular move even if she can't manage to actually do it yet and needs to work on it. On the other hand I have no idea. Unless it is similar to something I've done before, I have no clue what to do from a couple of demos. I need coaches to verbally explain what needs to be done step by step, and which edge / body position / foot etc I need to use. Only then are complete demos of much use to me... so I know what it should look like overall.

This is so true too.  I went curling with my husband last year, I am a visual Lerner so I stood behind people and from going once he is told by people we curled with it am a natural. 

I think some people just understand their bodies and have figured out a way to communicate with their muscles.  Take for example my sister in law.  She always looks uncomfortable in her skin like she just doesn't know where her limbs start and end or how they work.  She gave up wanting to take up golf once I got out my clubs and started hitting balls.  Like other non hand eye coordination sports I toolkit some lessons and could mimic the form.  I am the type that just seems to understand how to talk to my muscles.  I put it down to having to learn choreography for years but I think I am just a visual learner with a good amount of body awareness.

[Sk8tmum]

The explicit teaching of body awareness - the use and control of muscles in the body and relative spatial relationships - is transferrable between sports.  Having seen the change in trajectory in the ability to acquire other activities requiring gross muscle control after having my son taught explicit and directive body awareness by a skating coach, I believe firmly that learning how to control and place the body without thought is a valuable lesson. Thus, I would think that somebody who naturally or thru instruction has great body awareness is likely to acquire skating skills more easily.

Practice does not make perfect if the action being practiced is imperfect.  That is why I value coaches who correct immediately and do not move on until a technique is learned, and who discourage independent practice BEFORE the skater is ready to do so on a technique. Once learned, tho, repetition on repetition until it is simple muscle memory is key. I remember seeing Patrick Chan practising and practising and practising loops (figures) ... over and over ...

BTW:  in cumulatively 28 years of skating lessons (between my 3 kids) and at last count 16 different coaches (specialists, different primary and secondary coaches)- I have never had a coach stand at the boards and yell instructions, except during a runthru.  They are all on the ice with the skaters, and - well - I can tell you that my kids have had their bodies and body parts pushed and pulled and manipulated in ways that I could never had believed possible!  All 3 are visual AND kinesthetic learners.  During the sad and ill-fated attempt to teach me to skate ... I realized that I am neither ...

[taka]

The explicit teaching of body awareness - the use and control of muscles in the body and relative spatial relationships - is transferrable between sports.  Having seen the change in trajectory in the ability to acquire other activities requiring gross muscle control after having my son taught explicit and directive body awareness by a skating coach, I believe firmly that learning how to control and place the body without thought is a valuable lesson. Thus, I would think that somebody who naturally or thru instruction has great body awareness is likely to acquire skating skills more easily.

Slightly off topic maybe but what is the best way to teach body awareness? I have very poor body awareness and have no idea where my free foot / leg is half the time. No clue unless it is touching something! My coach and I have had frustrating conversations whereby she has to tell me whether I've brought my foot in or not on things like 3 turns - I can't tell unless it is touching the other leg or I really, really concentrate. If I really concentrate I completely forget other parts of my body instead. (I'm better with arms but that is more cause I can often see them with my peripheral vision rather than anything else.) 

Skating has had a profound, hugely positive effect on my general ability to balance. I've gone from falling over once or twice a week (and tripping, but not falling, more often than that) to falling only very rarely off ice, since I started skating again. The difference is huge!

Any tips on how to improve body awareness?

[rachelplotkin]

Taka, you could benefit from working with a physical therapist on proprioception.  There are exercises you can learn to help with body awareness issues.  This helps with trying to coordinate complicated (or even easy) movements required in our sport.

[alejeather]

I know most rinks don't have mirrors, but this is how dancers learn it. All exercises are done in front of a mirror and dancers are always studying how what they are doing looks, and making sure that the parts that are supposed to be moving are and they parts that aren't, aren't. Maybe you could practice positions in front of a mirror at home. For 3-turns, you could use a spinner or Agnes' paper plate trick. I don't know if this is really practical or useful, it's just an idea that may (or may not) translate from the dance world.

[ONskater74]

That's why coaches are yelling...!

I take ballet and I'm surrounded by mirrors. It is terrifying   But it helps...saves a lot of yelling

Some dressage arenas have a wall of mirrors too as it can be hard to know if your leg or posture is just where it should be.

[Doubletoe]

Ha ha!  I agree.  That's why the coaches are yelling!  I have a bad habit of letting my right shoulder start migrating forward on my backspin and I also have a habit of dropping my arms as I land my axel.  I do not feel myself doing either of these things, but my coach tells me I just did it, so then I re-do the backspin focusing on pulling the right shoulder back and re-do the axel focusing on keeping my arms high.  If he says I fixed it, then I just try to remember the feeling in my body when I did it right and when I did it wrong so I can identify it in the future.  It takes awhile, but eventually I develop the ability to identify that feeling.

[Sk8tmum]

Depends on the coach and the skater. My one daughter also dances so there is another perspective there.  For my kinesthetic learner, a range of techniques are used ... pilates type exercises, visualization, pseudo-dartfish in the days before real dartfish, and, frankly, the best one was having the coach actually wrapping herself around the skater and moving the various body parts through the correct motion.  Now, this means that there has to be a fair bit of a comfort level for the skater (and the skater parent!) but it is certainly effective.  Working blindfolded to help remove the visual picture also helps as it helps to orient the body in space.

Figures (old school patch) helped as it is pure balance and edges and posture and drill.  Relaxation techniques to help the body more more fluidly and with less constriction.

Plus wicked good physiotherapist who trains balance explicitly!

Matching skating technique with something that is familiar.  If it is a hand gesture or position, marrying it to a routine act like, for example, picking a glass up off of a table - effortless, fluid, and natural. Translating that into a arm movement for a program - easier than trying to describe it.

No need to yell from the boards - our coaches skate with the skater and work right beside them. Barring setups for big jumps of course when they get out of the way.  For me and mine, yelling when a skater is going up into a jump is distracting and creates stress and tension (ohmigod I am trying to coordinate 18 things and focus on improving, never knowing when a yell is going to erupt ... not good).  Debriefing it AFTER with a video camera or specific feedback is better.

Our one primary coach has over 40 years of coaching experience and has seen everything from disabled skaters who may never land a waltz jump (but who she works with with just as much fervor and joy) to National level skaters who simply think, blink and jump.  She pulls out things from her bag of tricks that make me totally baffled (101 things to do with a skate guard) ...and gets the job done. She also taught our other primary coach ... so it is quite oddly seamless for teaching technique ...

We have full walls of mirrors by the way in the rink. None of the skaters or coaches use them at all. I would think that the speed (and need to watch for other skaters) - would make it difficult to watch oneself in the mirror ... you rarely see skaters spot either which is interesting ...

[Query]

We have full walls of mirrors by the way in the rink.

How wonderful! I wish we had that.

Even better if there was a place in the rink with a video camera, set on a loop that played back for you what it just took 30 seconds ago.

I think we learn a lot better at younger ages. I didn't start skating until well into middle age, and there are many things that will never work.

I think balance isn't just about what media we have the most experience on. When a foot stands on the floor, must of the foot is in contact with it. When a skate glides on the ice, the area of contact is a few mm by a few mm at most. So you can be off balance by a lot more on the floor than on the ice.

For me, one of the hardest things has been learning to use more body tension, because you need that to successfully transfer linear and angular momentum from one set of body parts to another, without wasting momentum and energy on flopping around, or (in spins and jumps) changing the axis of rotation. I spent a lot of time learning to relax my body as much as I could to cut down on injuries, then took a long time to realize (with the help of a coach) that's often counter-productive on the ice.

There are some sports (e.g., skiing, slalom kayak) with there is a distinction between carved turns, where you lean into the turns, and skidded turns, where you lean outside the turns, to push away from the outside contact points. Leaning outside a turn is a LOT less intuitive then leaning into a turn, but can sometimes be much more efficient in some sports. At least figure skating doesn't do THAT much, unless you count dynamic balance changes during edge changes.

[dlbritton]

I love how you refer to skating as learning a new language, great analogy.  If you were learning a new language you would start learning verbs and basics.  Skating is like that too, you learn balance, edges, turns and basics.  I find with adults they don't want to focus on those basics because they are boring.  I think once you get over the obstacle of wanting to learn EVERYTHING and fast you will progress.  It has to be taken slowly. 

Having just started skating at 59 I am definitely looking at taking things slowly. I may get to 1 revolution jumps someday but mastering the basics such as turns, edges and spins and enjoying the freedom of gliding on the ice is my real goal. As I have read about the test levels and about the old figures I really want to master some of the old figure patterns. Having the control and precision to skate figures would be a real accomplishment rather than being boring.

At least I have the patience and knowledge to take it slow and let it happen. I have been skiing for 40 years and teaching for 20 years.  I had taken lessons in college until I became a good intermediate skier and then pretty much picked it up on my own from then on eventually being able to ski expert slopes with what I thought was a fair amount of skill.  5 years ago I decided to go for the next level of certification as an instructor, which I am still working on. The skiing skills portion would be similar to being tested on: basic moves like swizzles, 2 foot turns and glides; on figures and on freestyle. I do fine on the basic moves but I have had to completely deconstruct my skiing and relearn many movement patterns for the precision and high level skills. I intend to get skating moves down correctly before trying to advance to the next skill level.

[ONskater74]

Mastering the turns is vital, and I began with spending hours on figures, but I'd have to say that some of my greatest "breakthroughs" have been incidental in a way, I was just sort of experimenting and fooling around on my blades with different things and suddenly "click" something would feel right and then I'd have it. This results in a leapfrogging and inconsistent advance, but it is a nice feeling of accomplishment to know you have made progress in one area, even if you are behind in other parts of the "curriculum". For me skating is a pleasure, not a job, or something I'm taking for credits....so I do what I please.