Ice skating is HARD!

[hopskipjump]

Aw!  I was dragging it - that makes sense that I was sometimes using the inside edge and not at other times because i was just guessing.

I can't wait to try again!

[FigureSpins]

A T-stop should feel like you're scraping the ice gently with the outside edge of the stopping foot, shoving that snow under the tail of the gliding foot blade.  You really have to bend your knees and turn the stopping knee out to the side.

Dragging either edge makes you turn if you put weight on the stopping foot, so keep your weight forward over the gliding foot/bent knee.  (One shoulder on each side of that foot, nose over toes.)   Turning also happens if you allow your shoulders to twist to one side, which sort of goes with weight balance. 

Try skating along a hockey line with the free foot posed above the line, perpendicular to the gliding foot.   Always position the foot in the air so the (soon-to-be) stoping blade is angled towards the outside edge - the outside ankle turns downward.

Your head and upper body should face the wall where the hockey line stripe goes up to meet the glass.  I tell skaters to make a "T" with their shoulders and spine so they don't twist.

[Sk8Dreams]

In addition to Isk8NYC's excellent advice:

Hold the wall with both hands and stand in T position.  Bend the back knee and push the outside of your ankle down towards the ice to put pressure on the outside edge.  Look in the glass while you do this to make sure you are standing straight and not bending forward at the waist.  Now step back a foot or two from the wall and again stand in T position.  Do the world's tiniest T push, keeping the pushing foot in place, just lifted up off the ice.  Now place it back down with the knee bent and ankle bent as you just did while standing still.  You have to feel as if you are leaning back just a bit to really get a T stop, and that can be a little scary at first, which is why I suggest doing very smalls ones facing the wall.

[TheAquarian]

I tell my daughter (6) that if she's not falling, she's not trying hard enough

It made her day the first time I told her that, after she had come off the ice cold, wet, and covered in snow.  She lit up when she realized that it was a good thing 

I think it's good for low level skaters to watch videos of Elite skaters like Kim Yuna  falling during practice.   I think that many people who are just beginning have crazy ideas about the best of the best always being perfect and never falling when they skate.   

Showing their flaws can give a lot of encouragement to people who are learning how to skate.  It helps them realize they aren't necessarily a lost cause.

[Robin]

I was not able to stop properly until officially picking up lessons. You did great for the little time you spent skating! Watch out for AOSS, it's a black hole

Yes, please take a lesson and make sure your skates fit and are properly sharpened! Then yes, you may very well have AOSS. (I've been skating since I was a kid, but I know of many adults that this has happened to!) Before you know it, you'll be skating in the club show.

[hopskipjump]

LOL- I can play with dd's extra passes, b hut we can only afford one college kid and one skater in the family.