How To Ice Skate In Hockey

Learning how to ice skate in hockey can be attained by people who enjoy a challenge. The key to ice skating in hockey is knowing how to multitask. There is always more than one thing going on at a time—following the puck and avoiding other players all while skating, and skating fast. Hockey is very fast paced sport, but is usually slowed down a bit when it's being taught. The following list below will prepare for the things you need to know before playing ice hockey.

1. Staying low. While skating in general it's important to stay low in order to keep your balance throughout the skating session. Once you have your balance, straddle the stick and touch the opposite sides of each skate with the stick. Add stepping over the stick and placing your gloves down. This is one of the most important movements to master when learning how to skate on ice.
2. Starts can be complicated if you don't have enough speed from the start point. A sideways start is when you push off on the back of your skates and take various strides before taking the regular extended strides. Taking three strides before implementing your usual stride is called a "toe start." Toe starts is a term that is used once hockey players begin their drills. This teaches appropriate, fast, clean take offs. The ice many of times works against the weight of your body so make sure your evenly balanced before starting your take off.
3. Forwarding Skating is very similar to basic skating, you must stay low and make sure that you keep your knees bent throughout your forward skating while on the ice. With forward skating the full extension stride is very important to use for consistent force. Each extension requires for the stick to be kept in front of you on the ice. While on the ice shift your weight back and forth so that your skates remain steady on the ice.
4. Forward Backward Transitions takes immaculate concentration and can be completed with lots of practice. Begin with a smooth take off on the ice, and get comfortable with the basic ice skating stride. Once you become comfortable with the forward direction and feel as though your ready to transition over. Decrease your dependence of the stick or the person that's skating next to you and skate in a backwards formation.