At last you are quite ready for your first skate. Step onto the ice with the aid of a rail or a friend’s hand and stand still in a relaxed position, your feet parallel about 6 inches apart, with both ankles upright and your weight evenly distributed. Now bend both knees and both ankles forward, making sure that your pelvis stays forward over your feet and the rest of the body upright with your back straight but not arched, your shoulders easy, and head erect. This is the basic posture of skating (Illus. 3-A) and ensures that the weight of the body is directly over the skates. It is essentially the posture of walking plus an exaggerated forward bend of the ankles which puts the points of your knees so far ahead of the points of your skates that if you look down in this position, without “dropping” your head or shoulders over, you should not be able to see your feet at all. Flex your knees and ankles gently a few times to get used to the feel of so much bending. If you are a skier, this won’t feel strange to you; if a non-skier, you may feel a tightness at the back of your heels. In that case there are stretching exercises which I shall prescribe for you shortly.

To read more, go to the World Figure Skating website by clicking on this link.