How To Ice Skate

Put a kitchen/folding chair behind where you are standing so you can see the chair and yourself in the mirror. Turn your head and look into the mirror to see yourself standing straight up and down and the chair slightly behind you.

Stop looking in the mirror and look down at your feet. For ice skating you want your feet to be no further apart than the width of your shoulders.

With the chair still behind you, start to sit down, bend your knees as if you were going to sit in the chair. You should be 3 to 6 inches shorter than your normal height. Look at yourself in the mirror to see what this stance looks like and try very hard to remember this image in your mind.

While in this stance, slowly shift your entire body weight to your left leg. Your right foot should not have any weight on it. You will feel most of your left leg muscles taking the weight. This is because your weight is not being placed entirely on your ankles which means your chances of falling have been reduced to near zero.
There is physics to explain why this is so, but I'm a hockey player and I don't know enough to explain those. Just trust me, when you're in this stance it's almost impossible to fall over. I pride myself on having gone an entire season without being knocked on my butt by people who seriously wanted to hurt me.

Still in this stance, with your weight supported by your left leg, slowly shift your weight to your right leg. Feel the weight shift? Do this as many times as you want to get used to this body movement as it is new to most people who do not skate. Look at yourself in the mirror while you're doing this and try to remember what it looks like.

You are now ready to ice skate. Telephone your local ice rink/arena for public skating hours and ask if they have skate rentals - most do. Once you get to the rink you can rent a pair of skates there - your skate size is generally one size smaller than your shoe size.

When you put your skates on you should have all the laces loose so that your foot easily slides into the skate's boot. You want to tie your laces as tight as you can stand them because once you start skating they will loosen. Again, I don't know why, it just happens. Start tightening the laces nearest your toes and keep them tight by putting a finger where the laces cross over and then pull as hard as you can on the laces where they come out of the next eyehole.

Your laces should be long enough that you can wrap them at least once around your leg approximately 2 inches above your ankle in the front.
(Place your foot flat and raise the front of your foot while keeping the heel down. See where a V shape is? That's the place you want to go 2 inches up from and wrap the laces around.)

When you are ready to go on the ice, remember that stance at home when you had your feet no further apart than your shoulders and you were about to sit down in that chair? Go in to that stance now and place one foot on the ice and then the other. Now shift your weight to one of your legs and slowly push off with that leg. Next, shift your body weight to the other leg and push off from that leg.

For your first turn at the end of the rink, just keep pushing with your right leg while your left leg supports your weight. I don't know why but at public skating people skate counter clockwise.

After a few times around the rink you can add ice skating to your list of fun things to do!