Can you enroll in some classes at your rink? If so it’s worth the cost. My kids all started last summer and can already do jumps and spins. My son does ice skating lessons and hockey. We started because of him wanting to play and they all love it. Good luck!

It takes time to develop basic skills and your ankles need to build. Make sure your skates are tight enough when learning to help build those muscles.

You should swing your arms to keep balance as if you are jogging.

Ice skating isn't easy but when you get the hang of it you can go really fast and it is a lot of fun. I play beer hockey and love it.

Thats perfectly normal for a first timer. Skate as often as you can. You'll need to build ankle strength and rewire some parts of your brain to figure out the balance aspect and that happens with repetition.

My boyfriend has been learning to skate and getting into hockey, so I’ve been thinking a lot about skating mechanics lately.

Bending knees is important, but often that shifts the weight backwards into your heel. I think it’s helpful to also think about pushing your knees over your toes by pressing your shins into the tongue of your skates. This should keep your balance more centered. Ankle flexibility is a really important aspect of skating/hockey that’s often overlooked

Congratulations! I’m really glad all the advice was so helpful to you and you were able to see progress to continue motivating you💖💖

Good luck and have fun!

That is so good to hear, congratulations! it is lovely to hear such a positive followup to the story. Im sure the new skates will really make it better too. Dont be too discouraged if the new skates at first feel like a step backwards, it takes several sessions to get used to them. They will also be probably a lot sharper than rentals, which can feel like starting from scratch. Give them time and stick with them, and the benefits will pay off! enjoy!

I live an hour from my rink and I totally feel the struggle. One way to help is to maximize and not waste your practice time when on the ice, and focus as much as possible. Also occasionally, whenever I travel out of town or go on vacation, I try to find really close, nearby rinks that I can skate at. For off ice, I use an Edea spinner, and for me, it really helps a lot with spins. Using a balance board for off ice helps too. I also highly recommend doing a lot of off ice jumps. Practicing off ice jumps really help me become more consistent with jumping and getting better technique. Basically doing a lot of off ice really helps, and it’s important to have a routine that focuses in all areas to improve your skating (strength, endurance, flexibility, balance, etc. )

Start trying to see if you can get your other relatives to take you to the rink. Maybe your mom takes you one day, grandma takes you the next day, etc. Also, do any skaters or coaches live near you? Some skaters are able to carpool with other skaters if they don't have to go out of their way to pick you up. While you can work on personal fitness, spins on a spinner, and off-ice jumps, nothing is going to replace the daily ice time you need to improve.

If you will be old enough to drive in the next few years, maybe you just accept you're stuck for awhile with the current situation. But will there be a car available? Just being able to drive isn't enough. You have to have a car available.

Other than that, you would have to buy some really expensive inline skates that imitate figure skating, but it will never be the same as skating on ice and it assumes you have access to a smooth floor to skate on. Here's some people talking about their experiences with pic skates: https://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=1696.0

I personally don't recommend wasting money on pic skates. I recommend doing whatever it takes to get to the rink more often to practice. And if that's impossible for now, then focusing like crazy on home exercise (squats, ab workouts, off-ice rotation exercises for jumps, flexibility exercises) so that when you can finally drive yourself to the rink you will already have crazy strength in your legs/butt/core and have crazy flexibility (oversplits/biellmann position/etc)

I've actually found that practicing my jumps off the ice can be really helpful.

What skills are you working on?

I think pic skates are pretty good for things like crossovers, 3 turns, spirals, etc. I’m not a fan of jumping in them (but mostly just because falling on pavement is so much worse than falling on ice) and spins have been super frustrating (they’re slow because there’s so much more friction). For skating skills, though, they’re alright. Even just stroking around forward is going to help with endurance.

It can be hard to find smooth surfaces. I used to go to the park and sweep the basketball courts or tennis courts early in the morning to have a place to skate. Are you close to a roller rink?

Are you on Instagram? There are some great accounts to follow for training inspiration. Coach Hamish and AC Skating out of Boston are the first couple that come to mind.

maybe ask your coach if there are any specific exercises they’d like you to be doing.

other than that, it really depends on what kind of space you have at home. i wouldn’t really suggest jumping too much on concrete or ground that’s too hard, because it’s not too great on the knees/ankles. if there’s a playground near you, that can be a good place to practice, because a lot of playgrounds have that sort of rubbery ground that is safer to jump on.

of course, you can never go wrong with stretching and core exercises that you can do in your room. there’s a lot of really good barre workouts on youtube, and those don’t usually require too much space.

good luck!

My 3 year old and 6 year old have their class at 5, I’m on the ice with them. I have mine at 530. They’re so fucking thrilled to hang out with dad.

So do that. Get on the ice. Let them see you try something hard, eat shit, get up, and try again. Because that’s what you want them to do…so model it. :)

Don’t add an external reinforcement. Something like that is more likely to stress someone out, like suddenly there’s something worth losing. Something they love becomes a chore they have to do. Their love for it comes from within and that’s for the best. They may also fall in and out of love with it and that’s fine too. I like what the other person said about getting out there with them. Getting to do it with you will always get them on the ice

I’m taking skating lessons myself (beginner!) to get in the ice with my daughter so she doesn’t feel it’s a thing she does alone.

Sounds like he's doing just fine as-is if he's enjoying it and thriving. Other than making sure he has the correct equipment (i.e. properly fitted skates and safety equipment - I think I see a bike helmet on him right now, which is not ice-safe), all you need to do is keep supporting him. At some point he'll hit a plateau and that'll get frustrating, so you just need to encourage him to keep trying and working hard, and not quitting when things get a little challenging.

Skate with them

I’m also new and struggled bad after getting my own skates. I think after 2-3 sessions I got used to the new skates and feel way more comfortable in them. it’s normal, even my skate fitter told me it would feel odd the first few times, especially if the blades are just sharpened since rentals usually are never sharp. Keep going you got this!!

New skates can be hard to break in! You need quite a few hours to really get use to them. 2 months is a really short amount of time, don’t give up and just keep pushing through and practicing. Skating time sooooo much time and everyone goes at a different pace.

There is always the bambi state when you get new boots. It takes a bit before you can start bending and using them fully.

The regular recommendation is gel shin sleeves and leaving the top hook loose so you can bend easier. You are probably lacing them far to tight as well.

That happened to me too! I took several weeks of Learn to Skate classes before I decided to buy my own skates instead of using rentals. The blades felt so different that I had to relearn some skills, but now months later, I’m fully used to my own skates and so glad I got them.

Practice as often as you’re able. In my experience it’s absolutely normal to feel like you’ve regressed a little when you first get your own skates. Getting used to a real rocker and toe pick takes time!

Practice is the only answer. I started at 54 and went to the rink several days a week, which meant I progressed faster. I still felt completely lame for a long time, but over time things progressed. And don’t compare yourself to others. Each of us learn at a different pace. At one point I was skating 9 hours a week as practice. And some people do better with private lessons. I got a good start in group lessons, but private really helped advance faster.

If fear is what is holding you back, get some padding. There are impact shorts for your hips and butt as well as knee and elbow pads. Definitely develop an instinct for how to fall safely so you don’t hit your head etc.

Ice skating is a lot harder than I realized, as someone who was recently trying to help an adult friend learn for the first time. You may also want to try doing some roller blading to supplement — in many ways roller blading is more difficult but less scary so the basic skills can transfer over.

Bend zee knees! Just go to rink during open skate and hang out in the rail. No pressure. Just skate

Skate more. Practice more. Stop comparing yourself to others.

Skating is HARD. Like, really, really hard. Keep working at it.

Skate more.

I had the worst day at work yesterday, but the best open skate session. The ice was my refuge, and things started to click.

Off ice conditioning- start taking Pilates- Free kettle bell strength training on youtube.

Do other movement for fun.

Fall more.

Watch coach julia videos.

Record yourself.

Imagine you getting it.

Rinse and repeat.

Help someone struggling more than you.

It is all perspective. It gets better- what I am learning as a 39 year old rebuilding relationships and my self esteem. 🩷

Honestly working through the moves in the field (skating skills) tests if you’re in the US is what forces you to develop skating skills and get better edges. But as you get to harder skills it takes a lot longer to get stronger at them! Brackets are HARD, they feel unnatural and it takes a lot of practice to get good at them

One thing I find helpful is thinking not just about where your shoulders are pointing but whether your hips are open or not. So instead of just practicing a long edge along a hockey circle (all 8 of them, ideally for more than one circumference each time), do each edge with your hips open or closed. Open usually means your free foot is behind your skating foot in a sort of T shape, and closed is typically keeping your free leg straight and pressed against your skating leg. When I started focusing on that, I found that especially lots of my backward edges had a lot of trouble in one or the other position.

Then another insight is recognizing that each one-foot turn is switching from an open-hipped edge to a closed one or vice versa. For example, doing a forward inside 3-turn? Start with an open-hipped inside edge, then the turn should end with a closed-hip outside edge. If you don’t check properly with your upper body you’ll flail wildly after the turn and most likely put your free leg out to counterbalance. Every turn can be seen that way, so e.g., if you’re doing a forward outside bracket, you’re starting open and ending closed. But practicing the edges in those positions alone lets you ensure that you’re not turning and trying to enter a position that you can’t even hold without the turn.

Without videos I can't diagnose accurately, but giving a tip based on common mistakes: Do lots of exercises to try to get correct kneebend. It's impossible to get high quality edges in correct manner until kneebend is correct. Focus on bending the ankles as well as knees, and keeping weight over entire blade (not just the front).

Leg lines (or, to be more precise, position of the free leg in overall body alignment) also have a much bigger influence on edges than people realise. Pay attention to free leg positions - and experiment to see how they alter the curves.

As for body alignment, unless you are an ice dancer, every body-facing direction can be correct depending on circumstance (facing with torsion into the circle, in the direction of travel, and totsion outside of the circle). It just depends on circumstances.

What are the best free figures resources that you know of? 🫴🫴

I have a coach but I'm down to read more.

You can work on the skating skills levels (fka Moves in the Field). I use those as my warmup. It’s great for edges and turns.

Lunges, side lunges, Romanian dead lifts are some good weighted exercises. Yoga: warrior 3, tree pose, half moon, standing splits, stork

Abductors and Adductors. They're the exercise machines you use while either vehemently avoiding or aggressively maintaining eye contact with people around you.

Pistol squats and wall sits. Anything that works the glutes won’t hurt you either.

squats

Squats and lunges for sure! I incorporate single leg deadlifts on the bosu ball for balance, but you may have to work up to that. Start on the ground first!

Ballet can also be helpful for figure skating specifically for balance because ballet requires you to balance on releve/calf raise position.

If you’re jumping: tuck jumps, squat jumps, skater lunge jumps can all be helpful to help generate power and height as well as balance.

Basically, it would be helpful to start incorporating single leg weightlifting exercises into a lower body routine. These will DEFINITELY help your balance!

ETA: I just remembered core work! Definitely incorporate core work (planks, leg rasies, etc) because using your core is what helps you balance!

I recommend checking if your local rink has any Learn to Skate group classes! They are usually once a week for about 5-8 weeks at a time and you can learn many of the foundational skills safely. Start out with rental skates and if you really like it, you can look into getting your own pair of skates. A good beginner pair will be over $300.