Backward one foot glide advice?

[hannahs.ice.eating]

I started LTS classes in October this year and am currently at Aussie skate level 3 and am confident doing everything I've learnt so far (forward and backward swizzles, forward one foot glide, forward and backward half pumps, forward slalom, things like that) but for the life of me I cannot seem to do a backward one foot glide. I can maybe get one foot off the ice for half a second before falling. Does anyone have any tips?

 

[_VanillaHearts_]

I started LTS classes in October this year and am currently at Aussie skate level 3 and am confident doing everything I've learnt so far (forward and backward swizzles, forward one foot glide, forward and backward half pumps, forward slalom, things like that) but for the life of me I cannot seem to do a backward one foot glide. I can maybe get one foot off the ice for half a second before falling. Does anyone have any tips?

Hi This a very late reply but as a fellow aussie skater who struggled a lot (and still kinda does) with backwards one foot glides here are my tips! when you do your backwards swizzles make sure you build enough speed and have a stable two foot glide before trying to lift your leg. Additionally, ensure that your feet are close together as that enables the transfer of weight to be way easier. Your posture is also really important as i found i was leaning too far forward due to fear so make sure you keep your arms out straight, head up and really lean over the foot you are gliding on.

 

[Elija]

Keep your weight over your standing leg, lift the free hip up, keep the free foot close to your other leg and make sure the knee doesn’t get too high, make sure the knee is pointing straight and not out to the side, keep your upper body nice and tall and straight and arms out straight. Lots of little things to remember! Also make sure you are nice and balanced in a two foot glide with feet close together before trying to lift your foot, as it’s much harder if you aren’t stable and try to lift the foot when it isn’t close to you.

 

[WednesdayMarch]

I always feel that the backward one foot glide on the flat of the blade is a tricky thing to master for beginners, so I tend to do a lot of edge work with them to prepare them for it. Gliding backwards on an edge is far, far easier than backwards on the flat of the blade, so we work gently on backward outside curves to get the skater used to gliding backwards on one foot with the free foot in front, with me holding a hand at the front and keeping an eye out for hazards. (A lot of the problems I see with backwards come from fear of collisions.) Ask your coach or a friendly higher level skater if you can have help with this.