Consecutive edges

Also called Edges on an axis, Alternating edges

Half-circle lobes down the long axis on alternate feet, one edge to each lobe.

Down the long axis

Not checked yet. The drill details on this page are a first draft by a non-expert, and no coach has seen them yet. Read them as a starting point and check them with a coach. Corrections are very welcome.

The run LFO · RFO · LFO · RFO; then forward inside, back outside and back inside

The pattern on the ice, one line for the blade on the ice, coloured by edge.

shoulder to hip —on the —

LFO · stroke · RFO · stroke · LFO · stroke · RFO, on alternate lobes. Negative twist means the shoulders are held back against the hips, which stores rotation before a takeoff and checks it on a landing.

Each lobe is close to half a circle, starting and finishing on the long axis. You push from the inside edge of the old foot onto the new one, and the new lobe curves the opposite way, so the pattern snakes down the ice.

This is the base the rest of skating sits on. The edge comes from the lean of the whole body over the blade, not from tipping the ankle, and a lobe that flattens half way round shows the lean was lost. The push should be short and to the side; a long push behind you swings the hips open and the next lobe starts crooked.

The same drill is skated on forward inside edges, then backwards on both, where the push and the look over the shoulder make it far harder.

Further on, the free leg passes forward over the tracing in the second half of the lobe and the arms and shoulders change with it. The drawing keeps the simpler form, the free leg behind throughout.

This drill trains

Left forward outside edgeLFO: the left foot travelling forwards on an outside edge, tracing an anticlockwise lobe.
Right forward outside edgeRFO: the right foot travelling forwards on an outside edge, tracing a clockwise lobe.
Left forward inside edgeLFI: the left foot travelling forwards on an inside edge, tracing a clockwise lobe.
Right forward inside edgeRFI: the right foot travelling forwards on an inside edge, tracing an anticlockwise lobe.
Left backward outside edgeLBO: the left foot travelling backwards on an outside edge, tracing a clockwise lobe.
Right backward outside edgeRBO: the right foot travelling backwards on an outside edge, tracing an anticlockwise lobe.
Left backward inside edgeLBI: the left foot travelling backwards on an inside edge, tracing an anticlockwise lobe.
Right backward inside edgeRBI: the right foot travelling backwards on an inside edge, tracing a clockwise lobe.

Built from

Forward strokingThe push itself: one blade drives against its inside edge while the other glides away, first out to the side, then from a T.

Found in 5 independent sources: coaches' public teaching and published skating-skills tests, taken as base guidance and written for the guide.