Your first session
What nobody tells you before your first few visits to a rink, from the changing area to the ice and back.
Before you step on
Lace up away from the ice door, so you are not in the way of people getting on and off. Walk to the ice in your guards. Take them off at the door, put them somewhere you will find them, and step on holding the barrier. Taking the guards off before that first step matters: a guard on the ice stops dead and the skater does not.
What to bring besides skates is on the kit bag.
Never stand on metal
A blade's edge is lost the moment it stands on metal, concrete or stone. One step can blunt it or chip it, and an edge that has gone will not hold until the blade is sharpened again.
Metal is easy to miss around a rink. Temporary and seasonal rinks often have metal frames, edging and thresholds at the side of the ice, and the step from the ice to the walkway may be one of them. Seating and bleachers around a rink often have metal steps and floors. Door sills, drain covers and the doors themselves are metal too.
Keep to the rubber matting, and put your guards on for anything else. If there is no matting between the ice and where you are going, the guards go on at the ice door.
Which way to skate
A public session skates round the rink in one direction, usually anticlockwise. Follow the signs and the stewards, and go with everyone else. Keep to the outside while you find your feet, and if you need the barrier, use it: that is what it is for.
Stopping and standing
Stop at the side, beside the barrier, not in the middle of the ice and never in front of the door. Skaters coming round behind you are looking ahead, not for someone standing still. If you need a rest, step off the ice.
Falling
Everyone falls, coaches included. Keep your hands close in and your fingers off the ice while you are down, because other skaters' blades are the real danger, and get up straight away. The falling and getting up page shows how.
Kinds of session
A public session is for everyone, at every level. A freestyle or practice session is for skaters training jumps, spins and programmes, and is usually booked through a club or a coach. On those, the skater whose music is playing usually has priority, and some rinks mark them with a sash or a bib. Lessons may share a public session in a coned-off area, or have the ice to themselves.
Most sessions stop for the ice to be resurfaced. Leave when you are asked, guards on at the door.
After the session
Guards on at the door, dry the blades as soon as you sit down, and again later. The rest is on looking after skates.