Backward two-foot glide

The same flat glide travelling the other way, where you cannot see where you are going.

basic

Not checked yet. The mechanics 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 mark this leaves on the ice, both blades. A straight line is a claim as much as a curve is: it says the blade is flat, and a blade that is not flat is an edge and a different element.

shoulder to hip —on the —

both blades flat and parallel, about hip width apart, running backwards. Negative twist means the shoulders are held back against the hips, which stores rotation before a takeoff and checks it on a landing.

Both blades flat on the ice, parallel and about hip width apart, running backwards. Ice Skating Australia measures it at about a metre; New Zealand’s KiwiSkate teaches it on a straight line and then on a curve, the same progression as the forward glide.

Australia teaches it after backward wiggles and swizzles, which give the skater the backwards travel to glide on, and before the backward one-foot glide. None of the documents this guide holds says where the weight sits, or how the head and arms are carried, while a skater glides backwards. Those are the details a coach watches here, so this page does not guess at them. What the programmes agree on is the order: the forward glide, backward wiggles, this glide, then the backward glide on one foot.

Leads to

3 elements in the guide are built on this one.

Backward one-foot glideThe same straight backward glide on one foot. New Zealand and Ice Skating Australia both teach the two-foot glide first.
Backward slalomBoth feet stay on the ice while travelling backwards, as here, and swing from one pair of edges to the other.
Backward strokingEach backward stroke finishes in a backward glide.

Appears in

In New Zealand's grades

None of the New Zealand level lists in this guide name it.