Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2012 18:31
By Diane Ness
Recently one of the areas that I have noticed is a real struggle for young skaters is backward skating. I always tell my students anything you can do forward you should be able to do backward.
When we look at professional and college defensemen we see that their backward skating is so good that they can match any forward’s forward skating at top speed. That is the key if you are a defenseman and want to keep moving up levels. The game gets fast and forwards get even faster. The question is can the D keep up?
The first key to backward skating is positioning. When skating backwards, a skater should have his/her shoulders, chest and head in an upright position. When we skate forward we tend to get a forward lean that projects our body moving forward, we are actually doing the opposite when going backwards.
That is why it is essential to keep our chest and shoulders upright while sitting our butt down “in a chair.” Nothing will slow a skater down more than bending over forward at the waist while having straight legs. Coaches should be redundant and remind their skaters all of these cues during practice.
We also must understand the push. Next time you are on the ice, try a simple exercise of making a C cut to move forward and also doing a C cut to move backward. You will notice when you go forward you are actually pushing from the back part of your blade. We use the analogy of the motor in a boat and how it is in the rear end of the boat.
Next, try to make a C cut to go backward, you will notice the pressure comes from the front of the blade. When we execute a C cut backward, the key is to keep the ENTIRE blade on the ice but push from the front part of the blade. The stronger the push against the ice the more power you will have to move backward.
Teaching our younger skaters to be good backward skaters is key. Good balance is good balance, it doesn’t matter if you are skating forward or backward. Many skaters switch positions so many times before they actually establish what they want to do.
Whether it’s a breakout or a neutral zone trap, even our forwards are using backward skating many times throughout the game. It’s a game of transition from forward to backward and backward to forward, to keep up a skater must be able to do it all.
Diane Ness has been a full-time professional skating coach for over 35 years. She has coached both figure skaters and hockey players alike and is a former U.S. gold medalist in figure skating. She is the Director for the Pro Edge Power hockey camps and the Learn to Skate program at Highland Park Arena. Ness is the skating coach for the New Jersey Devils, the University of Minnesota men’s and women’s hockey teams and the U.S. Women’s Olympic Hockey Team. She has trained players in the NHL, AHL, NCAA, USHL and NAHL.
