Good Posture All skaters should try to achieve good posture and stance, but what is it and how should you try to achieve it. We often talk about 'poor' or 'good style'; this often also refers to what we call good posture. The first thing to be aware of is that your back line is strong and upright but not stiff. This often is achieved not by thinking about your back but by concentrating on your stomach strength. You should stand straight and tall, then tighten you buttocks and slightly lift your pelvis, while pulling your navel into your spine. This creates what I call 'core strength' and allows you to maintain your centre, while still being able to move, lean or rotate. You should also ensure that your shoulders are relaxed and rotated down in their sockets, so that you can feel the muscles of your back pulling the shoulder blades down towards the centre of the back, the head should held erect and with the greatest possible space between the ear and the shoulder.  If you lift your arms, they should always be in front of your bodyline so that if you look directly forward your hands should still be in your peripheral or side vision. You can always test for this by moving or waggling you hands and you should see this movement without having to look directly at them, if your arms are held too far back, behind your bodyline then you will not see this movement. Another good tip, is that you should always lift your arms from underneath the upper arm, this makes you use your back and underarm muscles and stops you lifting your shoulder when working your arms as well as allowing your arms to remain relaxed and therefore usually take a better and cleaner position. Note that when you are off-set as you usually are when skating, that is with your hips at about 45 degrees to the skate, both arms will be to one side of the body or the other, with the lead arm across your body and the back arm slightly to the side. Another good exercise for this is to skate with a hockey stick and make sure that it is always parallel to the ice and again always on one side of your body or the other and never directly in front of you, with one hand in the circle and the other outside of the circle, you always want both hands either in or out of the circle you are skating. Again I think it is a big help is if you think that much of the rotation you achieve while skating and changing of the arms comes from the rotation of the ribcage rather than simple moving your arms. This creates a much more complete body movement and as a result a better style. Well once again I hope that some of these tips help you improve your skating skills. Have fun!

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