Top of the Bill#

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 13:00:00 +0000

If you were wondering about the other five of those principles, here's the complete list -

1. Body position
2. Sideways push
3. Weight transfer
4. D shaped recovery, or "looping the foot behind". According to Bill, there should be a moment when only the setdown skate is visible from the front, because the recovering skate is directly behind it.
5. Armswing
6. Setdown: drive the leg forward with the hip flexors and set the foot down gently. The back wheels should (or just "might", I don't know) touch down before the front ones. This gives the usual skating muscles a little extra time to relax.

Mostly this is pretty standard stuff, at least from our perspective in London - perhaps because Mike's been talking to Bill for over a year now and passing the knowledge on. What's quite amazing, though, is just how much he can tell about a skater or a skate just from a brief look: we skated past around him as he watched, and based on looking at a skater in motion for only a second or so he was able to recognise and diagnose good/bad aspects of their setdown, armswing, glide - any of the above, in fact. His frame alignment assessment was similarly swift.