Ice skating

“ Of course, our first experience on the ice was when we tried our first slide guided by the hand of a stronger and more expert companion. How soon we learned to do the trick, and what fun there was in "keep the pot a-boiling," while strings of youngsters took the slide. What if some did topple over? No bones were broken, and the incident always caused a lot of good-natured laughter.
Roller skating indoors or on smooth roads is certainly a good preparation for ice skating, but it is not at all necessary to begin that way, any more than it is to practice swimming with a support about the body. ”

“ The tracing of certain set figures on the ice is by no means all there is to figure skating. The correct carriage of the head and body, the arms and the balance leg are not merely an important part of the sport; they are even the very basis on which good marks are given in all serious competitions. No skater wishes to look like a freak on the ice. To avoid it one must cultivate the right carriage and balance from the start. ”

“ The skaters down on the ice hear the shouts and turn their eyes toward the mouth of the fiord. They see how a strip of water shimmers in the sunlight yonder. They see, also, that two little boys are skating toward this strip, which they do not notice because their eyes are fixed on the balloon; and not for a second do they turn them toward earth.
The people are calling out with all their might and stamping on the ice. Fast runners are hurrying on to stop them; but the little ones mark nothing of all this, where they are chasing after the airship. ”

“ To those who have visited the great rinks this street skating seems a rather awkward performance. The fact is, the notion of ice-skating has so firm a hold on the feet and legs of American youth that, unless they are told otherwise, they try to "strike out" as their fathers and grandfathers did before them, and consequently they lose half the fun of roller-skating, and make it awkward and laborious, whereas it ought to be one of the most graceful and easy of movements. ”

“ A second condition essential to the art of skating is also
involved in the melting of the ice. The sinking of the skate
gives the skater "bite." This it is which enables him to urge
himself forward. So long as skates consisted of the rounded bones
of animals, the skater had to use a pointed staff to propel
himself. In creating bite, the skater again unconsciously appeals
to the peculiar physical properties of ice. The pressure required
for the propulsion of the skater is spread all along the length
of the groove he has cut in the ice, and obliquely downwards. ”

“ The mere presence of an assisting hand will often aid the ambitious skater in the first mastery of a difficult balance or the sustaining of a long spiral. Individual skating, when it is highly perfected, tends somewhat toward an over-abundance of dance steps and toe movements, while pair skating remains skating at its best—the long, sweeping, exquisitely poised curves carried over two hundred feet of glistening ice. ”

“ By a gentle push from the instructor or friend, the beginner is sent backward. Then should begin the waving lines made by the skates on the ice as the learner sways from side to side and throws the balance of the body from one foot to the other and from one edge to the other. ”

“ People darted suddenly into the picture, materialising in full detail in the space of a moment, then rushed out of it again, dwindling into insignificant black dots which merged themselves into the continuously shifting throng beyond.
At last she bent her steps towards the lower end of the rink, by common consent reserved for beginners in the art of skating. She had not skated for several years, owing to a severe strain which had left her with a weak ankle, and she felt somewhat nervous about starting again.
Rather slowly she fastened on her skates and ventured tentatively on to the ice. ”

“ It is natural that the art of skating should come to us from the North, for it is in the land of ice and snow that the problem of traversing the frozen surface of the snow-covered ground and the ice-bound water would have to be solved. ”

“ In fact, I had not been on the ice fifteen minutes, when I got to skating too fast—my skate going so fast that I couldn’t keep up—and the result was that I presently had the ice for a pillow, and lay there gazing at the clouds, with only one overhanging skate-clad foot to interrupt the view. Then, before I had time to stir from this novel position, a handsome young lady, who was trying the backward skating, endeavored to skate over me—a feat frequently attempted without success—and the result was, she violently took a seat upon my stomach and jobbed one of her elbows in my eye. ”

“ Skating was done for, for the ice on the lake had become overloaded, and had broken up into a shifting mass of blocks, grinding against each other when the wind blew, and threatening the safety of any craft that tried to put out in it. ”

“ The skating rinks in Russia are very safe, as notwithstanding the great thickness of the ice they submerge large flat boats placed side by side up to a few inches below the water before it has frozen, so that if the ice breaks there is no danger of disappearing under the floes.
Nothing was more amusing once one had on one's skates than to let oneself be pushed by the wind, at a pace which sometimes reached a giddy speed. ”

“ Some of the skaters eventually went back to practicing in locations of their own choosing. . .places that were either not suited to the vendors purposes or for other reasons not generally used.
They would skate in the moonlight at night, or bring candles to set on the ice, and would skate around them like faeries in the forest.
All in all, it was some of the most beautiful skating of all time— and anyone today would undoubtedly consider themselves blessed if a chance to see anything like it came along. ”

“ The lower lake is now all alive with skaters and with ladies driven onward by them in their ice cars. Mercury surely was the first maker of skates, and the wings at his feet are symbols of the invention. In skating, there are three pleasing circumstances—the infinitely subtle particles of ice which the skaters cut up, and which creep and run before the skate like a low mist and in sunrise or sunset become coloured ”

“ Skating is a sport for everybody—girls and boys, young people and old people. It can be started in extreme childhood and enjoyed far into old age. It can be a fast, strenuous exercise or a gentle enjoyment of poetic motion. It stimulates health, prompts to wholesome life out of doors, is a social diversion and, in its best development, requires considerable mental application. In every respect it is an ideal sport for people of any nation, especially those situated where natural ice is found or artificial ice is provided. ”

“ Snow ice, or shell ice, should be broken with the foot or shovel and putty of snow and water pounded into the holes. When snow falls sweep it off at once and make it into an embankment at the sides of the rink. Strong sun melts thin ice much quicker than thick ice. By keeping track of the weather reports splendid skating can often be obtained by very little attention to the skating pond. A large watering pot is sometimes a sufficient 93implement with which to renew the surface of a badly cut skating area. ”

“ I have quite a deep groove ground in my skates, and I have the outer edge of the skate slightly lower than the inner edge. The height of the skate above the ice is not very important. Some of the experts favor great height. My skates are built comparatively low.
The flat bladed skate ought not to be used by any one who wishes to learn figure skating. The hockey skate is the right skate for hockey, but the wrong skate for anything else. To learn on that type of skate means that the skater must learn all over again when figure skating is attempted. ”

“ Of winter sports—in which, however, but a small minority of the Russian youth care to take part—there are skating, ice-yatching, snow-shoeing, and ice-hilling. The skating ought, naturally, to be very good in Russia. As a matter of fact the ice is generally dead and lacking in that elasticity and spring which is characteristic of our English ice. It is too thick for elasticity, though the surface is beautifully kept and scientifically treated with a view to skating wherever a space is flooded or an acre or two of the Neva's broad bosom is reclaimed to make a skating-ground. ”

“ On skates thus fastened anything may be accomplished.
Always put your own skates on, and put them on deliberately; for if you really mean skating in earnest, limbs, and even life, may depend on their running true, and not failing at a critical moment. The slope of the bank must be descended sideways—avoid [Pg 23] the stones concealed by snow, for they will destroy the edge of the skate. When within a foot or so, leap on, and the impetus will carry you some yards out upon the lake, clear of the shadow of the bank and the willows above, out to where the ice gleams under the sunshine. ”

“ I have not put on a pair of skates for the last five years. I have seen ice enough and to spare in the shape of icebergs, and floes, and fields of ice, but that is not the sort of ice suitable for skating. A big, thundering iceberg is a wonderful thing; we nearly got run down by one, or rather we nearly ran into one, if the truth must be said, when I was in the ‘Stag,’ only, of course, we always lay the blame on anything but ourselves ”

“ Before going on the ice, the young skater must learn to put on the skates, and may also learn to walk with them easily in a room, balancing, alternately, on each foot. A skater’s dress should be as loose and unincumbered as possible. All fullness of dress is exposed to the wind. As the exercise of skating produces perspiration, flannel next the chest, shoulders, and loins, is necessary to avoid the evils of sudden chills in cold weather. ”

“ The skater must learn straight skating, that is, moving forward by long slides on each foot alternately while the foot not on the ice is held up backward and outward from the ice, before attempting intricacies. ”

“ In several of my skating excursions I have observed, and noted it to others, that ice of just sufficient strength to bear any one in skates standing upon it, will instantly break if tried by the same person without having skates on. ”

“ This ought to be done across the stone, so as to give the bottom of the skate so slight a concavity as to be imperceptible, which insures an edge whose angle is not greater than right. Care must be taken that one edge is not higher than the other; so that, when the skate is placed upon an even surface, it may stand quite perpendicularly. The wear of the iron not being great with a beginner, one grinding will generally last him through an ordinary winter’s skating on clean ice. ”

“ Probably the beginner will not realize that he is making a sculling or waving mark on the ice until he has examined the print of the skates. It is an excellent practice to look at the marks which you have made in the ice. Often the accuracy of a curve or circles, or the correct tracing of a three or counter or rocker will be impossible to determine until the print has been examined. The judges in all great contests study the print on the ice as much as they do the carriage of the skater. ”

“ The plain skates have no such groove, and are better adapted for those who have partially acquired the art, as with them the utmost velocity and elegance of movement may be performed. [4]
[4] Fluted skates, however, are dangerous for any but those of light weight, as the cut ice is apt to “ball” in the groove, and so to throw the wearer, if he leans on one side.
The iron of the skate, which lies under the foot, is called its blade; this varies in different kinds of skates, and the practised professor of skating will choose a high or a low bladed skate, according to the nature of the ice ”

“ Blake, after a bit. "See, children, the ice is more than six inches thick. It will be safe for us to skate on!"
Hal and Mab ran to look into the little hole their father had cut in the ice. It went down for more than half a foot, or six inches, like a well you dig in the sand at the seashore. But no water showed in the bottom of this hole in the ice.
"The ice is good and thick," said Mr. Blake. "It will hold up all the skaters that will come on this pond."
But the children and their Daddy were the only ones there now. Mr. Blake showed Hal and Mab how to put on their skates. ”

“ While the skating of school figures is always to place, and the marking of that skating is dependent upon the ability of the skater to make his tracings upon the ice conform to correct designs, the free skating is, as its name implies, entirely independent of conventional form and may be located at any place upon the ice. The free skating programme is the most interesting portion of the contest generally and offers the best test of the skater’s ability to illustrate mastery of the spectacular side of the sport. ”

“ You must skate straightaway until you have gained sufficient headway, then at the end of the last stroke turn the toes out so that the runners of your skates make a straight line, heel to heel, one skate following the other. In this position you will glide over the ice until the momentum first gained is exhausted. At first the beginner will be only partially successful, but gradually he will be able to describe a wide circle forward, and in a little while gain sufficient control of his feet to slide across the skating pond in a straight line. ”