In Katrina’s first video, she introduces herself and discusses her observation of a lack of skating skills taught at the lower levels. Depending on the location and if Learn to Skate Programs are utilized by hockey students, many young skaters start their first year of hockey not knowing how to skate. Often volunteer coaches turn to figure skating coaches to fill in the gaps of skating knowledge.
Katrina describes her teaching approach of making her drills between 1-6 minutes to fit into the American “stations” model. This also helps with retaining the skater’s attention and focus.
Addressing the age old question of if figure skating coaches ought to wear hockey skates when they coach hockey players, Katrina states that she wears her figure skates. Where you push on the blade is the same in either sport. Katrina even mentions that she “probably gets a little bit more respect” wearing her figure skates and the kids don’t even question it.
She starts her beginners with under-speed drills focusing on inside/outside edges and sculling (swizzles). As they progress, the speeds can increase but Katrina keeps them slow in the beginning in order to emphasize “where you’re pushing from the blade, how you bend your knees, where your head should be.”
Katrina wraps up with talking about developing upper body control with shoulder position, where your body faces and how handling a stick might negatively effect that at first.
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