So I was originally going to post this with a video, but Blogger is being quite unhelpful with uploading a video with this post. The video itself is nothing terribly remarkable, but it's much more helpful to actually see what's going on instead of just have me attempt to describe it here. There were lateral movement drills and an agility drill, but I can't really talk about what specifically happens in the video unless the video can be uploaded. Instead, I'll talk about something else that's come up in recent weeks.
I haven't been able to skate as much as I thought I would be able to this semester, but there are definitely other hockey related skills-building things I've done in the meantime to try to make up for the lack of ice time.
On the ice, though, it's been an interesting last few months. I've been trying to find ways to improve, and aside from learning skills that I don't yet know how to do or do very poorly, I've been trying to delve deeper into my stride. There are skating sessions where I feel like I'm the fastest I've ever been, and the next time out, the ice feels like trying to skate through concrete. I don't particularly consider myself a skilled hockey player in any facet of the game, but I do think my best asset is my skating ability, so developing consistency there would go a long way toward shoring up the rest of my on-ice skills. It probably helps that skating is the only thing I can work on since there's hardly any time I can get for stick-and-puck practice on ice while I'm here at school.
I love HowToHockey and the video's he's posted on hockey fundamentals, and I think I'm starting to find some answers with his most recent videos on proper skating stance:
And a second:
Going all the way back to my last blog, and even including the video I was planning to upload with this post, something always seemed off to me about my skating stride and stance, especially on lateral movement drills. On the ice, I always felt like I was bending my knees and trying to stay low to the ice to maintain my power skating stance; after video review though, my legs make it look like I never bend my knees while skating, and it was very apparent in the video I was planning to post today that my knee-bend looked non-existent on video.
I've already played one game of intramural ice hockey this season (which will be its own separate post if I ever get around to it), and while I didn't get a chance to really work on my skating to try to implement this insight into knee-bend and adjust my skating stride before the game, I did make a conscious effort during the game to get low especially in races for the puck. I definitely felt faster than I had been in recent weeks, and even though the ice was really choppy because we were the second game that night and there was no zamboni between games, the ice didn't feel like trying to skate through concrete when I made a conscious effort to bend my knees more than I might have considered necessary. It didn't detract from my balance even though I hadn't worked on my stride in a while (in fact, the lower stance helped my balance overall especially when I tried skating at full speed in puck races), and it also didn't hinder any of stick skills, which is encouraging because I've been experimenting with my hockey sticks lately after finding something absolutely fascinating on the Internet (topic for another post).
Whenever I can actually make it to the rink to practice my skating again, I'll definitely be working on maintaining my knee-bend as a conditioning exercise, as a leg workout, and as a speed exercise.
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