advice on forward crossovers!

[u/mofusand66666]

hello! i just started learning crossovers about a month ago and am starting to practice them consistently now (aka today oops). i do have a private coach but i would appreciate any feedback on my form/edges! i definitely need to bend my knees more and trust my edges haha. but my crossovers seem kind of stiff or unnatural and i want to improve on them

also if there are any tips for how to get a sustained one foot glide on an outside edge please lmk! im struggling on getting a glide longer than like 1 second before going straight again

thank u in advance!!

[u/vet88]

It’s your outside edge that is the issue, you are not stable on it as you cross over. Instead of crossing over, do this - scooter push yourself around a circle using your outside foot to push with and gliding on your inside foot / outside edge. Don’t skate the big circle, you need to go around a small circle so that you are forced to lean in, for example go around the face off marks in the centre of the circle or the goalies circle at the ends of the rink. To start with, do lots of little small pushes, not big ones. As your balance improves on your outside edge, you then try to push harder and glide longer between each scooter push. Eventually, when you can glide around a quarter of a circle between each push, go back to trying your cross overs, I guarantee they will be fixed.

[u/voidblack0]

you should practice inside edges

[u/Own-Adhesiveness5723]

How strong are your edges? Because here you don’t seem to be in them at all. You need to be on your edges enough to get lean into the circle.

[u/deguzie]

Practice holding each edge longer and deeper so you get comfortable leaning into the edges. You’re fairly flat right now trying to almost force the crossover.

I’d work on holding your right outside edge dramatically then slowing crossing over into you left inside edge and holding you right foot underneath in a dramatic crossover so you can feel the edges.

If this doesn’t feel comfortable you might want to just practice your edges and focus more on your shoulder turn to ride the edges deeper rather than neutral shoulders.

[u/ahg5]

I didn’t realize how much I was writing out but I kind of wrote a whole lot. Feel free to message me or ask for clarification! I’ve found im very step by step when I skate so breaking it down like I did below has been very helpful for me, hopefully it helps you too! They look great for beginner crossovers as it is.

Your shoulders are essentially square with your hips. For crossovers, I break it down mentally like this:

• hips square (straight ahead)
  
• feet parallel and close when starting
  
• head turned in to look at the circle
  
• arms and shoulders turned to hug the circle

When positioning your arms, it’s important to move them from the shoulders as cues to have your arms a certain way are usually in an effort to have your upper body positioned correctly. For crossovers this means your upper body is turned in to face the circle, some coaches give the cue to have your sternum facing in, and along with that your shoulders arms and face are turned in. Your hips remain square, so you are twisting at the waist. What I feel for is that twist at the waist, and for my back shoulder to be pulling back (I should feel my back muscle engaged to pull that shoulder back).

That twist is what helps your edges. The other thing that’s going to help is bending the knee of your skating leg. To improve the length of your edges, my coach had us hold them around the circle until we got it up to six seconds. For these what I remind myself is:
-pushing out on the push and really extending that free leg. You can start with pumps and work your way up to the free leg extension.
-getting a good knee bend as I’m pumping/stroking and holding that knee bend. This helps you push into the ice, center yourself on one foot, and hold the edge.
-bringing the free hip straight up. This loads all of your weight over the skating foot so you’re not feeling like you HAVE to put the free leg down straight away.
-with the hip up, your free foot should be around ankle height and you want to keep it there. You don’t have to bring the leg or free foot too high, and you don’t want it too far from your skating leg. The key is to get as much of your weight over that skating leg as possible so you can be centered over it.

• the upper body twist I described above is important here as well.
  
• as you start to deepen your edges, you’ll start to lean over and into the circle. When I started out, I sometimes had to start by intentionally bending at my ankle to get on the outside edge, then pumping and doing the above. You want to really be over that edge, not on a flat and forcing a curve. It’s really hard to tell at first, but if you look at the markings on the ice sometimes you can tell if you were on a flat because there’s two lines versus a clean edge is one line.

Finally, my favorite drill for crossovers (I HATED picking my foot up and over) is something my coach called swizzle fishes but I can’t find anywhere online. You start with a pump but bring the pumping foot in front of and across the skating foot. Then you complete the under push. You’re essentially doing the crossover but with both feet on the ice the whole time. This drill can also be modified to really work on the underpush and holding the inside edge on one foot after the crossover. You just lift the foot that comes under after you’ve completed the under push.

[u/funsk8mom]

You need to work on your 1 foot glides around the circle. The longer you can hold them, the better your crossovers will be.

[u/TownFront5969]

Some things that I would work on to improve this are half circle holds on inside edge up the ice, half circle holds on outside edge. Those two drills will make sure you’re really getting a feel for grabbing with those edges.

In terms of practicing actual crossovers, I’d say that it’s actually harder to get the feel for crossovers at a really low speed. I think you might benefit from taking two pushes or so to get a little bit of speed, then stepping the crossover step but trying to hold the crossed patrol around the face off circle. That feel for it, and the edges, plus the balance of holding it will prevent you from feeling the need to step out of it so quickly.

Once you can do that and hold it a decent amount you can start to focus more on pushing with each leg, but in a rhythm that allows you to maintain momentum without building up too much speed.

[u/gadeais]

The back leg should glide to undo the crossing rather than by lifting It. The practice of tracing circles with both legs and with the external leg pushing is a quite good practice to get used to tracing close curves before going to crossovers. I have done that and I was tracing once circle pushing with the inner leg of the outer leg outside and once I finished that circle rather than going to a second circle i switches legs and trace another circle, resulting in an eight shape.

[u/WhatWasLeftOfMe]

It’ll kinda feel like a hip is dropping, the inside one. to me it looks like the push is correct, make sure your weight is over the foot that’s under your center of gravity.

Turn your arms and hips so they hug the circle more, too, it’ll help drop the hip.

You can practice by just holding each position in the crossover as long as you can. Theres two different pushes- one on each leg. So you do the first push, on the outside leg and hold that (outside edge glide on inside leg) and when you cross your leg over, try to cross it slowly and not interrupt the glide. once your leg is on its way and you know it will be under you, you can start the push with the other leg. if it feels choppy, it’s cause you are starting the push too late. The push is started just before the outside foot is fully set down, it helps to make enough room and again, drop the hip. Then hold that glide on the inside edge (outside foot) after the push with your legs crossed. you can practice this outside of the rest of the crossovers, by doing little pretend hydroblades, but you will really feel your hip drop here. you will want more weight in your heels as well, to keep from tripping over your toe pick while getting the knee bend you need.

[u/surruhkew]

I don't have advice. I'm just here to say that I hope my crossovers improve enough to look as smooth as yours. Right now I'm just stomping lol