Techniquey Skating with Brian Orser Videos

I'm pumped.

Since I'm stuck off ice with a bad knee, I've been looking at stuff to do when I get back on ice. I recently got all of the "Speed for Free" videos with Brian Orser from Myskatecoach.com and I'm now respectfully worshipful of Brian's coaching of skating skills.

These are 8 videos extracted from a group class Brian taught, and they are very, very skating skills techniquey. I can say that each of the videos have something I want to try when I get back on the ice because the demonstrated techniques are within my skill set.  I don't think that means the skills are easy, but I can try them and see if they do improve my speed.

How techniquey are they? Deeply techniquey.

There's a video on how to use your arms to build up your speed. If that's been mentioned to me before, it completely passed me by.  So, I consider that deep technique (although once he talked about it, I realized the physics was perfectly obvious as long jumpers use a variation of it).  

The series also has a couple of videos on how to do proper russian stroking (don't google that term by the way, you'll get responses that are NSFW) in the series. It really looks like alternating forward crossovers to me, but he shows how to get speed out of it.

My favorite is his video on "Progressive Edge Change" (it's not in the Speed for Free series). This is an exercise that is designed to increase speed.  However, at the end of several variations of the exercise you build up to doing an edge change alternating feet every stroke. Hmmm, maybe I can use this as an approach to improve my edge changes so I can finally do edge pulls.

The only bad thing about MyskatingCoach.com videos is the expense. I got these in a 70% off Black Friday sale. The videos are only a few minutes long and run $4.99 per video. If you root around in the site you may find a coupon for reduced cost if you buy a lot of them.

And speaking as someone who is a decade + older than Brian, he's just the charmingest guy managing his class of teenagers in the group lessons.

So, I'm pumped, ready to get back on the ice!