Hockey Skates Lean
How do you teach an eight year-old to stop on ice skates?
Has anyone come across a technique that has worked to teach kids to stop on ice skates (other than just slamming into the boards).
My son has played hockey for a year and a half, and still doesn’t know how to lean into a stop.
It’s probably a confidence issue. It’s hard for a kid to have the confidence to unweight the skates and turn them 90 degrees sideways, and believe that he can do that without falling. It’s also awkward to learn this “gradually”, because you sorta have to either just do it or crash trying.
I would suggest having him try to learn how skates can slide perpendicular to the blade’s length while standing still. i.e., Have him unweight one skate and “scrape” the ice with it. Have him do it over and over and over until he gets used to that feeling.
Then get him to try that while moving, only with just one skate. He will then be able to slow himself with that somewhat, anyway.
After he does that many times, he, hopefully, will get comfortable enough with it to attempt the hockey stop with both feet.
Even if that method doesn’t work, he’ll eventually get confident enough with his skating abilities to try it on his own anyway. (Probably while nobody’s watching, so he isn’t embarrassed about falling!!)
Hope this helped. Hockey is a GREAT sport!