<![CDATA[THE SKATING YOGI - Blog]]>Sat, 18 Apr 2026 23:00:36 -0400Weebly<![CDATA[The Best Balance Tips for Skaters]]>Thu, 28 Mar 2024 13:06:03 GMThttps://www.theskatingyogi.com/beyond-sports-blog/the-best-balance-tips-for-skaters

Figure skater showing good balance, smiling and looking happy in a catch spiral

Improving our balance isn’t reserved for the ice or off-ice conditioning.

In fact, everything in the universe is about balance--

the scales of justice
our ecosystem
education
the human body
relationships

Balance is not about staying in one static state.. it’s a gentle moving back and forth between different sides. Like the pendulum action of the free leg on the American Waltz!

Some systems and people can withstand some pretty wild extremes on either side of center… and others are a little more delicate.

And most of the time, the level of extremes that we can withstand as humans changes over time, due to age, health, and outside factors.

World champion Deanna Stellato-Dudek is able to withstand the intense training of elite pairs skating because she dedicates several hours a day to conditioning AND recovery. The injury and burnout that forced her out of the sport years ago were a result of major imbalance in her training and life.

Very few things push the actual limits of our physical balance as much as skating.

But what about the balance of our internal systems?
Of our minds and our spirits?

The 8 limbs of yoga are a practice dedicated to observing and finding that balance.

The first two limbs - the yamas and the niyamas - include different mindsets and habits that, when integrated and balanced, lead us on the path to a happy life.

Practicing them takes time and awareness.

The rest of the limbs are physical and mental practices that help us slow down and observe our habits.
They help us practice and integrate the yamas and niyamas, so we can reach that blissful, balanced state of ease.

So we can flow into to the blissful zone on and off the ice.

In the Skating Yogi Membership we practice the 8 limbs, learning to balance the yamas and niyamas. Join the waiting list today.

]]><![CDATA[It's the Little Things That Count - Five Reasons Skaters Should Practice Basic Skating]]>Sat, 14 Oct 2023 01:18:13 GMThttps://www.theskatingyogi.com/beyond-sports-blog/its-the-little-things-that-count-five-reasons-skaters-should-practice-basic-skating

Young figure skater with black hair in a ponytail is dressed in all black with white skates. She is practicing gliding on a backward outside edge with the free leg extended

Practicing basic skating skills

I’ve been observing skating progress accounts on social media over the past couple of years, and I’ve noticed how much focus there is on “achieving” new tricks.

I haven’t asked why, but I have a hunch it’s the same reason younger skaters and parents fixate on new jumps…

Landing a new jump feels like a more tangible measure of progress than power, edge quality, or carriage.
New jumps are more recognizable than incredible skating skills, and in some ways, easier than beautiful carriage.
The brain thinks it’s working hard if you just keep at it–sweating and grunting, jumping and falling.
Social media applauds you when you show how hard of a skill you’re working on–each harder jump or spin is like an imaginary milestone.

Seasoned coaches will agree, though, that it’s even more important to practice the “simple” stuff.

Below are five reasons why.

In figure skating, the little things are key to GOE

If you currently test or compete or want to in the future, you should know that the GOE (grade of execution) is what counts.

Positive GOE’s garner more points, and the higher the GOE, the more points.

The only way to raise the GOE on an element (jump, spin, or step sequence for singles skating), is to develop good carriage, beautiful positions, and excellent technique to execute the elements with ease.

In other words, practice the little details over and over.

Basic skating exercises allow for breathwork

When you’re learning a new element, most likely you’re not breathing because you’re nervous. But not breathing creates more anxiety in the body.

This is why one of the main tenets of yoga is to only go as deep in a posture as you can while maintaining a smooth, steady, and full breath. The postures should be a balance of effort and ease—you teeter on the edge of your comfort zone to keep pushing the boundaries of where you feel comfortable.

But if you don’t ever slow down to focus just on the breath, then breathing in difficult postures or movements becomes next to impossible.

When you take time in your skating to focus on stroking, gliding, slower edge drills, and sections of choreography, you can begin to incorporate proper and effective breathing into your skating. This lowers anxiety and leads to a more efficient performance.

Breathing is the first thing we do when we enter this world, and it’s the most important.

Basic figure skating drills teach body awareness

Some figure skaters develop great skills without having a clue about what they’re doing. These tend to be kinesthetic learners. And even kinesthetic learning skaters have a degree of body awareness, albeit sometimes an unconscious one.

To be in control of their skating and have the most consistent results, though, skaters must constantly work on developing different types of body awareness–interoceptive, proprioceptive, and spatial.

It’s much easier to tap into these three areas when working on basic skating drills. In yoga, we often do body scans while holding different postures to develop interoceptive awareness (and practice pratyahara).

In skating, we can do this by regular body check-ins, too. (“What did you feel on that takeoff?”)

This is easier when we slow down and isolate positions and movements. Of course, we have to eventually apply the drills to the elements, but without the drills, we can’t build awareness.

Good skating drills make the hard stuff easier

Any master of their craft will tell you that a solid foundation is key to success.

Drills build awareness and muscle memory, improving basic technique.

When a skater’s basic technique is strong, the hard stuff becomes easier.

If a skater’s technique is weak, inconsistent, or incorrect, results are inconsistent and risk for injury is higher.

Skating is an odd sport. It involves movements that are unnatural to the human body.

This may be why the brain always wants to access the strongest, easiest-to-access muscles first. The quadriceps dominate over the glutes, the upper body moves more easily than the ankles bend, and the head often tries to initiate rotation.

Counteracting these tendencies means developing good technique. And that requires daily diligent training of different muscle groups and neural pathways.

As Coach Audrey Weisiger says, “more drills than spills.”

Practice basic skating to develop confidence AND humility

So often skaters try to disguise balance and control by adding fluff and speed.

Fluff and speed do have a place in skating, but they can also take away from the ease of performance and make timing and expression difficult. And when skaters are off balance, whether they realize it or not, there’s no way they can feel confident.

I love it when my advanced skaters lose their balance on an edge drill!

Falling on stroking and edge drills are reminders to slow down and notice ourselves. That little (or big!) loss of balance is a reminder that no one is exempt from the basics. Technique and alignment always need to be refined, and the brain always needs to be aware of the body and its surroundings.

Often, skaters resist practicing the basics because the level of focus and refinement it requires is tedious and uncomfortable.

Improving balance and technique develops stronger, more confident skaters.

It’s also important to know that the easy stuff is just as valid as the “hard” tricks.

What’s easy for you today is probably hard for someone else and may even be hard for you at some point–after an injury or illness, as you age, or when you’re stressed or sad.

If we are lucky enough to skate for many years, we will all have difficult days when the brain can’t handle anything complicated.

It’s on these super difficult days that practicing the basics is especially useful for boosting our mood and for self-awareness.

I like to picture what is going on inside the body as I do the drill… either picture the breath moving in and out of the body as I stay still–gliding or posing on the mat–or picture how I think the bones and muscles are working when I move.

Think of it as pratyahara on ice.

Even though skaters sometimes resist slowing down and working on “simple” edge exercises, basic spins, or single jumps, doing so is an important part of progress. Practicing the foundation is not a step backward… it is a step towards higher GOE’s, improved body awareness, refined technique, more humility, and at the same time, greater confidence.

Learn simple exercises for conquering performance anxiety with my FREE GUIDE: Anti-Anxiety Tools for Skaters.

]]><![CDATA[Lemonade from Lemons - Skating Lessons Learned from a Major Injury]]>Sat, 30 Sep 2023 02:34:29 GMThttps://www.theskatingyogi.com/beyond-sports-blog/lemonade-from-lemons-skating-lessons-learned-from-a-major-injury

Recovering from gluteus medius repair requires lots of ice... a machine makes it easier.

In January, I fooled myself into believing I was ready to try something I wasn’t.

I had been dealing with tendinopathy in the right hip for quite some time (close to two years). Believing my body was younger and stronger than it was, I waited way too long to start PT.

I kept thinking the pain would get better on its own. When it improved a smidge, I dove into an advanced pose in yoga that I had no business trying. Immediately I felt the pop - like a rubber band that has been stretched too far. And I knew I had seriously messed up.

(I wouldn’t know just how much I had screwed up until several months later when it hit me how long and hard recovery would be.)

Even though the surgery did what it was supposed to do – repair the tendon attachment and remove the bursa – I won’t know until several more months if it actually did what it was supposed to do.

As my surgeon said, “A tear is a tear, and you have to rebuild, and it takes a long time.” Right now, the muscle is simply still too weak and sore to know the final outcome yet.

Below are seven important truths I have been reminded of as a result of this surgery, though. They’re important enough to make me grateful that I’ve gone through this process, so keep reading if you want to know them, too.

Skating Injuries are Harder to Heal at 50 Than at 15

This was my first (and hopefully last) orthopedic surgery, and I naively thought recovery would be a piece of cake.

But I'm not 15 anymore.

Perimenopause means tissues heal more slowly, less estrogen means you have less strength (which is what led to this in the first place).

At 50 you have less energy, and the anesthesia affects you for longer.

Plus, the stress of missing work (especially when you’re self-employed) makes healing harder, too! When pushing yourself to try something, you should ask, “Can I afford to do this?” This is a wise question from my yoga teachers, and I didn’t ask it the day I injured myself. This is especially true for adult skaters!

Learn to take care of your body at 15 so you’re better equipped to handle the injuries that may come your way. Learn to listen to the signals your body sends you, practice smart training habits, hydrate well, eat well, and practice good recovery habits.

When you stop training, don’t stop being active. And if you choose to start training after a break, don’t do too much too soon.

A Skating Body is Smart - Let it Do the Work

The human body is amazing. It knows how to heal, and it knows how to adapt.

Why do skaters use their upper body to throw themselves into jumps? Often it’s because the right muscles aren’t firing at the right time.

Learning proper jump technique is a lot like retraining the body after an injury. You have to wake up the muscles with targeted exercises, and then work on the harder stuff. Physical therapy is crucial in both processes, imho.

And to allow the body to do its thing, a little work goes a long way.

If you’re recovering from an injury, follow the doctor’s and PT’s protocols, do the exercises the right amount of times (more is not better), and allow yourself time to rest and rewire itself in between.

Curiosity is Key for Injury Recovery

It’s really easy to lose perspective when you’re staring at the same four walls for weeks on end, and when you know a return to the ice is still 6 months away.

My advice when facing an injury is to lean into curiosity about the situation. Observe the workings of the human body with wonder. Marvel at the gift of life.

As I heard the great poet Andrea Gibson say in a recent interview, “The best way to know is to unknow.”

Acknowledge that you are a living being inhabiting a human body.

Observe the healing process taking place in your body.

Acknowledge that you are living in this exact moment for the first and last time ever.

Notice yourself.

Know When and What to Let Go

Coaches always advise to focus on what you can control. This is just as important in recovery as it is during training and performing.

After the first miserable week, I had a hard time with this. My brain was running wild–thinking of all the work I needed to be doing and chores I was used to controlling.

Retraining the muscles to work after surgery is physically exhausting, but I was not prepared for the mental fatigue.

So while my brain was running wild, I couldn’t think clearly enough to accomplish anything.

No amount of breathing calmed the anxiety. I had too much screen time, but I also couldn’t really move on my own, so my body became increasingly agitated, which made my mind more agitated.

The more time passed, though, I realized that the only thing I could control was how I responded to my body’s needs and whom I asked for help.

Recovery involved letting go of nearly everything EXCEPT recovery.

Ask the Skating Community for Help

Adequate help and support is crucial to recovery of any kind.

In my particular case, I couldn’t go to the bathroom or get dressed on my own for over a week. I used a walker for several more weeks, and wasn’t able to drive for even longer.

I needed help fixing food, carrying a glass of water, going up and down stairs, reaching things off the floor, putting on the requisite compression socks, and on and on.

I’m usually the one taking care of others, and I knew it was necessary, so I didn’t feel bad asking for help.

Through this experience, I realized that while people are busy, they generally want to help, so let them know how they can.

Community is how we, as a species, have survived through history.

This is why so many people become so invested in sports–for the community.

If you are going through it, ask your community for help.

Side note here–I had so much amazing help, and if you are one of my amazing helpers and are reading this, please know that I am incredibly grateful for you… even if I continue to procrastinate on the thank-you notes... remember the mental fatigue I mentioned?

Social Media Use is Not Free

This one is tough for us to remember, no matter how many times we hear it.

Social media is not free.

While it can be an effective way to disseminate information and trends, we are the product being sold on social media. Our attention, our ideas, or data–it’s all being manipulated by the algorithms.

I had figured this out, but for a couple of weeks during my time in bed, I lost sight of that truth again.

The less time I spend online, the happier I am. I have more space in my head and in my schedule. I listen better, I think more deliberately, and I can observe and be creative.

Time and energy are better spent in person with loved ones, enjoying my hobbies, reading, and exercising my brain and my soul than scrolling mindlessly. .

Plus, if you have a personality type like mine that tends to obsess (like many skaters), it’s very easy to get caught up in an image, a lifestyle, a goal, or even an idea portrayed online.

Be deliberate and intentional with your screen time and social media use. Set a time limit for yourself and stick to it.

Even if you’re not paying $$ for TikTok or IG, you’re paying with your attention and your energy.

"Where attention goes, energy flows."

- Tony Robbins

If You Don't Give Yourself a Break, Your Body Will Do It For You

We all need day off, and sometimes even a couple weeks off.

It’s hard to say how much of a break is the right amount, because every individual is different. This is where noticing yourself is key.

Like doing a reset of a computer, a break can reset our nervous system and allow us to operate in the world more intentionally and effectively.

Every time I take a break, whether it’s for a daily savasana or a longer vacation, my mind and body resist at first. They want to hang on–the brain is afraid of losing control.

But as time passes and I get serious about giving myself a break, I begin to relax and let things go. Time marches one, and what is essential will still be there when I get back.

"Let come what comes, let go what goes.
See what remains.”

― Ramana Maharshi

Before the surgery, I was very dedicated to putting these posts out for the community weekly, pouring over every word, and letting it eat up way too much of my time.

I’ve had several people ask when I’ll get back to writing, saying they miss my posts and the inspiration and perspective they offer the skating community.

I’m happy to be writing again after a couple of months off.

I’m also happy to say that I’m going to follow own advice and try to make these posts shorter than my usual.

I need time to take care of myself and do other things that I enjoy besides just talk about skating. And at the time of writing this, I still have several months of recovery ahead of me.

In the end, letting go a little will help me be of much better service to this beautiful skating yogi community.

Need some tricks for handling the nerves so you can perform your best? Get my FREE GUIDE: Anti-Anxiety Tools for Skaters.

]]><![CDATA[Here's The Yoga That Figure Skaters Can Practice While Injured (or Anytime)]]>Sun, 09 Jul 2023 01:36:10 GMThttps://www.theskatingyogi.com/beyond-sports-blog/heres-the-yoga-that-figure-skaters-can-practice-while-injured-or-anytime

Skater practicing candle gazing to improve focus

Right now in one of my weekly yoga classes for figure skaters, we have a hodge podge of injuries.

One skater has a hairline fracture of the wrist, another with a strained foot, and another with a strained hamstring. Then, I have my own injury that has plagued me for months–a gluteus medius tear that will be surgically repaired in a few days.

Thank goodness the days of “no pain no gain” in youth sports in the US are disappearing (even if that attitude still persists in many parts of society and in many sports cultures across the world).

As my teacher at Yoga East always say, “no pain, no pain” is a much better way to be.

Of course, sometimes kids say “owww, it hurts” every time you ask them to use a muscle, and learning to distinguish between effort and the accompanying discomfort vs. actual pain is part of the process of being human and especially of learning to be an athlete.

This need for awareness is a major reason why I believe that continuing to practice yoga (in an appropriate, non-harmful way) while injured is so important.

I give options to all of the students, especially those with injuries, and let them know that they are in charge–if they don’t feel comfortable trying something or begin to feel any pain, then we need to stop and find a different option for them.

We also have been incorporating more exercises for the other limbs of yoga (yamas and niyamas, pranayama, dharana, pratyahara), which are crucial for a well-rounded practice.

After all, the essence of practice is simply exploration and awareness of the mind and body, not perfection.

How Figure Skaters Can Do Yoga While Injured

To be honest, I don’t always follow my own advice and haven’t practiced very much asana during the last few months of this injury.

I understand that there are lots of reasons someone might choose not to do a physical practice while injured: lingering perfectionist feelings of not wanting to practice if it can’t be done well, fear of one’s lack of self-discipline or self-awareness, fear of making the injury worse, the discomfort of and mental effort it takes to come up with a practice for oneself within their current limitations, or any number of other reasons.

There was a period where my doctor wanted almost complete rest (as little activation of the gluteus medius as possible) to see if the injury would heal on its own. I didn’t trust myself enough to completely avoid that motion, I couldn’t face the mental effort of working out a practice within the restrictions, and frankly, I was angry that I wasn’t able to do the physical practice that I wanted to do.

So, since I really wanted to avoid surgery and was full of excuses, I avoided all asana.

Now I realize I could have and should have made the effort to practice within those parameters. If I had, I would be feeling a lot better mentally and emotionally right now.

sthira sukham asanam
"Yoga asana should be steady and comfortable."

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 2.46

If you follow the guidelines of yoga sutra 2.46 - “Yoga asana should be steady and comfortable”, and you follow the first tenet of yoga – ahimsa (non-harm), then you can find yoga poses that are safe to practice, even while injured.

A skilled, experienced yoga teacher can offer options to the student, and the student, armed with self-awareness and honesty, can move through the practice with intention.

(Be sure to follow the instructions of your health care practitioner and avoid anything that goes against those instructions and/or anything that may further strain the injury.)

Often, practicing with an injury will include more PT-type exercises (which are often done as warm-ups in yoga classes anyway), and may also use even more props than usual. For a foot injury, for example, many poses can be done in a chair, thus avoiding stress caused by standing.

For a mild hamstring strain, folding poses should be done with bent knees and yoga blocks as supports for the head and hands, where necessary. In my case - a torn gluteus medius tendon - I have to choose what can practice. Kneeling poses, a gentle cat/cow, Tadasana (Mountain Pose), Uttkatasana (Fierce Pose), Navasana (Boat Pose), almost anything for the upper body while seated (albeit with limited range of motion for twisting and leaning) are safe.

Another great option for an asana practice is incorporating mudras - which are basically postures for your hands and fingers that are said to open the arms and shoulders and adjust the flow of energy, even promoting healing and balancing the elements.

Figure Skating Mindset Work is Especially Important After Injury

Whether or not you are restricted in your asana practice, you can always practice the yamas and niyamas. These are the first two limbs of Patanjali’s 8 limbs of yoga, and are the foundation of everything a yogi and a skate must do for a happy journey.

(Check out my previous post for a more detailed explanation of the 8 limbs and another article that explains the yamas and their application to skating)

In all of my classes, I try to include at least a mention of the yamas or niyamas.

Sometimes I make slips of paper with different words related to the yamas and niyamas and their application to skating. Then, we start class by drawing a slip of paper and discussing what each word means to us and how we can apply it to our lives on and off the ice.

If you aren’t able to take a class, you can journal about each of the concepts under the yamas or niyamas–how you interpret them and how you can apply them. Concepts such as gratitude, non-harm, contentment, surrender, non-attachment, and right use of energy are all covered, and what better time to dive deep into mindset than when you are frustrated with an injury?

I recommend picking one concept per week and setting that as an intention and something to contemplate. You can journal about every day or two and see how your thoughts and ideas develop throughout the week.

it is normal to feel sad, frustrated, angry, scared, and left out while injured. The mindset work of the yamas and niyamas can help.

Use Breathing Exercises to Keep Lungs Strong and Manage Anxiety While Injured

Simple pranayama exercises are perhaps the most tangible exercises for skaters because the benefits are so clear. This is why I try to include a bit of it in every class I teach, especially when it’s after a long skating day, or when different injuries make an intense asana practice impractical.

Not only can breathing exercises teach skaters how to breathe properly, they are designed to stimulate the vagus nerve and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which leads to a number of benefits, such as lower anxiety, increased lung capacity, better mental clarity and concentration, improved digestion, higher quality sleep, clearer sinuses, and more.

Just be sure to do a light warm-up and opening of the side body and chest to prime the intercostal muscles (the muscles that expand and contract the rib cage) before the practice.

Intentional Relaxation Promotes Awareness to Help in Injury Recovery and Healing

Practices such as Restorative Yoga and Yoga Nidra may look just like nap time, but they are special subsets of yoga especially helpful for rest and recovery.

By definition, restorative yoga is an act of self-care that promotes a grounded state by placing the body in comfortable postures supported by props for an extended period of time to allow for the release of muscular tension, bringing about a downshift in the nervous system (aka relaxation response). Most restorative postures are done on the floor, with the head and the heart close to the same level.

In restorative yoga, we are aiming to allow the brain to rest, which in turn, allows the body to relax. And in a restorative practice of at least 15-20 minutes, the brain can move into an alpha wave state, which is crucial for balancing the left and right hemispheres of the brain. In this state, the heart rate and blood pressure decrease, as it is associated with a deep relaxation response.

Restorative yoga and the alpha wave state have been shown to help boost attention, lower depression, reduce anxiety, foster creativity, relieve fatigue, and improve sleep.

Yoga Nidra, or yogic sleep, is another form of deep relaxation that is safe for anyone to practice. It is designed to take the yogi into a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping, and it is usually done by guided meditation.

Yoga nidra allows us to access the delta brain waves–which are responsible for the healing and recovery that happens during sleep–while awake. Numerous studies show many measurable benefits of yoga nidra, particularly for managing stress, anxiety, and insomnia.

For athletes, yoga nidra can be especially beneficial because, when led by a skillful teacher, a yoga nidra session can be used to help release deeply held harmful beliefs or fears.
Some scientists such as Dr. Andrew Huberman recommend one short session of Yoga Nidra per day.

I do one 20-30 minute session of either Restorative Yoga or Yoga Nidra early every afternoon to give my brain a break, so I can continue to function throughout the afternoon and evening.

Both Restorative Yoga and Yoga Nidra are deeply important for healing and recovery and are great practices for all skaters, whether they are injured or not.

Up Your Mental Game in Figure Skating Through Concentration Exercises

The sixth limb of yoga - dharana - involves concentration and focus exercises, which are similar to exercises often used in sports psychology.

Practicing journaling, positive self-talk and affirmation repetition, mantra meditation, visualization, candle gazing, and other forms of meditation practice are all incredibly valuable and are safe for anyone to practice.

Not all injuries require complete rest, so skaters, coaches, and parents have to be smart about how they manage training.

Learning to control our self-talk and direct our focus to where it is needed–away from distractions and to the task at hand–is key to being able to train and perform through injury.

If a specific foot injury continues to hurt but only on a lutz, for example, the program content may need to be modified (and sometimes right before a competition) so the skater can still compete.

They must be very strong mentally to be able to shut out the doubts and racing thoughts that can arise from last-minute changes and the fear of pain.

Dharana practices help prepare skaters for these moments and so many others.

Skating and practicing yoga through an injury can be very frustrating, but when done intentionally and with the proper guidance, it can help deepen your awareness and your skating and yoga practice, allowing you to keep training, growing, and doing what you love. Luckily the 8 limbs offer us a holistic approach to practice that helps us tend to the entire mind-body sensory complex.

Get easy-to-implement yoga tools to help transform your skating journey with my FREE GUIDE: Anti-Anxiety Tools for Skaters.

]]><![CDATA[Don't Let These Five Things Stand in the Way of Your Happy, Successful Figure Skating Journey]]>Sat, 01 Jul 2023 22:50:53 GMThttps://www.theskatingyogi.com/beyond-sports-blog/dont-let-these-five-things-stand-in-the-way-of-your-happy-successful-figure-skating-journey

I said to a friend and colleague the other day that when you have a Type A skater who is obsessed with details and needs everything to be perfect, the coach’s job is to help them lighten up a little–to see the beauty and growth in the imperfections; and when you have a skater that doesn’t care about details and just plows ahead “fast and bad” over and over, the coach’s job is to help them see the beauty and growth in the details.

As with everything, there should be a happy medium. Or, as the same friend said her mother always says, “Everything in moderation.’

Even the most competitive skaters can’t even experience long-term success if they are panicked about being uncomfortable with making mistakes. And even the most recreational skater can’t be happy long-term if they stop making progress because they won’t slow down to pay attention to the details.

Like with everything in life, the goal in skating needs to be a balanced path, and what that looks like will be different for each skater and family.

We are each born with a unique set of characteristics and personality traits, so regardless of the formula each coach or family chooses, we all must learn to harness our strengths and develop our weaknesses in order to find that balance.

This is what the practice of yoga is all about–finding the right balance of the right ingredients to calm the fluctuations of the mind. For skaters, this translates as learning to train smarter, to ultimately skate better, and enjoy the process more.

If yoga is so helpful in this pursuit, then why isn’t everyone doing it?

Because not everyone has the same experience with yoga! In my time teaching yoga to figure skaters, these are some of the most common barriers that stop skaters from connecting with yoga and experiencing true transformation.

Few Yoga Teachers Really "Get" Figure Skaters

When I first started exploring a yoga practice, I started with a DVD. I appreciated the flexibility of putting on the video whenever I felt like it, and I was using one with a really great teacher. I decided that I wanted more variety and an in-person experience for accountability and community, so I went to a local gym for classes.

I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped because I didn’t find the teaching to be as thorough as I expected. As a teacher that comes from a family of teachers, and as someone who has learned from some excellent teachers, I wanted more detail than what that particular teacher was able to provide in that particular environment. And unfortunately, I stopped attending because of it, and it would several years before I found my way back to yoga.

Just like in Learn to Skate, the characteristics of the teachers of beginning classes are crucial to the retention of students.

If you try yoga and don’t love it, give it another shot with a different teacher or two or three before giving up on it.

There is Too Much Focus on the "Look" of the Pose

As goal-oriented people, it’s easy for skaters to want to put their energy and focus on the shape of the pose. After all, skating is all about what things look like–it has historically been an aesthetically judged sport. We consistently talk about alignment, carriage, extension, ballet hands, pretty positions, packaging, and “the look”. Focusing on the shape is what makes sense to skaters.

However, the real transformation that yoga brings is from the internal journey–building awareness and confidence from the inside. How does a particular pose feel? And how deep can you or should you go while maintaining smooth, steady, and full breathing and soft facial muscles?

On the ice, the emphasis is getting things to look right, but on the mat, the emphasis needs to be on exploration and curiosity, not judgment, and certainly not on making your pose look like the pose of someone with a completely different skeletal structure than you.

Figure Skating Coaches Don't Really Understand the Benefits of Yoga

Competition and classical aesthetics are ingrained into our sport.

Not only do skaters struggle with their self-worth in the face of these two philosophies, but coaches, officials, and society, in general, have also been conditioned to highly value them.

It’s hard, then, to convince coaches and other skating folks that adopting a completely different framework is not only beneficial, but it’s crucial.

Most coaches see yoga as either for “old people” or for the hyper-flexible.

They don’t understand the holistic approach that yoga can offer in our quest to develop a balanced mindset and effective and safe training habits that allow for longevity and happiness in the sport.

They also don’t understand the mechanisms through which yoga helps athletes build awareness and confidence.

Skaters Fail to Make Yoga Part of Their Off-Ice Training Routine

For yoga to lead to any significant and lasting change, skaters must actually practice yoga on a regular basis, and they must “do” more than just asana (physical postures). They must also practice the other limbs of yoga - yamas, niyamas, pranayama, pratyahara, and dharana.

To do this, they need practical tools and exercises that they can incorporate into their busy daily routines - things such as self-talk exercises, breathing practices, visualizations, meditations, and relaxations, in addition to any physical postural training they may be doing.

I like to have my skaters attend a class once a week, if possible, and the rest of the week incorporate shorter practices into their skating training routine.

Instead of sitting on their phone on the ride to the rink, for example, they can practice some breathwork and/or a guided meditation to help them switch out of school mode.

Another simple tool is to review their program keywords and positive self-talk mantras before heading into the rink.

Then, they can add some sun salutations and a couple of yoga poses into their off-ice warm-up.

It is also important to have tools on hand for those stressful moments on the ice. Knowing when and how to pause for a time-out and regroup, what breathing practice can help during a pause, or when to strike a power pose to change harmful body language–are powerful, accessible yoga practices that skaters can practice in less than five minutes.

Skater Are Often Too Impatient For "Results"

Skating is an expensive sport and many skating folks are willing to try anything to succeed.

So when the technical requirements get harder and harder, the hours get longer and longer, and the bills get higher and higher, the last thing you want is to be told to exercise more patience.

Yet, the reality is that even if you spend the most money, skate the most hours, and have the most tricks, winning isn’t guaranteed. Competitive results are not guaranteed.

The only way to stay happy in this sport is to come to terms with that fact, and not all skating folks are ready to truly hear that.

Yoga can help us learn to embrace the journey, rather than spend all our focus and energy on rushing to the destination. This is a mindset shift brought about by an internal awakening - the practice is actually what the experience is all about.

Don’t let your impatience for results or fear of not measuring up keep you from experiencing the true joy of the journey.

All skaters can benefit from practicing yoga, but not every skater is willing to give it an honest try because it takes patience, honesty, openness, and consistency. Just like with landing a double axel, the results don't come overnight.

Look for a teacher that understands the unique challenges and conditioning in figure skating culture and one that focuses on more than just the postures. Skating folks needs just as much focus on mindset (yamas), habits (niyamas), breathwork (pranayama), relaxation and awareness (pratyahara), and concentration (dharana) as they do on asana.

The Skating Yogi offers space and support to help figure skaters, through yoga, release harmful conditioned beliefs and habits to let a new path unfold, leading them to true connection and contentment. Following the framework of Patanjali's 8 limbs of yoga and a unique application of the 8 limbs to the skating journey, I help skating folks of all ages learn to train smarter, skate better, and enjoy the process. Ditch the comparisons and begin to connect with your true self and to a new kind of skating journey.

Get easy-to-implement tools to incorporate into your daily skating training routine with my FREE GUIDE: Anti-Anxiety Tools for Skaters.

]]><![CDATA[7 Ways to Practice Gratitude for a Winning Figure Skating Mindset]]>Sat, 10 Jun 2023 13:00:00 GMThttps://www.theskatingyogi.com/beyond-sports-blog/7-ways-to-practice-gratitude-for-a-winning-figure-skating-mindset

The Jester Doll takes a bow during the Nutcracker on Ice

It’s easy to get down on ourselves in this sport because it’s so freaking difficult.

There are so many ways a skill can go wrong - spins travel, turns scrape, jumps don’t go up, your feet don’t lean the right way or move quickly enough or move too quickly, the free leg bends, the arms get lost, the head wants to take the lead on takeoff, and your bum can hit the ground at any time.

Even if we love the day-to-day grind and working ourselves to the bone–and you have to if you want to make any real progress– there will still be hard moments, weeks, months, and seasons.

There will be times when we trip over our toe picks, fall on our kneecaps, can’t remember the steps, kick ourselves in the shin, slip off the heel, split a chin, have an asthma attack, develop tendonitis, collide with another skater, and maybe even break a bone or get a concussion.

We get a goal in mind to motivate ourselves, and we know that progress is not a straight line, but when the bummers pile up, and it starts to seem that everyone else is having better days and making more progress than you... how do you keep going?

For some adult skaters maybe it’s a little easier than for adolescents–for many adults, skating is their happy place outside of work and family stressors. But for teen and tween skaters who don’t yet have the gift of years to teach them perspective, it’s easy to look at someone else’s journey and feel dejected.

Since 2020 one difficult situation after another has come my way. Some have been life-and-death situations, others financial, others mental and emotional, and others have simply been life-changing.

And what I’ve come to really see from all of this is that there is a lot of suffering in the world.

Everyone on this planet is dealing with something–some way more than others–and none of our blessings are guaranteed. Not a single one.

At the time of writing this, I have not been on the ice or able to do a an asana based yoga practice in over 8 weeks due to a hip injury. I will soon have surgery, which will potentially mean another 5 months off.

It is well-documented that exercise is a key component of physical and mental health. For many of us, skating is the main form of exercise to help us manage life’s daily stressors and keep our brains happy. For me, yoga is even more important for my mental health than skating.

So, when we can’t skate or practice asana (the physical postures), or when we find ourselves feeling down and dejected about skating (or anything), what can we do to help?

For me, the answer has been to practice gratitude.

That may sound silly, because why be grateful when things have plummeted downhill? I certainly don't mean to deny your feelings in a “good vibes only” sort of way.

Recognizing, acknowledging, and releasing emotions is key to our health.

However, I also believe we can and should always find something to be grateful for.

Since I have not been able to practice asana for what feels like a very long time, and I make efforts not to dwell on the negative, I have made gratitude a key component of my daily routine.

(It’s all about where we direct our energy (brahmacharya).

So, even though my hip pain is pretty constant, in some ways I feel better than I have in years.

With gratitude, optimism is sustainable.

- Michael J. Fox

How Gratitude Fits Into the Figure Skater Mindset

Different traditions of yoga have different frameworks for guiding yogis on their path.

One of the most commonly used frameworks today comes from the Yoga Sutras written by the sage Patanjali, somewhere between the second and fourth centuries BCE. Patanjali’s framework is known as the 8 limbs of yoga.

Each of the 8 limbs represents an area of practice that ancient sages found essential to the yogic journey - the spiritual path, or the path to a calm mind and a happy, purposeful life.

The second limb, the niyamas, is comprised of 5 internal observances or habits. In skating terms, the niyamas have to do with practicing self-discipline and developing good habits–specifically habits that relate to mindset.

What do we learn from this? That even thousands of years ago wise people knew about the need to practice developing the right mindset.

Under the umbrella of the niyamas is santosha (contentment), which we can cultivate by practicing gratitude.

Study after study shows that regular gratitude practice actually changes your brain.

For skaters who regularly practice gratitude, some of the many benefits are:

Improved mood
Less anxiety
Better emotional regulation
Higher levels of motivation
Stronger immune system
Improved stress response
More resilience
Less prone to burnout
Higher self-esteem
Higher levels of satisfaction
Less focus on materialism
Increased optimism
More patience
Better quality of sleep
Improved relationships and friendships
More compassion and generosity

Overall, a skater who practices gratitude is a more resilient and happier skater.

Who doesn’t want these results?

Ways for Figure Skaters to Practice Gratitude to Improve Mindset

A figure skater practices gratitude by journaling

As with anything in life, not even a gratitude practice can help if you’re just going through the motions or if you do the opposite and turn the practice into an obsession, or become fearful if you forget to practice one day.

The yamas and niyamas account for this…. The third niyama is tapas, which means desire–we must balance contentment with desire and drive so it doesn’t turn into complacency.

The first yama is ahimsa (non-harm) and the second is satya (honesty), so any practice must be built on the foundation of not causing harm in thought, word, or action and of being honest with oneself and with others. (You shouldn't stay with someone who is abusive because you feel indebted to them, for example.)

Skaters who incorporate a gratitude practice into their daily routine and mental “training” will find immeasurable benefits.

Here are 7 Simple Ways Skaters Can Add a Gratitude Practice to Their Mental Training:

Take a Bow - Be sure to bow not just at the end of each performance, but also at the end of each practice, class, and lesson with your coach(es). Do it mindfully, thinking about why you take a bow and the benefits you received from your skating practice, the audience, your teachers, and the learning process. Think of the bow as the skating equivalent of the Om we often say to close out a yoga practice.
Set an intention for your practice - Instead of setting a goal for a practice session, try setting an intention. An intention is a plan to think and act in a certain way, preferably in alignment with a greater principle or purpose. It involves staying focused and mindful in the present moment, rather than on the future or the past. The idea is that our intended action or thought is already within us. Our purpose is to practice bringing it to light simply by getting to work. As always, the practice IS the path.
Gratitude meditation - Sit comfortably, either cross-legged on the floor or in a chair with your feet on the floor. Have the back strong and tall, stomach toned, and the next and face soft. Close your eyes. Notice the movement of the breath in the body. After 6-8 rounds of breath, bring to mind something you are grateful for. Picture it, focusing your attention on the space between the eyebrows. Sit with the image for a few rounds of breath and then notice what you feel in the body. Sit with this feeling for a few rounds of breath. When you are ready, gently open the eyes. Try to take this feeling with you throughout the rest of your day. I like to do this one right before I go to the rink–it helps me stay calm, even on crowded sessions.
Weekly journal practice - Some people find great benefits from journaling on gratitude. You can get a new journal just for this purpose, or jot things down in your agenda/planner, if it has blank pages in it like mine does. Simply list 2-3 things or people that you are grateful for and why. They can be small things or big things, and you can be as detailed as you like. Making it a weekly practice, rather than a daily practice, can help keep it fresh and keep it from becoming a chore. The flip side is that, since it’s weekly and not daily, it may be harder to incorporate into your routine. Do what is best for you and your brain and your schedule. The important thing is to get started.
Gratitude rock or crystal - Find a small rock or crystal that you like and keep it in your pocket. Every time you touch it, think of something or someone you’re grateful for. I lost a friend to leukemia a few years ago, and when she was sick she made hundreds of clay thumbprints with her signature on them for her friends and loved ones. I have one at home and every time I see it, I think of her and her infectious spirit, and I am reminded to be grateful for even the tough days.
Gratitude jar or box - this one is super easy and fun! Choose a jar or box - doesn’t have to be fancy, but it can be - and place it somewhere you will notice it often. I used a simple Ball jar from my kitchen. Every day grab some scrap paper and write on it something that you’re grateful for. Don’t overthink it – just write whatever pops into your head. Maybe you appreciate the magical moments at competitions, great chats with a supportive friend, or the taste of coffee on a cold morning at the rink. At the end of the month or year, you can empty the jar and read them all.
Thank you notes - Sending thank you notes is a practice that has fallen by the wayside, which makes the practice that much more impactful. When someone does you a favor or does something nice for you, a thank you is the least you can do. And sure, a text or an e-mail gets the job done, but a hand-written note really makes an impact. The process of writing by hand and perhaps mailing the note is more rewarding for the giver, too, because it requires more time and thought. And science shows that the neural pathways connect more strongly via handwriting than typing. Sometimes the perceived effort of this one is a big barrier, especially for those of us with ADHD and time blindness (we think something will take forever and can’t picture the steps of the process), but I do think the handwritten note is worth the effort. The next time you have a minute, write a note for a teacher, a coach, a judge or other official, a club volunteer, a family member, or a friend. It will make their day and, if you pause to reflect while you write it, it will make your day, too.

Make Gratitude a Part of Your Figure Skating Training

Just like developing a skill in skating, the key to practicing gratitude and developing contentment (santosha) is consistency. Day in and day out - just keep showing up intentionally and mindfully for the work.

And the key to consistency is to start with small, achievable tasks.

Choose 1-2 exercises from above that seem most doable for you. Think of how you can best implement them and how to remove any barriers that might keep you from practicing. Want to begin bowing at the end of your lessons? Tell your coaches. Maybe you already do that, so maybe you incorporate a deep breath and a silent mantra as you do it, to mix it up and make it more meaningful to you. If you choose to journal once a week, maybe you make on your calendar. Gratitude jar? Place it on your desk where you see it often. Decorate it so it’s more attractive and meaningful to you.

Then, every so often, take time to reflect on your gratitude practice and notice what changes you have seen in yourself.

The practice of yoga is all about balance and unity - santosha must be balanced with tapas, or it becomes complacency with our current state, and both must begin from a foundation of the 5 yamas: non-harm (ahimsa), honesty (satya), non-attachment (asteya), right use of energy (brahmacharya), and non-covetousness or ungreediness (aparigraha, which is another way of looking at gratitude).

Let us be grateful for what we have and where we are–none of it is ever guaranteed–but also keep working towards our purpose because it’s the right thing to do and because we have the desire to learn and keep progressing, regardless of the outcome.

Figure skating is a very difficult and competitive sport with lots of challenges and potential injuries. Skaters should incorporate a regular gratitude practice as part of their daily routine and training to improve mindset, cultivate joy, train smarter, and truly enjoy the learning process and skating experience.

The process is where the growth happens--it’s where we live. The process, or the practice, is the path.

Get more tips to replace harmful training habits on the ice with helpful ones with my FREE GUIDE: Anti-Anxiety Tools for Skaters.

]]><![CDATA[Do This Simple Breathing Exercise Anywhere to Regulate Emotions and Train Smarter]]>Fri, 02 Jun 2023 12:03:05 GMThttps://www.theskatingyogi.com/beyond-sports-blog/do-this-simple-breathing-exercise-anywhere-to-regulate-emotions-and-train-smarter

Figure Skaters practice the Bee's Breath (Brhramari) Pranayama as part of their off-ice training

You’re on a crowded session with the music blaring, and no one seems to be paying attention.

You are stressed over schoolwork and are starting a new job this weekend, too.

You just really, really wanted to work on your lutz (single, double, or triple?) this session, but a beginner keeps spinning in the lutz corner and a group of teens is full-on procrastination via socialization in the other.

When you finally spot an opening to put a jump up, you’re already so agitated that the attempt turns into a massive flop.

You need a quick exercise to get you back on track before trying again. Sure, a jump drill sometimes helps redirect your thoughts, but this agitation you’re feeling at this moment isn’t technical.

It’s physiological…. Tightness in the chest, shallow breathing, tense shoulders, legs on the ready.

Like a cat ready to pounce on its prey, you are ready to pounce into the opening in the traffic for that jump.

Except… you are attempting a very technical skill that requires full-body coordination. And you must land on an ice knife with beauty and precision.

Skating should be your happy place, not the source of your stress!

There are simply too many stimuli!

If only you could just block out the chatter, slow the breath, relax the shoulders, and calm the racing thoughts.

The Bee’s Breath (Bhramari) technique - can help.

Train Smarter Using Pranayama in Your Off-Ice Training

We all have bad habits, emotions, and negative thought cycles that interfere with our training.

Doubt, fear, jealousy, and frustration, as well as outside stressors all affect our mind, body, and spirit and can interfere with choices that we make on and off the ice relating to our skating–in the moment and sometimes even long-term.

We all know that training smarter and skating better helps us enjoy the entire learning process and skating journey more. Training smarter doesn’t mean that difficult moments and periods won’t arise… it just means that we use techniques and skills to avoid some of the mental nonsense that leads to bad habits.

So how do we train smarter?

In a previous article, I talked about three habits almost all skaters show at some point that are harmful to their mental, emotional, and even physical well-being. (There are others, but for the sake of space, I narrowed it down to three that I see most often)

The only way we can stop harmful thoughts and behaviors is to first be aware of them, avoid them, and replace them with something more positive. Actually implementing the new habits takes practice, discipline, and time. Exactly how much depends on the habit and the person. (Between 18 and 254 days, according to this popular study from the European Journal of Social Psychology.)

There are lots of techniques taught in psychology to redirect thoughts and behaviors (this is the basis of the cognitive triangle), and I have written about some of them before.

Different techniques work better for different people and in different situations, but the premise is the same–when you find yourself in a downward spiral, you need a positive thought or action to change the direction of the spiral to bring the thoughts, feelings, and actions back into a more positive direction.

Diagram of the Cognitive Triangle

One of my favorite types of interventions in these scenarios involves breathwork, and specifically pranayama.

Why Figure Skaters Need to Practice Breathing Exercises

Pranayama is the fourth limb of the 8 limbs of yoga, mentioned in verse 2.29 of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

(visit here for a complete diagram of the 8 limbs and their application to skating)

The word pranayama comes from the Sanskrit words prana, meaning “life force energy” and yama, which means “control”. According to the authors of “Effects of Bhramari Pranayama on health – A systematic review”, the term pranayama literally means: “a yogic act performed for controlling the flow of vital energy that governs all the physiological processes in the body”.

In other words, pranayama involves controlling one’s breath in different styles, lengths, and techniques to achieve various physiological effects in the body.

Different factors, stressors, and patterns in our daily lives can lead us into shallow, irregular breathing patterns which can lead to long-term emotional, mental, and even physical problems. The most common example of this is how shallow breathing can cause the same effects in the body as anxiety and stimulate the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight response).

Pranayama practices work to counteract less-than-ideal breathing patterns and even some illnesses.

Sounds weird, and some techniques are very advanced and have many contraindications, but some techniques are quite simple and safe for most people.

Specific techniques have shown promise in helping patients with COPD , and many practices have been proven to lower blood pressure.

Other techniques are designed to stretch and strengthen the diaphragm and/or the intercostal muscles, which is especially beneficial for skaters.

And all are known to decrease anxiety and depression, boost mood and energy, and improve focus.

A consistent pranayama practice of 5-7 minutes a day is enough to get in the habit and strengthen proper breathing patterns, which can improve mental health, our stress response, and the ability to breathe properly in a skating program when it counts.

The Bee's Breath - A Simple Exercise to Help Skaters Train Smarter and Skate Better

The sound made during the Bee's Breath - Bhramari - Pranayama mimics the humming of the bee

One specific technique skaters can include or use as their pranayama practice is called Bhramari. It’s a humming breath practice named after the black bumblebee in India. (In Sanskrit bhramara means “big black bee”.) Bhramari is one of the pranayama techniques mentioned in the 15th-century authoritative yoga text the Hatha Yoga Pradipika

We don’t need to approach the camel spin with as much stress as being chased by a tiger, but sometimes the body’s stress response is triggered anyway. The discomfort of trying to perform something new can stress us out before we even realize it.

Using a technique such as the Bee’s Breath can interrupt that stress response before it causes a downward spiral and bring us back into balance so that we can train smarter and learn more effectively.

There are other benefits to Bhramari, too, besides just being a technique to intervene in the cognitive triangle. In fact, these benefits are why it is such an effective intervention!

Some of these many benefits are:

Vagus nerve stimulation - the vagus nerves are perhaps the most important cranial nerves, as they travel from the brain stem to many different organ systems of the body. Humming (along with chanting, singing, and laughing) stimulants the nerves, activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls the rest, digest, and restore responses of the body. When we are stressed, we need to stimulate the vagus nerve to bring the nervous system back into balance.
Increased levels of nitric oxide and Sinus Relief- nitric oxide is a vasodilator that widens blood vessels and promotes healing. It allows for better delivery of oxygen to the body’s tissues and organs. Some experts say bhramari increases nitric oxide by 15x, which can help relieve sinusitis.
Strengthened immune system
Improved lung function
Improved stress response
Enhanced sleep quality
Better focus

I like to teach Bhramari to skaters because it’s easy to learn – everyone knows how to hum - and fun to practice. It doesn’t require counting or any confusing patterns of repetition.
Children enjoy pretending they are bees, and when practiced in a class together, it can bring a very powerful, unifying energy to the room.

The vibrations of bhramari are very soothing, like stimming or mantra repetition and are good for practicing the fifth limb of pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses) and the sixth limb of dharana (concentration).

Bhramari can be practiced anywhere discreetly and with gloves on, as opposed to some other types of pranayama which often require placing the hands over the nose (who wants to do that dirty skating gloves on?) There’s no need to worry about what other people are thinking when you take a deep breath and begin to hum because no one can hear you over the music in the rink, anyway!

"The discomfort of trying to perform something new can stress us out before we even realize it. Using a technique such as the Bee’s Breath can interrupt that stress response before it causes a downward spiral and bring us back into balance so that we can train smarter and learn more effectively. "

How to Practice the Bee's Breath Off-Ice and On-Ice

Just like you often learn jump technique and jumps off ice before trying them on ice, I recommend first practicing Bhramari at home, where you will have less distractions.

To practice off the ice:

Sit in a tall, comfortable seat–either cross-legged, in Virasana (Hero’s Pose), or in a chair with the feet firmly planted.
Allow the spine to be erect, but not tense, and the low belly to be toned.
Allow the eyes to close, the teeth to gently separate, and the face to soften.
Bring awareness to the breath–in and out of the nose, just noticing the movement of the breath in the body.
Take a deep inhale, and then exhale with a long, continuous, and consistent humming noise. Repeat for 6-8 more rounds. Do not force the exhale or the hum, and you may choose the tone for the hum. Notice where in the body you feel the vibrations of a higher tone vs a lower tone, for example.
After the first round, pause to breathe normally and notice what you feel and where.
Repeat, for several more rounds, if you like.
After the first couple of rounds, bring the hands to the level of the face and the elbows to the level of the shoulders. Use the thumbs to gently close the ears and allow the fingers to be comfortably on the head. (The full version of this involves placing the fingers over the eyes, nostrils, and upper lip, but it can be uncomfortable due to the hand position, so I prefer to teach the version with fingers to the scalp to most students.)
Practice 6-10 rounds.
Pause, breathing normally, and sit in silence and stillness for a few moments. Notice what you feel and how this version (with ears closed) may feel different than the first.

To practice at the rink:

Move to the barrier and take a comfortable stance.
Close your eyes and take 2-3 deep inhales with long, slow, exhales through the nose to turn your attention inward (pratyahara). Gently close the ears with either the thumbs or index fingers, if you like.
Inhale with a soft sound, and exhale with a hum - hum a long, consistent, continuous tone. Repeat for six rounds or more.
Pause, and notice what and how you feel, and then repeat, if desired.

There are many techniques to intervene in the cognitive triangle during practice and help skaters improve stress response. However, the unique nature of bhramari pranayama– a combination of breathwork (pranayama) and chanting meditation (dharana) – means that it is an especially effective off-ice training tool for figure skaters, as it has many proven benefits to mental, emotional, and physical health. And because it is so simple to practice–what child doesn’t know how to hum??–it is be a very important tool for helping skaters train smarter, skate better, and enjoy the process.

Get more tips to replace your harmful habits on the ice with helpful ones with my FREE GUIDE: Anti-Anxiety Tools for Skaters.

]]><![CDATA[To Improve Your Skating, Stop Doing These Things]]>Fri, 26 May 2023 23:26:59 GMThttps://www.theskatingyogi.com/beyond-sports-blog/to-improve-your-skating-stop-doing-these-things

Young female figure skater dressed in a teal figure skating dress carries her white figure skates over shoulder. She is smiling at the camera.

Young figure skater at peace with the learning process and content with her skating journey

We are figure skaters because we love figure skating, but very often we do things that steal the joy from our experience. We focus on our competitors, badmouth ourselves, beat ourselves up over both big and small mistakes, make excuses for bad habits that we have the power to change, fixate on the things we don’t like about our image (because societal pressure tells us we should look a certain way), spend countless hours scrolling social, and then stay up way too late because we are ruminating over the negative things we’ve experienced throughout the day.

It’s not our fault–we are biologically programmed to remember negative information and experiences more easily than positive ones. This is called the negativity bias, and it’s pretty powerful.

Just because we have a biological negativity bias doesn’t mean we can’t overcome the negative, though. It’s not easy–some studies estimate that we need at least 5-7 times the positive input for each negative one. The more ingrained the negative experience, the harder it is to change. We are figure skaters, though… we were born ready to tackle the hard!

Thanks to neuroplasticity, we can rewire connections in the brain not just in childhood, but well into adulthood, too.

First, we have to become aware of our habits, then practice replacing them with more positive and productive habits, and finally, surround ourselves with tools and like-minded people to help us in the process.

Yoga can be a big help in this process for several reasons.

First, studies show what yogis already know–a regular practice of yoga that includes asana, meditation, and breathwork protects and strengthens the brain .

In other words, yoga and neuroplasticity go hand in hand.

Second, as I’ve written about many times, the purpose of yoga is to guide us on a path to a fulfilling, happy life, and the entire framework of the 8 limbs is designed for this purpose. (See image below)

The mechanism of yoga teaches us to pause and still the mind, which helps us slow down long enough to recognize and observe our habits. And since the first tenet of the 8-limbed path of yoga is ahimsa-non-harm, it makes sense that we would work to stop the harmful habits, thoughts, and behaviors.

Then, being honest with ourselves (satya) enough to avoid the consumption of negative energies and ideas (saucha) and direct our energy toward helpful thoughts and behaviors (brahmacharya) with fervor (tapas), we can change our habits.

Let’s start by eliminating these three harmful habits that I often see in skating.

Diagram of Patanjali's 8 limbs of Yoga

Commenting on a Skater's Appearance

There are so many ways this can go wrong and be hurtful, it’s just best to avoid the topic at all.

When I was in the throes of an eating disorder, people always said “you look so great”, and encouraged me to “coach” the other skaters on how I had lost weight. I felt so important, and all the attention just fueled the ED.

Even commenting on a child’s rapid growth–particularly a girl’s–can make them feel ostracized and self-conscious because even though we are in a performance sport, kids want to blend in.

Let the skating do the talking, and let the comparisons be to our own abilities and efforts.

Instead of saying “You look so pretty”, or “Look at those beautiful long arms”, try saying “What an amazing dress”, or “I love that color on you!”

Better yet, we can say, “You’re such a strong skater”, or “I love watching you skate”. Both of these take the focus off the appearance and onto something the skater can control–their skating.

Setting the Expectations Too High - aka Perfectionism

Once I was playing a game with some of my students on the ice. When one of them lost a point, they got really angry and began pouting and behaving poorly. Afterward, I talked to the student about it and they said: “I’m just really competitive”. I pointed out to them that poor sportsmanship is not being competitive… poor sportsmanship is related to a lack of emotional awareness–it’s an immature response to an icky feeling.

I won’t do a deep dive into all the pitfalls of perfectionism–that’s enough for another post–but expecting ourselves to be perfect is akin to being a poor sport. It’s an unconscious response developed to avoid the feelings of not measuring up, and it’s an immature outlook on human nature and a gross misunderstanding of the learning process.

And it’s incredibly harmful to our progress as skaters because it stops us from taking the necessary risks for progress.

When we get angry, frustrated, or even panicked over every little mistake, not only do we rob ourselves of the joy of the small victories along the way, but we also lose sight of the things that matter–the enjoyment of the process and our overall evolution as skaters (aka our progress).

Set firm, realistic expectations (this goes to being honest with ourselves-satya), direct our energy in the right place (brahmacharya) with fervor (tapas), and offer ourselves some grace when we falter (santosha-contentment).

More Spills than Drills - Trying a Skill Over & Over Without Pausing for Reflection or Instruction

A popular definition of insanity of unknown origin is: “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

In skating, this manifests as “more spills than drills”, which is the opposite of Olympic coach Audrey Weiseger’s advice of “more drills than spills”.

Often skaters fixate on having to do something over and over until they get it right, and some coaches, sadly, still teach this way.

During a check-in with a student the other day, the student told me that after their programs they have been repeating the jumps over and over as many times as it took them to make the jumps perfect.

My first response was that there is no such thing as perfect, so let’s stop doing that.

Then, I explained that yes, doing enough jump reps is important to developing muscle memory, but that only works if the jump is actually happening correctly. It’s certainly not helpful to do a multitude of incorrect repetitions.

Throwing the body in the air over and over without focused thought or direction tricks us into thinking we are working hard (which the brain gets a kick and dopamine hit out of), but it doesn’t do much for our short or long-term progress or happiness.

It is much more effective to do more exercises and drills to teach the brain and body the proper connections (brahmacharya-right use of energy) and mix those in with repetitions of the jump, spin, or whatever skill being developed.

And when the skill isn’t clicking after a few tries, instead of getting frustrated, depressed, or angry, simply move on to something else.

There is plenty to work on, and we are in this sport because we love it and should continue to enjoy the process.

How to Train Smarter, Skate Better, and Enjoy the Process

Recognizing these habits when they pop up is not rocket science, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. We have a lot of outside influences that tell us to look good, aim high, and grind–don’t stop til we drop. In reality, though, we need a balance of contentment and drive to achieve longevity without injury and burnout.

The key to all of this, in my experience, is pausing every once in a while to check in and notice yourself:

Close your eyes.
Take a deep breath or two.
What are you feeling in the body and where?
How is the skill progress coming?
How do you feel about it?
What can you change in the moment, if anything, to make the moment more positive or effective?
Write or read a quick note in your notebook.
Get a drink of water.
And go back to work with a refreshed perspective.

This work of changing habits is hard and takes consistent monitoring and awareness, but if you surround yourself with peers and mentors who are of the same mindset, you have a ready-made support system and model.

While we, as skaters, think that skating is our life, it is actually only one aspect of it. Skating should support our path of a fulfilled, purposeful life, just like yoga does.

Maintaining a regular practice of yoga that includes postures/movement (asana), breathwork (pranayama), and meditation (dharana) and that is guided by a balanced mindset (yamas and niyamas) has been proven to support such a path.

For simple and practical poses, breathing, and concentration exercises to help you train smarter, skate better, and enjoy the skating process, get my FREE GUIDE: Anti-Anxiety Tools for Skaters.

]]><![CDATA[The Most Important Component of Off-Ice Figure Skating Training]]>Fri, 19 May 2023 18:41:38 GMThttps://www.theskatingyogi.com/beyond-sports-blog/the-most-important-component-of-figure-skating-trainingYoga is perhaps the most important component of off-ice training for a well-balanced figure skater.

This is not to say that mental training, conditioning, plyometrics, nutrition, off-ice spinning, and off-ice jump training are not important. It’s all important! And as skating folks–coaches, parents, and skaters–we have to juggle our time, money, and energies, based on all the factors and realities of our current situation.

What’s right for one moment or goal, may not be a top priority for another moment.

Of all the off-ice training a skater might do, though, yoga is the most well-rounded, holistic, all-encompassing piece.

Yoga, when taught well, is about slowing down to cultivate awareness and self-knowledge.

Yoga is the off-ice training that helps skaters assimilate all the other aspects of training, while also helping them develop an inner confidence, calm, and love that will help them withstand the chaos and frenetic pace of a highly competitive sport and world.

The framework I use to teach yoga to figure skaters is based on Patanjali’s 8 limbs of yoga. This means that I teach positive mindset and training habits, philosophy, breathwork, focus, and concentration, as well as physical postures.

Because while yoga is not really about developing a deeper backbend or touching your toes (even though these things often happen), it is very true that most skaters find it easiest to begin studying yoga through movement and asana (physical postures). It’s what they’re used to and what makes the most sense to them!

So, I’ve compiled my favorite asanas for figure skaters to use as a starting point for their yoga practice. These asanas all have strong applications to movements or positions on the ice, so they should be familiar to most skating folks.

This is the last installment of a 3-part series teaching a comprehensive list of my top picks of yoga poses (asanas) for figure skaters.

To learn about the other asanas, visit here for Part I and here for Part II.

Learn to Land Jumps with Eagle Pose

Eagle Pose - Garudasana

Eagle pose is, in my opinion, the most important asana for jumping. The intention of the pose is alignment and stability, rather than flashiness. It mimics the moment of impact with crossed legs and a bent standing knee, and when regularly practiced with intention, can develop muscle memory for this crucial position.

The glutes squeeze towards each other in the back while the inner thighs, shins, and arms are doing the same in the front body. The standing leg roots into the mat, while the elbows and torso rise up tall–just like the “third UP” of a jump.

And when practiced on the mat, you can really notice the feet working to maintain stability.

The instructions below are how I usually teach Eagle with traditional yoga instructions.

Stand tall with the feet together.
Grounding down through the feet, bend the knees and ankles deeply, allowing the sit bones to stick out slightly behind you–a little less than the pelvic tilt of a sit spin.
Take the arms out to a T position (out to the sides at shoulder level).
Cross the right leg over the right, high up on the thigh, squeezing the inner thighs and glutes together. The right foot can wrap behind the left calf or ankle, or you can squeeze it to the side of the lower leg, or rest the toes on a block like a kickstand.
Cross the arms in front, reaching the hands to opposite shoulders–like giving yourself a hug. Then, squeezing the legs, glutes, and core even more, lift the forearms and press either the backs of the hands or the palms of the hands together.
If appropriate for your shoulders, you may lift the elbows slightly
Find an unmoving spot to gaze at ( a dristhi) to help with focus and balance.
Breathe fully and deeply through the rib cage (this allows the core to stay strong) for 5 breaths.
NOTE: You won’t breathe on the ice in your jump but since we are holding here for several seconds, the breath is crucial. The steadiness of the breath also helps you gauge how hard you are working! If you lose the steadiness of breath, you should not work so hard. (If you aren’t familiar with rib-cage breathing, here’s a previous post I did about it.)
Do the other side. Repeat each leg, if you like, to begin to bring more awareness to the pose.

For some skating-specific variations, you can check out this other post where I go into more depth about eagle pose.

Relieve the IT Band with Parsvottonasana - Intense Side Stretch

Practicing Parsvottonasana - Intense Side Body Stretch - with blocks

What skater doesn’t have a chronically tight IT Band?

The IT Band, or iliotibial band is an important and very strong piece of connective tissue that runs from the hip along the outer thigh and attaches to the upper part of the tibia (shin bone).

Because it acts as a stabilizer to keep the bones in correct alignment, and good skating is all about alignment, it’s easy to overuse the IT Band.

When it gets too tight, the IT Band can cause knee pain (patellofemoral syndrome), hip bursitis, and lower back issues.

A great pose for gently stretching the IT band is Parsvottonasana, or Intense Side Body Stretch, and also sometimes called “pyramid” pose.

Here’s how to do it:

From the center of the mat (facing the long edge of the mat), step the feet a couple of feet apart.
Choose your preferred arm position - grabbing opposite wrists or elbows behind the back, or placing the hands in reverse prayer. Another option is to place two blocks around the right foot and begin with the hands on the hips.
Turn the left foot in to face the upper left corner of the mat and turn the right foot out to be parallel with the long edge of your mat.
Square off the shoulders to the short edge of the mat, and use your feet to shift the right hip back and the left hip forward.
Lengthen the spine, pressing into the back leg and opening the chest.
Tilt the pelvis and begin to fold out over the front leg, by first reaching the sternum as far to the front of the mat as possible.
Stop folding when you reach your comfort level, or when the low back begins to round.
You can stay with the hands in position, or release the hands to the block.
Keep the head a natural extension of the spine.
Stay and breathe for 3-5 rounds of breath.
To exit, press into the feet and bring the torso forward and up. Release the hands and parallel the feet.
Try again or move directly to the other side!
Finish by standing in Tadasana (Mountain Pose), and pausing to notice what you feel. For an explanation of Tadasana, visit the first article of this series.

Super Figure Skating with "Superman" Salabhasana

Locust Pose is a must-do for strengthening the back side of the body (aka the posterior chain).
It is also good for the digestive system and the abdominal muscles.

To try it:

Lie on the belly with legs extended long and parallel to one another. Tops of the feet on the floor, forehead on the mat.
Arms can be down along by the sides or extended overhead at shoulder distance apart, palms facing down.
On an inhale, point the toes and lengthen the feet to one end of the mat and the top of the head to the other end, until the legs and the torso begin to lift up off the mat.
Lift a little higher, and stay for 3-5 smooth, steady breaths. Avoid straining the neck.
Breathing here can be challenging, but do your best to keep the breath smooth. If the breathing is too labored, then you can lower down a little until the pose AND the smooth breath are achievable at the same time.
Slowly lower down, letting the heels fall open and resting either one cheek or the forehead on the mat, with the arms in a comfortable position.
Try 1-2 more times!

For a Better Layback Spin, Do Camel Pose - Ustrasana

Camel pose is one of the poses I hated for the first few years I tried it.

With chronically tight quadriceps and hip flexors, even standing on my knees without trying to do the backbend here was daunting.

Now, though, I love Ustrasana. It’s still a big challenge, but I’ve found how to make it work for me and my body.

Ustrasana stretches and tones the spine and the entire front of the body, and coming out of the backbend works the abdominals.

To try Ustrasana:

Place a blanket on the mat to pad your knees.
Stand on the knees with the knees as comfortable as hip distance apart as possible with the toes tucked.
If your thighs are parallel before you begin, you can try squeezing a block between the thighs to keep them there during the backbend. This may depend on your skeletal structure, so don’t force anything!
Place the hands on the low back, with the fingers pointing down and the elbows hugging toward one another.
Activating the glutes and pushing the legs into the mat, extend the torso upward.
From here, take the backbend in steps, imagining you are sliding your chin and stretching the front of your body up the inside of a giant hamster wheel, taking the gaze toward the third eye (the space between the eyebrows). The lifting and reaching forward is to keep from compressing the low back, which is one of the most common problems with a layback spin.
Keep inching your way up and back and stop at your comfort level.
You may keep the hands on the low back, reach for one heel at a time, or take both hands to the heels if that causes no strain.
Stay and breathe 3 full, steady breaths. Do not hold this pose for more than 20 seconds, and do not continue if you feel any pain in the low back, shoulders, neck, or knees. Stop and ask an instructor for guidance.
Come up very slowly, using the abdominal muscles, and moving the gaze downward along the inside of the imaginary hamster wheel until reaching a neutral position.
Try again, or come immediately to rest in child’s pose or savasana to observe and feel the effects of this asana.
FYI - Some people experience intense emotions in this pose—it is said to stimulate the heart chakra. If this happens, allow yourself to rest in child’s pose or savasana to observe the feeling and let it pass.

How to Safely Touch Your Toes with Paschimottonasana

A good hamstring stretch is important for skaters, and for many, is often considered a measure of flexibility (albeit an imperfect one).

Paschimottanasana, seated forward fold, is a great pose that can be safely practiced by most everyone with a few precautions.

Here’s how to do it:

Sit on the edge of a folder blanket - with the flesh of the rear on the blanket and the sit bones on the mat – with legs extended long to the front.
Bend the knees and place the soles of the feet on the floor.
Reach the arms overhead, lengthening the torso, and imagine you are stretching yourself up and over a small beach ball. Try to push the beach down ball into your lap with your low belly, so the hip bones point to the thighs.
Engage the quadriceps and hip flexors to avoid overstretching the hamstrings.
Keeping the legs bent to your comfort level, bring the low belly to the tops of the thighs, and take the hands to wherever they land naturally–behind the thighs, on the shins, or to the toes.
Stay here and breathe for several smooth, full rounds of breath. Try to keep lengthening the spine on the inhale, and maybe you can fold a little more on the exhale (even if that’s just in your imagination!).
After a few rounds of breath, slowly allow the legs to extend a little more, perhaps bringing the legs closer to straight.
If your legs straighten easily and the hands touch your feet right away, then work on strengthening the muscles, rather than stretching. Never ever do a deep forward fold with passive muscles!

Get Better at Stroking with Utkatasana

A Yoga Class Practicing Utaktasana - Fierce Pose

Utkatasana is a strength builder – it strengthens the abdominal muscles, lower back, glutes, quadriceps, ankles, and diaphragm, but really, activates the entire body.

It opens the chest, stretches under the arms, and develops mobility in the shoulders.

B.K.S. Iyengar said in Light on Yoga that this “is a beneficial pose for horsemen”... a side note that seems outdated, but is very accurate.

As skaters, we must maintain strong legs and deep ankle and knee bend while demonstrating upright, undisturbed carriage.

It’s all about staying grounded into the ice, while the upper body is free to move about, interpreting the music and looking both fierce and elegant.

To practice:

Stand in Tadasana with the feet together or one fist width apart.
Bend the knees and ankles deeply, allowing the hips to move slightly back.
The knees should bend out past the toes–this is the bend we need when we skate–but make sure the knees track over the middle toes and don’t fall to the outside or inside.
Reach the arms to the front, squeeze the palms together, and reach the arms overhead. If this is painful, the arms can be kept shoulder distance apart. If hands are together, allow the head to lean back and gaze at the thumbs. If the hands are apart, you may gaze straight ahead.
As you sit deeply, allow the knees to move forward, and the torso to stay tall.
Hold for 5 rounds of smooth, steady breath.
To come out, press into the feet, straighten the legs, and reach the arms overhead. Finally, allow the arms to come back to the sides and stand in Tadasana. Notice how you feel. Try 1-2 more times.

Off-Ice Figure Skating Training with Yoga

The purpose of all yoga is to build awareness and help allow the mind to slow down, so we can begin to follow our own path of purpose, happiness, and fulfillment.

And while yoga involves many different things besides just physical postures, an asana practice is a good starting point for the yoga journey.

There are so many great poses, but the ones outlined in this post and in the other two parts of this series are my top picks (the most effective) for skaters. These poses offer direct parallels to skating postures, and most of them do not require any props to practice safely, so you can try them anywhere, anytime.

All you need is to find a good spot with enough space and light, where you won’t be worried about anything but your breath. Do a gentle warm-up to get the blood flowing through the muscles, and then pick as many of the poses as you have time for.

Only have 5-10 minutes? Do a quick warm-up and do 1-2 poses.

Have more time? Do a couple more poses.

Just try to leave yourself enough time to end with a short relaxation in Savasana or Viparita Karani. The relaxation after the asana is where the magic happens.

Get practical yoga tools for handling the monkey mind that pops up at performance mind with my FREE GUIDE: Anti-Anxiety Tools for Skaters.

]]><![CDATA[Yoga Training for Figure Skaters is Not What You Think - and Top Asanas for Skaters Part II]]>Fri, 12 May 2023 18:06:01 GMThttps://www.theskatingyogi.com/beyond-sports-blog/top-asanas-for-training-figure-skaters-part-ii-the-purpose-of-the-poses

A skater looking blissful while practicing their Biellmann

When skating folks think of yoga, most of us picture a Biellmann, Y, I, or pancake.

Maybe we even picture Kamila Valieva or some other uber-flexible athlete looking blissful in one of these positions.

While it’s true that many yoga postures are similar to these well-known feats of flexibility, the main purpose of yoga is NOT THE POSE.

You read that right. It was never really about the poses!

It is true that yoga has been around for thousands of years, and that different traditions of yoga from different era and parts of India have different frameworks and beliefs.

It is also true that there is no known mention of most of the modern physical yoga postures until the 20th century.

Several postures have been found engraved on ancient temples in India, and only 15 postures (yes! only 15!) were mentioned in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (an authoritative yoga text from the 15th century). But the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras make it clear that the physical practice, the asana, is to help the yogi learn to control and discipline the mind and body.

The most commonly cited yoga text and framework used today is the 8 limbs of yoga outlined in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which is the framework that I use for applying yoga to skating.

(For a more in-depth explanation of the 8 limbs and a visual application to the skating journey, visit this post.)

As with most traditions, yoga has evolved throughout the centuries, with different lineages of teachers filtering their teaching through their own experiences.

What has remained true, though, is that yoga's purpose is to help you lead a happy, purposeful life, generally in service to others and to your interpretation of a higher purpose or power.

It is NOT about being able to achieve lotus position, or stand up out of a backbend, or have an Instagram worthy Biellmann position.

Yoga is the practice, and yoga is the destination. In other words, the practice is the path…

For skaters, the yogic path very closely parallels the skating journey...

It is showing up every day, putting in the work with excitement and joy, without being attached to the outcome.
It is practicing the balance of effort and ease, contentment and burning drive.
It is being ok with the unknown, giving up the illusion of control, and facing new circumstances with curiosity and grace.

All of this is what leads to moments of bliss.

And you don’t have to put your blade to your ear to be able to do that!

Any skater can practice yoga and learn to feel that they can succeed at whatever their coaches and their life throws their way.

Why Skaters Should “Do Yoga”, Even Though the Pose Isn’t the Purpose

Pyramid depicting Patanjali's 8 Limbs of Yoga

The purpose of doing yoga isn’t achieving a new pose perfectly, just like the purpose of skating isn’t nailing the double axel or winning a gold medal.

We use movement–both skating and yoga– as a means to explore the limits of our bodies and minds.

Exploring our limits does not mean we consistently push ourselves until we drop.

Rather, it means we practice being aware, observing, experimenting, and existing in our bodies, all within the wisdom of the parameters of the first two limbs - the yamas and niyamas. (See image at right)

Movement (aka in some circles as “exercise”) helps clear our minds, improves our cardiovascular fitness, makes us stronger, enhances mood, increases mobility, gives us something to look forward to, instills discipline, and in many cases, creates and builds a sense of community.

Being able to move in a way you love (skating!!!) and work towards something you’re passionate about is a huge gift for which we should be grateful.

Skating is a beautiful sport.

Yet, the institutions that control skating and the society in which we live and skate insist on turning the sport into an overly competitive display of one type of athletic body striving to win the approval of the officials, the fans, and the press.

Some training environments are fun and positive, but the very nature of our competition-based sport makes it even harder to escape the negative self-talk and comparisons that even non-athletes are prone to.

In my experience, yoga was key to overcoming a toxic training environment and years of unhealthy, unhelpful programming. It was a crucial piece of finally believing that I am enough.

Putting the yamas and niyamas into practice was a HUGE part of that, but I never would have understood the yamas and niyamas without practicing the third limb of asana… without “doing” or practicing yoga postures.

In our fast-paced overly capitalistic, patriarchal society, we are programmed to believe that we must always be “doing” something.

For skating folks uncomfortable with sitting to meditate, an asana practice is perhaps the easiest way to begin the journey into the 8 limbs.

(When we are used to moving and doing, it’s easier to begin the yoga process with moving and doing, rather than sitting and contemplating.)

If skating helps us explore the limits of our bodies and minds and learn life lessons, then yoga amplifies that process by slowing us down and inviting us to turn inward as we explore.

In this way, it can help us better understand and process the life lessons we learn through skating.

You are enough, just the way you are.

And yoga, beginning with asana, can help you begin to believe that.

Top Yoga Poses for Figure Skaters - Part II

This is the second part of my three-part series - top asanas for figure skaters. (Click here for Part I.)

All of these postures listed here have a deep connection to a skating element or concept, so skaters of any level can identify with them and find benefit from them.

I invite you to explore the poses on the mat and then take your findings to the ice. And then come back to the mat.

Be sure to breathe fully and smoothly while practicing each posture for 3-5 rounds of breath, and pause after each one to notice any effects of the asana on the body. Don’t feel anything yet? Try the pose again 1-2 more times before moving on.

Do Sphinx Pose to Develop Good Skating Carriage

Figure skater working on carriage by practicing sphinx pose

Salamba Bhujangasana - Is the best posture for developing good carriage, which is essential in every aspect of skating. Carriage is a key component of skating skills, and the sphinx pose helps skaters feel the shoulder placement, trapezius activation, and lengthening of the neck and spine that is required.

For more details on sphinx pose, I have a separate blog post on it here.

Try Warrior III For a Strong Back Body (aka Posterior Chain)

Strengthening the posterior chain with Warrior III

Warrior III - Virabhadrasana III - is a great option for building awareness and strength of the posterior chain, that pesky group of muscles that likes to evade activation yet is required for everything in skating. Beautiful camel spin? Double salchow? Gold dance medal? Work on that posterior chain.

This posture helps develop the ability to stand correctly on the sole of the foot, which is an important first step to being able to lean the foot for an edge.

Warrior III strengthens and tones the legs, glutes, abs, and back.

Since it is practiced with the hips mostly square to the mat, when done correctly, it activates the entire back body - aka the posterior chain – which is crucial to so many skating elements.

Many times low spiral height is not a flexibility issue, but a strength issue. This pose helps.

Be sure to practice each leg and hold for 3-5 full breath cycles before slowly exiting.

For more detailed instructions on how to practice, visit this post.

You can do Warrior III standing beside a wall or behind a chair or sofa in case of balance difficulty.

You can also practice it with the hands pressing firmly into the wall to help wake up the muscles of the upper back.

Practice Half-Moon Pose to Get Better Spirals

Skaters working on spirals by practicing Half Moon Pose

Ardha Chandrasana - Half-Moon Pose is my favorite posture for working on edge spirals and camel layovers.

While Warrior III helps develop balance and strength of the back body (as well as hamstring flexibility), Half-Moon pose has the added challenge of stacking the hips, which is a closer alignment for what we need for spirals on an edge.

In this way, Half-Moon uses the gluteus medius of the standing leg to stabilize the pelvis and maintain balance, while the lifted leg is using the same muscle to help lift itself.

The gluteus medius is often a problem muscle in skaters, as weakness in this muscle limits balance. This pose helps with that!

Ardha Chandrasana works to create maximum energy and extension in all directions. As we know from moves in the field, extension facilitates balance, and balance is everything in skating.

Hold for 3-5 smooth and full rounds of breath, then practice again, if you like, before switching legs.

This post gives detailed instructions on how to practice Half-Moon.

Get a Better Axel Set-up with Warrior II

Class of adult figure skaters practicing Warrior II

Virabhadrasana II - Warrior II - is a strength-building pose that mimics the step into the axel jump – back to the circle, rib cage parallel with the front foot

The forward leg is bent and externally rotated, while the back leg is straight and internally rotated. In flexibility training we often overwork external rotation, yet we need internal rotation for stability, jump rotation,and injury prevention. This pose works on both.

When practiced with awareness and muscular engagement and held for several rounds of breath, it can build significant strength in the bent leg.

It also tones the ankles, opens the pectoral muscles, and creates lengths in the inner thighs,

I like Warrior II because it acts like a “power pose”, boosting confidence and feelings of well-being.

You can try it with your back against the wall for even greater awareness.

Be sure to breathe for 3-5 rounds before trying again or moving to the other side.

Learn a Y Spin with Hand to Big Toe Pose

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana - is a top pose for skaters because it helps develop balance, strengthens the legs, and stretches the hamstrings and inner thighs.

When standing on one foot, it is essential to feel the opposing actions of grounding into the standing leg from the hips while lifting from the waist through the top of the head.

Keep both sets of glutes engaged, as they help support the standing leg and may help safely release and lengthen the adductors of the lifted leg.

If the legs don’t straighten, it’s ok – just keep practicing and remember, non-harm is the first tenet of yoga. And if grabbing the big toe is too much of a challenge, keep your hand just below the knee on the shin.

Keep the lifted leg pointing to straight ahead for 3-5 breaths (part A), and then open it to the side for another 3-5 breaths (part B).

In part B, turning your head to the opposite side at the same time as opening the leg to the side (instead of before or after) can help with balance. Bring the gaze and the leg back to the front and gently release. Practice again or go directly to the other foot.

Fun fact: the adductor magnus is the third largest muscle in the body, inserting at the bottom of the inner thigh just above the knee, and originating at the pelvis.

Improve Your Turns by Twisting in Revolved Hand to Big Toe Pose

Coach Sarah practices Revolved Hand to Big Toe Pose (Dancing Shiva)

Parivrtta Hasta Padangusthasana - Dancing Shiva - is another favorite because it’s one of the only poses where you can really feel the twist we so often need in skating for good turns.

Revolved UHP is another good posture for challenging your balance, as well as lengthening the spine and stretching the hamstrings. While the traditional Hand to Big Toe Pose stretches the inner thigh, this one stretches the IT band on the outer thigh.

Begin as in Part A of Hand to Big Toe Pose above, then take the “skating hand” either to the outside of the “free” thigh or grab the big toe or heel of the free leg. Open the free arm out in the opposite direction.

Be sure to engage all sides of the thigh, though, to stay balanced and to safely release the muscle you want to lengthen (in this case, probably the IT band of the lifted leg or the hamstrings of the standing leg).

Focus on opposing actions here—root through the standing leg and hip while lifting the raised leg and hip and lengthening the spine all the way through the top of the head. If the leg doesn’t straighten, it’s ok – just keep practicing and remember, non-harm is the first tenet of yoga.

For heightened awareness, you can practice this pose with the standing leg next the wall, twist so the chest faces away from the wall, and aim to get both of the back shoulders and the free knee or foot against the wall.

When applied to the skating journey, the framework of the 8 limbs of yoga can be a powerful tool to help skaters shift their mindset from comparison and insufficiency towards gratitude, joy, and self-realization.

Yoga is a process, a continuum. And just like skating, it is a lifelong journey of practice.

And for most people--especially athletes--the easiest way to start this practice of yoga is with the third limb of asana.

These poses above, in addition to (or instead of) the other asanas I described in Part I, are a great way to begin or continue your practice.

Stay tuned for the final part of my three-part series of favorite asanas for figure skaters.

Conquer the effects of cotton mouth, jittery legs, and butterflies with my FREE GUIDE: Anti-Anxiety Tools for Skaters.

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