Edge Class – Part 2 (Chris Conte)

Choreographer Chris Conte continues with his class on edges and power generation. As noted in Part 1, this class was in Korea on one of Chris’s visits and you’ll notice Eun Hee Lee translating for her Korean skaters. Please excuse the audio on this video as it was taken during the class with no wireless microphones so it can be difficult to hear. Nevertheless, the ideas demonstrated in the video are important and worth observing even without quality audio.

In this video, Chris adds additional difficulty to the side lunge drill shown in Part 1 by having the skaters hold a stick or bar or pole above their heads. The idea is to create strong edge pressure without body lean, either sideways or forward. Notice the drill Chris does at the wall to minimize lower back arch. This drill is very similar to Page Lipe’s exercise to fix a sway back. Chris demonstrates the full drill and shows where the weight should be on the blade. After practicing with the pole (or stick), Chris has the class do it just by raising their arms without holding on to anything. This kind of drill is extremely effective at helping skaters work on edge pressure and good posture.