Figure Skating On-Ice Warm-Up – Advanced (Pasquale Camerlengo)

World and Olympic figure skating coach and choreographer Pasquale Camerlengo goes through a few on-ice warm-up exercises for more advanced skaters. This is a continuation of his warm-up videos for lower level skaters (Part 1 and Part 2).

In this video, Pasquale explains he wants the class to warm up methodically. Ankle, knee, core and back but “nothing hard” at first. He starts the class with forward and backward inside edges down the ice. (Forward are not shown here.) Then he switches to forward and backward cross rolls. He spends some time explaining what he likes and does not like in back cross rolls. He wants the skaters to bend and press on their edges while keeping the body up or even back and then step onto the flat of the blade rather than the toe pick. An important principle is to press or bend before the push.

Next Pasquale teaches an inside rocker, choctaw, cross-over pattern. In the initial demonstrations you can see that the skaters focus on quickness on this exercise (which isn’t surprising since US Figure Skating uses this exercise as part of the Novice Moves test, with a focus on quickness). But Pasquale wants them to use proper edges. The exit of the inside rocker should be on a clear inside edge. (Pasquale notes that technical callers are likely to call flat rockers as three turns.) Pasquale urges the class to sacrifice some speed to ensure correct edges. He also offers another basic principle. For every turn except the twizzle, you need to release the “weight” or pressure from the blade to do the turn.

The next exercise is a double three turn from forward followed by a forward cross-over step and then a forward inside mohawk. As you can see in the video, the class initially had a difficult time with this exercise. Pasquale offers more tips about the pattern (step to the boards for the 3-turn) and explains that the shoulders wind up somewhat like a spin entrance.