Summer Off Season, Off Ice Training

While ice skating season officially ends with the Worlds, most serious competitors are not losing their edge during the summer months. This series of summer articles will give you lots of ideas for cross training so that when the season begins again in the fall, you will be quite ready.

Many ice skaters and nearly everyone else on the planet owns at least one pair of inline skates. While I have a pair of Rollerblades, I also have a pair of PIC Skates for artistic inline skating. PIC Skates were invented by Nick Perna, a high level ice skating coach and John Petell of Harmony Sports, (800-882-3348). They are very different from your athletic inline skates in that the frame is rockered, similar to an ice blade, which makes turns and spins very easy. The other feature is that they have a toe "pic" or stop in the front like an ice blade. This is how you do toe jumps and hook your spins just like on the ice.

Top skaters such as Michael Weiss have used them for off ice practice because he likes to keep that "skating boot feel" even when off the ice. Yes, PIC skates do have that! You mount the PIC frame with your favorite pair of ice skating boots or purchase them as a set, which includes a beautiful GAM boot from Harmony Sports at http://www.picskate.com

PIC Skates are serious skating equipment but give you the freedom to practice your program and moves anywhere indoors or out on any smooth surface. Jumps, spins, 3 turns, Mohawks, rockers, they are all possible on PIC Skates. In this tight economy and with gas prices hitting an all time high this summer, PIC skates can save you a lot of money on ice time and traveling back and forth to the ice rink. A wise investment, those two factors alone could have them paying for themselves by season's end.

How does one learn how to use PIC Skates to improve ice technique or just for the fun of skating on inlines? Well US-RollerSports which is the main organization for artistic quad rollerskaters has a Moves in the Field video. They even have a special competition category for Inline Artistic Figure Skating. They recommend PIC skates but none of the skaters are using them in the video! A much better video / DVD is now available from http://www.SkatingTheater.com It is entitled Inline Figure Skating Lesson and is fantastic! It's creator, Rosanna Tovi is an International

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