Fav things to do on stroking sessions?

[Spazactaz]

What do you like to do during a stroking session?

I feel like every one is the same and all the skaters are bored... when they're all basically:
pumping and crossovers around the 5 hockey circles
"4 lane highway" with bubbles, skiing, a variety of edges, etc

any ideas for fun things to do?

[overedge]

In my case, it's not getting run over by the little kids

The coaches at my club are really great about making up exercises with different edges, and we don't get bored. Terrified, maybe, but never bored.

[jjane45]

What is a stroking session? Is it like a power class?

[treesprite]

Your description makes it sound more like an edges and stroking session rather than a power stroking session. They don't have either of them where I skate. The power stroking sessions when I was a kid were only 20 minutes long (which is enough for that type of thing), and were nothing but skating as hard as you could around the rink in good form without using toe picks (FWS, BWS, FX, BX). It's certainly a good way to build up some leg muscle, to improve one's "feel" for the ice and sensation of speed, and to build up endurance (for me the issue was endurance, because of respiratory problems I had trouble getting through programs).

I hate having to look behind me when I skate backwards (history of neck problems), so the only time I do a lot of flying around the ice backwards is when the rink is basically empty, except the few adults who's skating I know well enough to be able to project their movements & locations on the ice without having to see them more than once per side of the rink.

If I was going to do sessions in which people were to focus on edges and stroking, I'd probably like doing something swaying, like being in a boat on gentle waters laying on one's back. Yes, skating sometimes reminds me of that feeling, and it is one of the wonders of skating! If I was to have a program, I would want it to have something in it with that feel.

[TheGirlCanSkate]

My daughter likes power pulls.

[treesprite]

Funny. I just sent an e-mail to the skating director at the rink asking her to let us have power stroking sessions... at a time I could do them.

[minx]

http://www.skatingaheadofthecurve.co...ingDrills.html

[danceronice]

I've been trying to work on stroking not so much for power but for clean strokes, especially on days like today when forward stroking was about all it was safe to do! No toepick scratches, extending.