Advice: Backwards Crossover

[hlaverty06]

I can't figure them out for the life of me, I can do the first step and then seem to lose it

What are some good ways to practice this?

Also, I feel alot weaker crossing over on my right foot (going forward)

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[JoeCool16]

The way I was taught was going around a faceoff circle backwards.

-Start by skating backwards around the circle.
-Make big C-cuts with your outside leg, while letting the inside left drift. Make sure you're in a hockey stance (knees bent, about shoulder width apart, sitting low). Let the drifting foot just keep tracing around the circle, while all the power is coming from the c-cut.

Now the hard part, but once you get it, it's pretty easy.

-Do a C-cut, but at about the halfway point, you're slowly lifting your foot off the ground, and letting your inside leg drift away from the circle, to the outside. It's not leaving the ground.
-Let your raised outside foot come slowly down, moving it slightly towards the inside of the circle so it crosses over your inside foot that was drifting outside.
-Now that the weight of your outside foot is down, you ARE going to lift up the inside foot, bringing it back in line with the faceoff circle. As soon as it begins drifting, repeat.

That's as best as I can describe it. Once you get better, you'll want to work towards getting some power in it, and getting comfortable going on your outside edge on the inside foot. For now though, try the above steps. There are probably good youtube videos on it too. Hope some of this helps!

 

[JoeyB]

howtohockey.com has a pretty good video on it. http://howtohockey.com/how-to-perform-backwards-crossovers-step-by-step-instruction

 

[sxHarr05]

howtohockey.com has a pretty good video on it. http://howtohockey.com/how-to-perform-backwards-crossovers-step-by-step-instruction

This. And practice, of course. I'm 40 and learned how to do them this year after watching HtH vids. (FWIW, I hadn't skated in a looooong time. Not like I've played 30+ years and just learned.)

 

[duul]

All you have to do is keep skating and practicing. Just try skating backwards as much as possible until you get familiar with your edges. I remember I made rep my first year of hockey without being able to stop, and my dad would bring me to public skates on the weekends so I could learn. I hated it, but once I finally stopped for the first time it was so simple. Backwards crossovers are similar in the sense you just need to practice over and over until you get it. If you're a new skater I would not bother yet, and just try to get comfortable skating backwards and trying to move laterally.

 

[hlaverty06]

Thank you so much guys!

 

[edog37]

The way I was taught was going around a faceoff circle backwards.

-Start by skating backwards around the circle.
-Make big C-cuts with your outside leg, while letting the inside left drift. Make sure you're in a hockey stance (knees bent, about shoulder width apart, sitting low). Let the drifting foot just keep tracing around the circle, while all the power is coming from the c-cut.

Now the hard part, but once you get it, it's pretty easy.

-Do a C-cut, but at about the halfway point, you're slowly lifting your foot off the ground, and letting your inside leg drift away from the circle, to the outside. It's not leaving the ground.
-Let your raised outside foot come slowly down, moving it slightly towards the inside of the circle so it crosses over your inside foot that was drifting outside.
-Now that the weight of your outside foot is down, you ARE going to lift up the inside foot, bringing it back in line with the faceoff circle. As soon as it begins drifting, repeat.

That's as best as I can describe it. Once you get better, you'll want to work towards getting some power in it, and getting comfortable going on your outside edge on the inside foot. For now though, try the above steps. There are probably good youtube videos on it too. Hope some of this helps!

That certainly will work. As a variation, I was taught to do C-cuts down the ice on one leg, switch up & then eventually do both. The purpose was to get down technique.

 

[RangersAM99]

walk the blue and red lines, once you can do that you might be able to do the cross over a bit better

 

[biturbo19]

Do a million edge drills.

A million.


Honestly, when you're comfortable on all edges, it will make things like a backwards crossover a lot more comfortable.

 

[forbs02]

Another drill is to walk backwards, putting your foot back behind your other. As you do this and gain a little speed it will eventually pull you into backwards crossovers. It will teach you how to use your outside edges. Oh, and BEND YOUR KNEES

 

[jorbjorb]

make sure to really dig in with your outer edges

 

[CornKicker]

this may sound stupid but walk up and down your stairs at home using the same motion, if you are over 30 and have never done them its probably more a muscle memory thing than ability. when you go up the stair face one wall and step in front of one leg and then behind it on the next step. this will condition your muscles to make that movement more fluidly.

 

[wondeROY]

I can add one small thing to this that I learned in a skating clinic from Robby Glantz. It sounds small and almost stupid, but it helped me a bit. He told us instead of thinking of it as "crossOVER, think of it as a crossAROUND. It sounds weird until you are on the ice, but try it. Instead of doing big dramatic steps OVER your own feet, try sweeping them out and OVER more. This applies to both forward and backward crossovers.

But really, you just need to practice this move until you are blue in the face, it is by far the most un-natural movement you will learn on skates. I would do entire laps backwards and do back crossovers in both directions until I could physically no longer move my legs from exhaustion. Rinse, repeat!