Advice: What does Opening my hips mean?

[tfong]

Someone was telling me my strides would be better if I opened up my hips more. Not quite sure what that means aside from facing my hips in the direction I'm going.

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[Pirate King Luffy]

I think what you were told was that your hips may be tight. If you open them up(looser hips) your stride becomes longer. It will result in better mobility all round.

 

[SomethingGeneric]

So I guess the person could have meant one of two things really. In terms of how to make your stride better, you don't need to open up your hips so much as making sure you take a solid knee bend and then extend your leg as far as it goes when you stride so that you can maximize your push. In terms of "opening hips" thats really for transitioning from forwards to backwards or vice versa. Opening the hips allows you to swing around easier as well as allowing you to put your leg beneath you allowing you to push as soon as you turn completely. Hope that helped.

 

[puckpilot]

See this picture with three stances, the stances on the outside are with the hips closed. The middle is with the hips open. When your hips are too closed, the angle of your skate blade when you push off is too shallow, and your edge probably slips a little, and thus you don't maximise the power that you could have in your push. You're more running on the ice than skating.

When you open up your hips correctly, you grip the ice better, and don't waste any energy in slippage, so you maximise your power and efficiency of your stride.

Obviously, there's more to the stride than that, but this is what I think they mean when they say for you to open up your hips.

 

[American in Paris]

Search Youtube for videos of people doing the mohawk drill. Do that a bunch going in a straight line and in circles and watch your skating improve dramatically.