The position and carriage of the hands have very much to do with the effect created by the skater. They should be extended gracefully, with the fingers neither stretched out nor clenched and with the palms turned down or toward the body.
CIRCLE. Right outside edge, forward. (ROF)
CHAPTER 3.
Outside Circles, Forward.
Start with the idea that good skating is a hard thing to acquire. It is. For the same reason it is interesting. Easy things never hold their interest very long. Graceful skating implies perseverance and determination. It requires close application to right principles from the very start and rigid concentration upon a number of important rules, several of which the skater will have to keep in mind during the moment of execution of any figures. But the fact that it is the chosen sport of most of the people dwelling in the northern parts of the world, women as well as men, proves that it is not too difficult to permanently hold the enthusiasm of lovers of outdoor sport.
Curves are the fundamental figures in skating. True, the racing skate and the hockey skate permit only straight strokes, but these skates are a development of the sport by which greater speed or steadier position against attack is obtained. Graceful skating and the execution of figures on the ice are impossible without the proper skate.
The first figures to learn, and the basis of all further progress in the art, are the outside edge circles. The outside edge of the skate is the edge furthest away from the body. There is an outside edge on each skate and this edge can be used to skate forward or backward; there are, therefore, four outside edge circles, one on right forward, one on left forward, one on right backward and one on left backward. For convenience and simplicity these edges are often designated thus: ROF, meaning right outside forward, etc.
The most important things to have in mind as one skates the elementary figure are carriage, poise and deliberation. If the body is correctly poised a slight stroke will carry the skater in the right direction; no amount of straining or kicking will cause the skate to execute the right figures if the body over that skate is in the wrong position or wrong balance.
My own skating as head of the ice ballet at the New York Hippodrome is fast and spectacular, I admit; it has to be so to be theatric, to catch the crowd, to startle the sensation seeker. But it is not quite so fast when I am skating for my own amusement.