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Step 1
Warm up first. If you have never figure skated before, your muscles may not be prepared for the physical exertion that figure skating requires. Avoid injury by warming up your muscles first so that they are limber and ready to go. Do some toe touches, leg extensions and full body stretches to get you warmed up to figure skate.
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Step 2
Bend your knees. Trying to figure skate with your legs straight and rigid will make you feel stiff and off balance, which will be especially bad while you are still trying to get used to the extra weight of the skates on your feet. Keep your legs relaxed and bent slightly at the knees. This will give you more control over your feet and lower your center of gravity closer to the ice.
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Step 3
Push off and to the side. Once your legs are slightly bent, push off with your feet in a forward motion and glide your feet in an arc to the outside. This will allow your skate blade to stay completely on the ice and propel you forward smoothly while balancing your weight on the length of the skate blade.
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Step 4
Use your toe picks. Toe picks are the metal teeth on the front end of a figure skate blade that are used for deceleration and braking. If you need to stop on your skates, move the front of your foot down until the picks grab the ice and slow you to a stop. Do not jam the picks down suddenly as your momentum could propel you over your feet and cause you to fall. If the skates you are wearing do not have toe picks on the front, they are actually hockey skates instead of figure skates and require an entirely different way of stopping.
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Step 5
Get up and try again. If you're just learning to skate, you're probably going to fall a few times. Don't be discouraged by this. Learning to figure skate well takes time and practice, as well a few bumps and bruises so you won't be a pro right away. Remember that even Olympic champions have to start somewhere. So get up, dust yourself off and go for another lap around the rink.
