Customer Reviews

Laura Stamm's Power Skating

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This is an excellent book. I am a recreational skater, who plays the occasional pick-up/old folks hockey. I learned skating skills and techniques from some of the chapters, that I could not learn from my friends. My skating has improved since I read Laura Stamm's Power Skating. The author really knows how to express herself and teach. Techiques are described with clarity and appropriate drills are detailed. This should be beneficial to all skaters, from novice to expert. If you are only buying one hockey skating book, it should be this one.

Although I play roller hockey instead of ice hockey, this book is still an excellent resource. Very thorough explanations, illustrated with many clear photographs.

I think it is most appropriate for beginning to intermediate skaters. However, if you are an advanced skater and want to check that your mechanics or sound, or want to squeeze the last bit of performance from your technique, you should consider this book.

I can't recomend this book highly enough. In the first week after getting it, I was able to skate faster than many of the other people in my hockey class who had blown me away the previous week.

I started skating just this year (I'm finishing a delta class now) and got this book in preparation for an upcoming power skating and hockey clinic. It's great -- there are lots of subtleties that I missed in my lessons thus far that Stamm covers very well, things like balance points, where to center your weight for most efficiency, and the most common mistakes that cost you speed.

Considering the cost of private lessons, this book is more than worth it! I've got lots to practice now even before I start the clinics.

This is a great prep book before starting hockey clinics. She gives you lots of subtle position and balance tips that really change the feel of your feet on ice and help you move faster with more assurance. She's got practice exercises as well.

At the time of this review, I am 31 years old and preparing for my first season of adult hockey. I had almost zero skating experience (aside from maybe three public skating sessions when I was 12 or so years old) when I decided I wanted to play hockey. Before I started taking skating seriously, I would just go out an mess around on the ice for a half hour at a time. All that did was breed bad habits and frustration. Then, I purchased this book: I can't stress to you just how much the descriptions in this book helped form good skating habits while avoiding/undoing the bad ones. Remember, I am a self-taught skater and by no means perfect, but this book solidifed the fundamentals and spelled out the execution necessary to maximize my power. In just three months of practice patterned after the excercises in this book, I feel like a totally different individual than the unbalanced, directionless clown I was when I started out. Consider this book a must-read if you're looking to get into hockey.

When I first started playing competitive hockey 10 years ago, I didn't know how to skate. I bought this book and learned the physics of skating. After 6 weeks of training on inline skates and at the ice rink my skating was good. During the last game of hockey that year, I remember I chased the other team's best player from his end of the rink to mine and knocked the puck off his stick. I skated to the bench for a line change and one of the guys who hadn't seen me since I started the training said, "Holy! How come you are so fast?". I recommend this to all the guys I play with. I bought the video a few years later, but I think if I had choice of the two, I'd take the book because the book is well written enough that I can visualize what to do.

I have been using this book and the companion DVD for about 18 months. I bought them together after I made the decision to start playing rec league ice hockey at the tender age of 48! What you get out of them is going to depend a lot on what type of learner you are and your motivation. The DVD will appeal to those inclined to the visual, copycat approach. If you prefer to work through the process analytically with descriptive detail, then the book is better than the DVD. I've found them to be excellent complementary learning tools.

There are many paths to success. I have also attended power skating classes and adult hockey camp. A private lesson with a figure skating instructor identified and corrected a posture problem in my backward crossovers. That could have taken months to work out on my own.

The bottom line is that ice skating is an extremely difficult, non-intuitive activity. To get good at it, you simply have to make the commitment of time, energy, and yes money that's required to get out there and practice, practice, practice. This book and other resources can help, but there are no shortcuts or substitutes for lots of hard work on the ice. If you are willing to do this, you will be richly rewarded with superb skating skills that will make a huge difference in games. I am already playing at the intermediate rec league level and enjoying it a bunch.

Laura Stamm's Power Skating was recommended to me by my team and personal skating coach. It covers basics ... in detail! Speed, balance, explosiveness, responsiveness - all depend on the basics underlying your forward and backward stride, including weight distribution, leg extension, edge position, angle, and control, hip position and movement, control of shoulder and torso position, and more.

This book covers the basics you would have drilled into you at any good hockey school or clinic. So if you're wondering why you slip edges, are a fast runner but slow skater, can't quite stop yourself from spinning out of position at times, lose your balance, feel like your upper and lower body aren't working together on the ice, etc. - buy this book and start drilling!

One piece of advice on skates, though. If you've never been fitted by a competent hockey pro shop or at a clinic, go and get it done. Hockey skates aren't shoes or boots and shouldn't fit like them. Wear the wrong skate and you will not only waste your time and money trying to learn to skate properly, you will develop habits you will have to rid yourself of later. Trust me - you are NOT going to be fitted properly at the local sporting goods or department store. Get fitted properly and buy the best skates you can afford. Fitting also addresses more than the skate boot fit. You need someone knowledgeable to help with things like blade type, rocker, and other fitting issues too.

The book and techniques are excellent and the price is cheap. Laura Stamm has been used and endorsed by many pros. You can't go wrong!

You must buy it if you found Laura's DVD is the best skating instructional DVD.

This book has helped me out tremendously! I have an instructor, when he shows me something, and i still don't understand it, i flip this book open, it gives you step by step what you should do and it usually works..

Even on things my instructor does not go over because it's for more advanced than i am currently, this book helps you understand how to at least attempt to do it, and usually it works if you do what the book says..

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is just start to play ice hockey.. it has helped me out a lot!