How to Skate Backwards With C-Cuts

To skate backwards, stay low and use alternating C-cuts. Turn one toe slightly inward, press the front of that skate into its inside edge, push it out through a curved path, then recover the foot beneath you. Repeat on the other side while keeping your chest and hips facing forward.

Do not try to create motion by wiggling your hips or taking hurried little steps. The useful force comes from pushing an angled skate sideways against the ice.

Start in a stable backward stance

Before adding a push:

• Set your feet about shoulder-width apart.
• Bend your ankles and knees, lowering your hips as if beginning to sit in a chair.
• Keep your back straight, chest and head up, and hands in front.
• Stay centered along the blades rather than sitting back on your heels.
• Keep your stick in front of you, initially with both hands.

This is a low stance, not a backward lean. If your shoulders drift behind your skates, your centre of mass moves toward the rear of your base of support and a backward fall becomes more likely.

Hockey Canada describes the backward stance as knees bent, back straight, hips down and weight distributed along each blade. Its beginner progression introduces backward walking and two-skate gliding before C-cuts (Hockey Canada U7 practice plans). If you cannot yet coast backwards in balance, use the progression in Learn to Skate for Hockey first.

Make one backward C-cut

Practise in a clear area while wearing a helmet and normal protective equipment. Use the boards for stationary balance work, but do not rely on them once you begin travelling.

1. Choose a support skate. Keep it beneath your body and pointing along your intended path.
2. Turn the other toe slightly inward. Its heel moves outward, positioning the skate for an inside-edge push.
3. Load the pushing edge. Stay balanced over the support skate while applying enough pressure through the driving skate for its edge to grip.
4. Push through a curve. Extend the driving leg out and slightly forward relative to your body, tracing roughly half a letter C.
5. Finish near the toe. Continue the push through the front of the blade without locking your knee.
6. Recover close to the ice. Bring the heel back beneath your hip.
7. Repeat on the other side. Let your weight move smoothly from one side to the other while your torso remains quiet.

Hockey Canada’s coaching manual describes the same core pattern: turn the driving heel outward, press through the front of the blade, extend through a semicircular cut, finish near the toe and keep the support leg under the body (Hockey Canada’s Skills and Key Teaching Points).

Why a sideways push sends you backwards

A skate glides easily along its length, but an engaged edge resists motion across the blade. When the pushing skate is angled correctly, you push the ice sideways and somewhat forward. The ice pushes back on the blade in the opposite direction, producing a backward component of force that accelerates you.

The C-shaped path lets you maintain a useful blade angle while extending your leg. If the skate is too flat, it slides instead of gripping. This is why the cue “push out, not back” works: a straight backward push asks the blade to grip along the same direction in which it is designed to glide. The edge and blade angle make the sideways push useful. For more about the low resistance beneath a gliding blade, see why ice is slippery.

Backward skating is not simply a forward stride in reverse. A two-dimensional study of seven male collegiate club players found statistically significant differences in hip, knee, ankle and trunk angles at propulsion when comparing forward skating with backward C-cuts (Wu et al., 2015). The small study does not define one ideal beginner technique, but it supports treating the C-cut as its own movement pattern.

A three-drill progression

1. Stationary, board-supported C-cuts

Face the boards and rest both hands on them for balance. Make 8–10 slow C-cuts with the right foot while keeping the left beneath you, then switch feet. The goal is to feel progressive pressure on the pushing skate’s inside edge and complete a controlled curved path—not to force the widest possible cut.

2. One push and glide

Move away from the boards. Make one right-foot C-cut, recover the foot, then glide backwards on two skates for a count of two. Repeat with the left.

A quiet, straight glide shows that you finished the push in balance. If you twist or drift sideways, keep the glide skate beneath your body and reduce movement in your hips, shoulders and arms. Those points also appear in Ice Hockey Systems’ backward-skating guidance.

3. Alternate down a line

Use alternating left and right C-cuts over 10–15 metres. Begin slowly and let each foot recover beneath you before developing the next push. Once the rhythm is even, make the cuts longer and firmer rather than merely moving your feet faster.

In a maximum-effort study of 10 skilled male players, backward speed was positively correlated with both cycle length and cycle width (Marino and Grasse). That result does not prescribe an ideal cut for beginners, but it does reinforce a modest practical point: tiny, frantic cuts are not the goal. Build useful range without sacrificing balance.

Fix the most common problems

You drift sideways: Keep your shoulders and hips facing forward, and make the left and right cuts more symmetrical.

Your feet spread wider with every stride: You are pushing but not recovering. Bring each heel back beneath its hip before loading that skate again.

The blade skids: Slow down, bend your knees and apply pressure progressively to the inside edge instead of stamping the skate flat and shoving it sideways.

You wiggle but barely travel: Quiet your torso and make each curved push more deliberate. Do not substitute hip rotation for leg extension.

You fall backwards: Lower your hips without moving them behind your heels. Keep your shoulders over your knees and your hands in front.

Once alternating C-cuts are smooth, practise looking left and right without turning your hips. Then add backward stops, forward-to-backward pivots, crossovers and eventually a puck. Speed should come after you can repeatedly create a controlled inside-edge push while keeping the other skate under your body.