Some of us argue that skating consists of repeated cycles of falls and recoveries. Specifically, a skater deliberately moves her upper body such that shifted center of gravity causes her to “fall”. During this fall, she continues to glide on one skate. But at the same time she moves her other skate, the free skate, towards the projection on the ground of her shifting center of gravity, with the aim to recover from the fall by planting the free skate onto the new projected center of gravity. The process now repeats, with the previously free skate now becoming the new gliding skate.

Forward cross roll

You can see these falls and recoveries in the next sequence as well, showing linear crossovers. These falls and recoveries apply to both regular strokes and crossover steps. Unlike forward cross rolls in the first sequence above, with fast-faced linear crossovers, the skater does not plant the recovering skate exactly on the projected center of gravity. This is because the skater's upper body has already shifted direction, at every balance moment, in anticipation of the next lunge.

Linear crossovers

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