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Once you have learned the fundamental moves of skating such as forward skating, backward skating, stops, edges, turns, crossovers, and mohawks, you are now ready to master them. There is no better way to master these skills than to practice as much as you can.

Everyone starts out with learning how to properly and smoothly glide on two feet. As soon as you become competent with the two-foot glide, you can then proceed to gliding using one leg at a time in a straight line. After transferring your weight on one foot, you can lift the other while continuing to glide. While doing this, it is important that you lift your free hip as well, pull in your stomach muscles, and avoid swinging your arms around. Gliding with the weight all on one foot is a basic ice skating move that should be learned.

As a beginner, you need to be able to maintain balance first, and this is accomplished by means of having proper posture, which is that of bent knees, upright torso, and the head up. There is a natural tendency to slouch or bend forward to be able to look down at the ice, but with this posture frequently leads to falls.

The next skating competency to master is stroking, which is a power move, where the skater pushes off onto one foot and glides. Beginners can first start with quick, short glides, before doing it for longer periods. In order to do stroking, with your feet together, you can slip one foot behind the other and push with the side of that foot that is behind, while transferring your weight to the other foot. You just have to bring your feet together again and do the same with your other foot, all these while in a relaxed position with your arms at the sides, palms down.

Whereas stroking is a one-foot push, swizzle is a two-foot push, accomplished by bending both knees with the toes pointing forward like in a V position, sliding the feet apart in order to get momentum, and finally bringing them together again. With repetition of this skating move, the path looks like an hourglass. You must be able to do several in a row and do backward swizzles also. These moves provide a good exercise for the knees.

Lastly, crossovers are intended for skating around corners. This is a maneuver where one foot crosses over the other as one glides on a corner. The outside skate is placed over the inside skate to move around, and to achieve power, some skaters even push the foot that is underneath the foot which is crossing over.