Article: Before you get out on the ice, you need to put on your skates. Don't worry about buying your own gear right away. You can rent your gear until you're sure you want to figure skate for a long time. Remember to dress warmly! Gloves and scarves are good.  Make sure you rent skates that fit. They should feel very snug but you should be able to wiggle your toes, just not too much and you don't want your skates to hurt your feet or make them tingle. You'll also want to be sure you lace them tight enough. You should not be able to roll your ankle. Your skates should fit like a glove. The very first thing you should learn as a figure skater is how to fall. You will fall a lot and it's important to know how to fall so that you don't hurt yourself. Practice falling. If you feel like you're about to fall, squat down so that when you land, your bottom or sides absorb the shock of the fall instead of something that can break or be seriously injured. Do not land with your hands out. Doing this can cause damage to your wrist, as well as let an unaware skater skate over your fingers. You should also learn how to get up or at least get out of the way quickly. You don't want other people to run in to you. The next thing that you should practice as a figure skater is how to keep your knees nice and loose. When you're new to skating, you'll be unstable on your legs and your muscles will be weak, so you'll naturally want to keep your knees locked and stiff. However, loose knees that can move easily are very important for figure skating, not just allowing you to move but also keeping your legs from getting sore. Practice letting your muscles relax and shake your leg around. You can also get your knees loose by crouching just a very small amount. Now that you can stand on skates comfortably and safely, you can learn how to move forward on skates. With one leg pointed forward, push your other leg back and out to the side very gently, with your toes angled away from your body just a little bit. This back leg should push you along the ice. Bring the back leg back down and then make the same push but with the other leg. Though the way you balance is different, you might want to learn this basic motion on street rollerblades before learning it on the ice. It is easier and can help keep you from hurting yourself. Of course, once you move forward, eventually you're going to want to stop. You can't just run into the wall forever! The most basic stop is done by bending your knees just a little and the leaning your body to the side, so that both of your blades are angled away from the direction you're moving in. You can also do a T stop, which is done by turning one of your blades into a T shape with the other blade and angling it away from the direction you're moving in. With those basic motions under your belt, you'll want to learn how to do a basic forward stroke. Stroking is when you do the same motions for moving forward, but longer and more gracefully. Do a more dramatic push off with your leg and hold that leg out behind you for longer before switching to the other leg. Practice this to get to a point where it looks graceful and natural. This will be the basic movement between all of the tricks and movements you will do when figure skating, so you want to do it well.
What is a summary of what this article is about?
Gear up. Learn how to fall. Loosen your knees. Learn how to move forward. Learn how to stop. Learn how to stroke.