Nordic Skiing with Free Skate to One Skate Exercises

Our class today was a review of free skate, moving into one skate.
We started class by looking at the classic skis of some class mates that had raced the Canadian Birkie.
It was noticed that it was very hard to tell which ski was left and which one was right, from the worn off wax on the inside edge. There were some that switched skis left to right and right to left half way through the race. However because it was snowing the snow was slow, and there were very few that had to snow plough.  There was not a lot of herringbone either.
A few common denominators of the skis were, too much wax in the groove and the glide area had not been brushed and scraped well enough. There was also ski grunge on some skis.
We then looked at the skate skis before going outside,which were mostly ok.

After a warmup around the lake, the class started off with free skating without poles. I made it very clear that I teach direction of ski travel, and as speed increases the ski V narrows.
The first exercise consisted of free skating with bent arm drive both forward and back keeping arms going parallel to the gliding ski, without poles.
-exercise consisted of concentrating on putting the ski down flat, thinking about nose knee toe. Balance is key.
-exercise consisted of always having a heel-toe recovery while doing all exercises
-exercise consisted of pairing into partners and the one behind looking to see if your ski tracks indicated that you put the ski down flat.
-exercise consisted of landing on an outside edge just before you land on a flat ski.
-exercise consisted of pushing the whole ski out to the side like peeing on a fire hydrant. This also allows the fresh blood a chance to enter your legs and relax.
-exercise consisted of dragging some snow with the inside edge of the tail. This exercise is to help those who were not recovering the ski low enough and try avoiding having the tip pointing down.
 -exercise consisted of free skating with back bent at 90 degrees with hands clasp behind their back like a speed skater.
-same exercise with their back bent at 135 degrees.
-next exercise consisted with the poles held behind your back on your hips, concentrating on the hips and poles turning all at one time
-exercise consisted of one skate double poling with a tap, tap, pole, over, tap,tap pole
-exercise consisted of tap, pole,tap, pole
-exercise consisted of pole, skate, pole, skate.
-exercise consisted of peaking, duck, and over. Some of the students were getting no flexion at the knee and ankle.
--exercise consisted of double poling in diagonal tracks the practising one step double pole.Concentrating on bringing the hips forward.
-exercise consisted of jumping forward bringing the hips forward
-exercise consisted of one skate consisting of floating and gliding on a flat ski, as the arms were brought forward. Relax and Float!