Bring in the Professionals.

My other forays into the realms of winter sports ended in little disasters for me.
I had always envied one of my cousins her prowess on ice skates and how I coveted her white boots. After a lengthy spell of hard frost, the loch and surrounding wetlands had frozen over with thick enough ice to bear a person's weight. This cousin gave me a pair of old skates, albeit brown skates and half a size too small, but I squeezed my feet into them and took to the ice on the shallow boggy land near the pier. There were a good few cotton grasses sticking up through the ice and that didn't make my practice any easier, but after a while I could manage a yard or two without falling over. I then took to going to the ice rink on Saturday mornings for more practice. An aunt had a short skating skirt made for me. I loved it: navy material with a scarlet lining which looked pretty when I managed a little twirl. One Saturday a crowd of us were skating around the rink when I hit an ice lolly stick, carelessly dropped on the ice. I tripped into a preceding skater who lurched forward, his skate came up, the blade hit my leg and I could see into a gaping gash on my thigh. This ended with a visit to hospital and several stitches. I still bear the scar.
The ski-ing ended up much the same way: no cuts this time but a heavy, hip-joint wrenching, plaster up to the knee.
Jack and I had been given a set of skis between us and a pair of boots each. We set about teaching ourselves on the perfect snow on the steep field. Gaining a little confidence I set off, gaining a bit of speed and attempting a few twists and turns. That was my undoing. I got on to the wrong edge of the ski and immediately fell over, twisted my foot,or my leg, or both, the boot was detached from the ski, the ski shot off downhill and I was left in a heap. Nothing very spectacular but I could not walk and had to be taken home on the back of the tractor trailer.
Next day it was another "casualty" visit as my ankle had swelled up and was pretty painful. I had done something to ligaments or tendons, I forget which, and thus the plaster for 3 weeks.
The moral would seem to be, "Get professional training". Dog showing seems a bit safer.