Ice axe skills - how to learn self arrest (and should you learn anything else)?

For what it's worth I am self-taught, or strictly speaking, learnt it from a book: the rather wonderful book "Climbing Ice" by Yvon Chounard. (founder of Patagonia gear as well as being an noted mountaineer)

Quite a funny anecdote was me and a mate on Helvellyn one winter when I showed him how to ice axe brake. A year or so later he asked where I'd learnt and was shocked when I said I'd learnt it from a book, and had never actually done it before that occasion !

I dare say being taught by someone who actually knows what to do is better, but Chounard's written explanation worked for me

 

It's a useful skill, which I think you can teach yourself provided you find a suitable slope. I taught myself the basics but I did learn a lot more on an Alpine training Course at Glenmore lodge. By the end of that day I could fall backwards wearing crampons and right myself and arrest within a few metres. They also taught us to arrest at speed without the pick being torn out your hands which I once witnessed.

If you're going to carry an ice axe it's as well to know how to use it beyond leaning on it as a walking pole, arrest, step cutting, shelter building with it and even carrying it properly so it's accessible when you need it.