Roller Skating Fundamentals 101 - Practice Without Skates, Gain Control & Confidence

Have you just ordered some skates and you want to start practicing before they arrive? Maybe you have a fear of falling, or you've plateaued, or you just want to improve your skating? Stick around and I'm going to show you some skills you can practice without your skates on, which will help you gain confidence and control when you're skating. First of all, let's cover posture. I've got my sparkly trainers on this evening, so you need to think about bending your knees. I've said it over and over, but a knee bend isn't just there, it's right down so your knee is over your toe. With your posture, it's absolutely fine to be a little bit further forwards when you're starting. This sort of position is great because if you start to wobble, you're so close to the ground already, it's okay. This is why children seem to be so good at learning to skate, because they're really close to the ground, it doesn't hurt as much. But if you're up here, you've got a lot further to go before you hit the deck than if you're already very bent, and down here, and forward is the key. Never lean back, always ends badly, always lean forward. So you're going to start off really low and really over, but as you get better, you will be able to straighten up. It's a really good idea to practice this posture looking in the mirror side on, because a lot of beginners are like, I'm really bending my knee, but you look in the mirror, you're like, oh, actually, that's not much of a knee bend. So when you think you're bending your knee, just bend it a little bit more, and then that's probably where you need to be. With the knee bend, it's not just bend and stay there. You need to have this softness in your knee, because this is your shock absorber. When you're skating, these are going to really help you absorb all the bumps and the wobbles, which is really important. One last thing with posture is your arms and your shoulders. So your shoulders will indicate which way you're going to go. So if you want to turn, you turn your shoulders first. So you need to keep your shoulders square, which will then go down through your hips and your feet, which will be shoulder width apart. So these are our friends. So I always say to the kids, aeroplane arms. Think of a tightrope walker. They have their really long pole for balance. So we can use our arms for balance, and this really, really helps. I know sometimes it feels a little bit uncomfortable, but hey, it works. So let's just go with it. The next couple of bits are going to be some quite dynamic exercises. So it's really good if you've warmed up your body a little bit before you do these. One of the biggest things is falling. Everyone says, I want to skate, but I'm scared of falling. So the thing that we all do, because everybody does it, when you're going to fall, you helicopter, because it's a natural thing, and that's it. So you have to muscle memory a safer way to control the fall. When you feel the wobble, you need to squat like that. The best way to do this is not necessarily hands on your knees, because it does push your weight too far forward. So if you think more about going down like that. I'm actually in the staggered stance when I'm doing this, so you could try that as well, because this is a really good position to learn to skate in with this staggered stance, because it gives you more control. So staggered stance, arms out, I'm wobbling, squat. So practice that and get the muscle memory, so you don't do this instead. So this one, you don't want to do with your skates on, and you'll see why in a minute. So back during lockdown, I was doing my Lily Subbery videos, as we do, and I came across this exercise, which is fantastic. And I was like, that is a great exercise for skaters. So it's a side lunge, but we're going to do it with our arms out, because that's how we skate. And what you're going to do is you're going to push from here and balance on this foot. So it's a great weight transfer. So up and then balance on this foot. So this helps you feel that you have to be central. So you can do this over and over. And every time you can feel how the weight has to transfer. So you can feel if your weight's too far to the inside, it'll pull you back. And if it's too far to the outside, it'll push you over. And it really helps you feel that for skating. And you can obviously do this on both feet. As much as I love my pink sparkly trainers, these are my favourite. So once your skater eye, obviously you may already have your skates, put them on on the grass or the carpet is where you want to try these moves initially, because you don't want to be rolling about too much. So you can try your posture, knee over toe, arms out. When you're going to be doing the dynamic, like the squats, so you need to warm up. But to be honest, it's a really good idea just to do a bit of warming up before you skate every time anyway, so you don't pull something. So feel my posture nice and low. I've got a wobble. Go down. Here we go. And we can't do the exact exercise to transfer our weight, but you can do marching to try and get used to the idea of changing feet. And if you do it slightly to the side, it means you have to shift your weight more. So rather than just marching, you can keep your weight central. But if you step to the side and lift, you have to keep that weight over your skate and it makes you do it more. It's a really good idea to practice these moves, specifically the squat with your safety gear on. And also all of it because it gets you used to the feel of your helmet and your wrist guards. But the squats and things are going to feel different with your knee pads on. So it's really good to practice it like this with them on. Now, one really cool thing about knee pads, especially the bigger ones like the 187s, that kind of thing, the ones that are really big, which really protect you, which are fantastic, is they make you bend your knee because if you straighten your knee, they dig in. But if you bend your knee, they're much more comfortable. So all that's left for you to do now is to start moving. I've got a video on that which I'll link to, and it shows you the marching technique to start moving. And it also covers lacing, turning your socks inside out for comfort, and tightening your wheels to control the roll. I hope this video has helped you gain lots of confidence and control of your skates. I'm Katie, you've been watching Skaty, and I'll see you next time. Bye! Improve your confidence and... That was good, wasn't it? So one last point. I keep doing this, which are in line with your feet, which are square, just about practice these moves. Okay, so you want to keep...