Roller Skate Backwards - BOTH WAYS - Practice Drill

Hey skaters, I'm Dirty Deborah Harry with the Dirty School of Skate at Sugar Roller Skates. I'm here today at the Fountain Valley Skating Center today to talk to you about backward skating, but more specifically, practicing backward skating. Because at the end of every video, I always tell you to go practice, but now I'm gonna give you a little tip, trick, a little plan of how to practice your backward skating, okay? This is gonna involve cross pulls. So a little bit more advanced for your backward skating. However, if you're just a beginner backward skater, no problem, watch this video because it's gonna help you plant seeds for your more advanced level backward skating. And also you can modify this plan to suit the backward skating that you're doing right now. Today's video is brought to you by Bruised Boutique. That's www.bruisedboutique.com. You guys go on their site, you can get everything you need for skating. You can use my promo code, Dirty Money, save you a few dollars, all right? You guys, you will find that their new updated website has everything you need and it's so searchable, super easy for you to find everything you need for skating. All right, so let's get started with today's practice for backward skating both ways. Now I'm just gonna assume since you're on a backward skating video that you've already tried backward skating. Let me tell you the number one thing that you can focus on when you're learning backward skating, you gotta go both ways. And if you already know how to backward skate and you're not doing this, you need to, okay? You cannot just limit yourself to skating backwards in one direction. And by that, I mean, if I'm skating backwards and I'm only facing this way and only doing cross pulls with my left foot going behind my right in this opposite skating direction, you know, that you do at the roller rink, or if I'm only able to skate regular skating direction, right foot behind left, okay? If I'm only able to turn out this direction or I'm only able to turn out this direction, if I'm limited so that I cannot do just a very nice classic figure eight, okay? If I cannot change directions, you gotta work on it. So let's do this very easy practice plan for you to get used to doing it, all right? Now you can be indoors or outdoors, find a flat space and preferably something that, get a piece of chalk and just draw a big old straight line. Or if you're at the pickleball court and you've kicked those people off so that you can roller skate like every flat surface was really meant to be before the pickleball revolution, you know what I'm talking about. Every dead tennis court that you've ever skated at, usually there's a line or two out there. Let's follow that line, all right? And so we're gonna skate backwards, of course, toes turned inward, knees turned inward. You're down with your chest is out, baby, and your snacks are tucked, arms are here, and then they're here. And I want you to start skating backwards. You can look at the line in front of you as you're doing this, and you can glance at the line behind you, but we want you to stay even. I want you to stay on the line. You know how you do this? Not by staring at it. You do it by applying the same amount of time, pressure, and force on each foot as you're going backwards. This will help you gain and maintain, gain and, lordy, gain and maintain momentum is from the consistent and equal time, pressure, and force on each foot, okay? We gotta have that going on. You know, in past videos, I've told you to not good foot it. Don't rely on that one foot, okay? So once you're like this and you're like, okay, I can backwards skate, and I can go one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. This is me sinking my body weight into one foot, rising up and sinking it into the other, rise up, sink it into the other. We can maintain this nice consistency, right? Not good foot it. All right, now I want you to skate backwards, and I want you to be open to turning both directions, and here's how we do it. You guys, did you know that in order for me to look over my shoulder when I'm skating backwards, I need to put weight on the foot opposite the direction that I want to turn. Again, I'm skating here. If I put weight here, I can turn my head opposite. Let me show you from behind. If I'm skating like this, I put weight here, I look there. Weight here, look there, you got it? Weight opposite the direction that you are looking. So now let's incorporate some cross pulls. You're gonna skate backwards, and I want you to veer off the line this direction, do a cross pull, put your arms together, veer off the line, do a cross pull. You guys, when you talk about veering off the line, I want to show you how extremely easy it is, right? If I'm skating backwards, and I want to go right over there, all I have to do is go like this. Let me show you from behind. Okay, I'm skating here. I want to go there, okay? All you gotta do is swing it one way, swing it the other. One way or the other. Now, if you really want to do it nice and smooth, you're gonna lean that way too, okay? So if I'm skating like this, and I want to veer off this line, I sit into it. Okay, I'm back on the line, I sit into it. Right, I'm back on the line, I sit into it. Back on the line, sit into it, all right? So now, once we get ourself, here's the line, and we get ourself to one side, I can do a cross pull and get myself back to center. All good things in skating come from the center. All right, here we go. So, a backwards skate, same amount of time, pressure and force on each foot, no good foot. Right, I'm gonna veer off, and as I veer off, I turn, I cross pull, get back in. Veer this way, cross pull, get back in, turn, center, turn, cross pull. Let's do it so you can see it from behind, all right? We're skating, same amount of time, pressure and force on each foot. Then, I'm down, I veer off, I rotate, cross pull, cross pull. Ultimately, when you get real good at this, it's gonna look like this, okay? This is our goal. Cross pull, corner, corner, corner. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. That's our goal, okay, you guys? I want you to go both ways, everything in skating. You can turn this direction, I want you to turn this direction. Everything both ways, don't get stuck going one direction. Now, when you're practicing this, so sometimes you can get really, really frustrated because you may have a favored way like, oh, I can do a cross pull this way, but then when I turn this way, it seems so difficult. How do I say this? Stuff is awkward till it's not, okay? You just revel in the awkwardness, you're gonna be fine. It's supposed to feel weird. It's supposed to feel like you can't do it, but you can, it's just a fact that we are either right or left-handed. You might have just started skating in a particular direction and haven't paid a lot of attention to the other side. That's okay, everyone does it, but now that we have a plan, we can put this practice into place. Remember, we're gonna stay going straight down the line. We can do this because we know, same amount of time, pressure, force on each foot. Now we're gonna veer, turn, cross-pull. Veer, turn, cross-pull to the point that you can start cross-pulling each way in a straight line. What makes that super remarkable, you guys, is realistically, cross-pulls are for the corners. So I'm really trying to get you to do cross-pulls both directions, kind of on a straight line, but you're veering a little bit, so that's mimicking the curve, all right? So listen, I really, really hope you guys have liked this lesson because almost every single skater, once they start skating, tells me, oh my God, teach me how to skate backwards. Now, oftentimes, I have to say, I'd love to teach you how to skate backwards, but let me see how you skate forward first. And more often than not, they'll start skating forward and I'll be like, hmm, there might be a thing or two that we need to adjust on your forward skating to make your backward skating really good. And then I'll ask them, show me, just skate forward and turn around backwards. And I will often note that their transition from forward to backy, backy, forward to backy, forward to back is super shaky. So then we gotta work on that, all right? So if that is you, if you say, Dirty, are you talking to me? Are you talking to me? Is that what you feel like? Because I'm talking to you and you're like, I got shaky forward skating, I got a shaky transition. No problem, no problem. With this, you're gonna continue. One, work on your forward skating. Two, work on your transitions. But it doesn't mean that we can't start working on these. We're good, okay? I've got a whole playlist of backward skating, which includes cross pulls. Watch that video for real. That's gonna really, really help you. But when we're taking this backwards, you can start from a stationary position. Make sure that the surface that you're skating on is nice, clean, and free of debris. All right, down like this. And you're just gonna take it. If you can only do this and look, go one, two, three, look. One, two, three, look. You're good, good to go. Good to start practicing. All right, skaters, thank you so much. You guys, follow me on Instagram. On Instagram, I'm at dirtydebraharry. All right, you guys, I gotta run. You guys know what you need to do, am I right? Go practice.