Roller Dance - Backstep

Playa this place. Hey skaters, I'm Dirty Deborah Harry with the Dirty School of Skate and I'm here at the Fountain Valley Skating Center in Southern California to talk to you today about dance skating. Now in the past we've done a series of videos on dance skating where we learned how to do the original which is this little step here and then we moved on and I taught you how to do a downtown. This is downtown number five. We did this one, right? You all remember because you've been watching these videos, right? And then we did number three where we stomp, right? Remember this one? Remember all the good times we had stomping together? Okay now so we've done the original. That's a hand signal for the original where you'll be doing this with a whole group of friends that you're skating with because you're just not going to be out here dancing alone. Maybe you are, I don't know. And then we flipped to number five. I would go like this and you would do your downtown with the double push, right? And then I would throw up three so you would know to stomp at the end of your downtown. Now we're going to do number four. Number four is fun. Number four is exciting. Number four is difficult, I ain't gonna lie. You're gonna have to really be able to balance on one foot and hang on to an outside edge like your life depends on it, okay? Here's number four. You're going to start off with your basic downtown which is over, under, then you're going to pick up your foot and go under and under again. Then you're going to go to the opposite side, your downtown, under, under, under, okay? Under, under, under. Now when you do these cross behinds, you literally have to drop your body weight down, get your body weight over on one foot, hanging on your outside edge, picking up one foot, bending your knee, getting that one on your outside edge, etc. etc. So I think the thing that we need to talk about first, obviously, is what the hell is an outside edge? Outside edge is when we are down, we've shifted our body weight way over onto one foot, and we've got our knee pushed over your baby toe. You're forcing your weight so far over to the outside of your skate that you feel like you could almost fall, but you're not gonna. You can hang on to it, all right? It is so important that our knees are bent during this because if we're up straight and we lean, we're definitely gonna fall, okay? So let's practice just the cross behind aspect of this. So what I want you to do, do it with me kids. Let me fix myself here. I want you to stand up nice and straight. I want you to drop your hips down, okay? Now you're gonna feel good. You're gonna rock your body weight from side to side. I want you to push your body weight down over the ball of your foot, okay? This is what I call skating on top of your skates. So get this rhythm going where you're just bouncing from one side to the other, pushing your body weight through your skates so you can feel the floor. Once you're able to do that, now let's isolate the edges. Let's take our body weight down. Now let's push it over to one skate or one side and let's see if we can just pick up the other foot. Can you pick up this other foot? Can you bend your knee? Can you get your knee over to the outside? Can you hold on to it? If you can, then you could swing that foot around to the back, no problem. I need you to practice this. You gotta practice it on both sides. So again, we are up, we're down. We're shifting our body weight over. We're recognizing that our body weight needs to be down through the skate. Feel the floor over the top of your skate. Now direct your knee and the pressure over to your baby toe. Now pick up this other foot. This is where it gets scary. The idea that I've shifted my body weight all the way over there and gonna pick it up, I'm telling you, it's so hard to fall all the way over on that side. It really is. So trust yourself. Tips, keep your chin up, shoulders straight across, snacks tight, hips down. That helps. I'm gonna look straight ahead. I might even stick my arms out, really bend my knee and lift my foot. Now I'm gonna direct my knee over to my baby toe. See how far I can hold on to that edge. Alright, once I can do that, then I can put the other foot behind. Now this is really important. When you stick one foot underneath the other, you've gotta land on the alternate outside edge. That is difficult. You're gonna be down, lean. I've identified, I can feel the weight, pressure, force on my outside edge. I pick up this foot. When I cross it over and set it down, can you see what's happening here? I'm setting it down on my outside edge so I can catch it and pick up the other foot and bring it around, set it down on an outside edge, set it down on an outside edge. Now, things to remember. When picking up your foot, don't pick your foot up with your foot. Pick your foot up with your hip, okay? So if I'm standing like this and I drop my weight down and I shift it over and I go to pick up this foot, all I do realistically is raise this hip. When I raise that hip, boom! I can do anything with my foot, okay? If I just, shoulders straight across, snacks tight, hips down, shift over and I start lifting with my foot, not a lot happens. I need to lift with my hip. When I lift with my hip is when I can direct the foot. Lift with the hip, direct the foot. Lift with the hip, direct the foot. Lift with the hip, direct the foot. Lift with the hip, direct the foot, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. When you set it down, gotta set it down on the outside edge. Again, the outside edge is going to be your outside wheels. More importantly, the kind of edge of your outside wheels is what's going to hit. So it's going to come down and sit it down. When I see people do this, biggest common mistake is this. They think it's just and they go like this, which is a skill. It's just not one. It's really fun to do. It doesn't look that good either and it's not something you could do at the end of a downtown or a grapevine, okay? So let's watch it in action. We're going to go five, six, seven, eight. We push on eight, pull back. We go over, under. We catch outside edge. Catching outside edge, catching outside edge. We're going to go back over. Outside edge, outside edge, outside edge, push. Go over, outside edge, outside edge, outside edge and push. We're going to go over. One, two, three, push. Over. One, two, three, push. All right. I've said this before. You gotta sit your ass down. So many people when they're doing dance skating steps, they don't realize this is the magic area and it's gotta be seated down, okay? So in order for us to do these things, these hips have gotta move, knees gotta be bent and you gotta drop it down, pick it up, drop it down, pick it up. The other thing, when you bring your foot around, the second this thigh meets the back of this thigh is when that foot needs to get out of the way. So if I go down here, the second I sit and I can feel the touch, get it out of the way. Feel the touch, get it out of the way. Feel the touch, get it out of the way. All right. Last thing I gotta say about this is be extremely mindful of your upper body and what it's doing. When you are skating, I've said it a zillion times, chin up, shoulders straight across, neck's tight. Keep this level. Keep it strong. Tighten up the muscles in your back. So this is all holding itself up so the bottom can do its job, all right? So this is number four. You're gonna go five, six, seven, eight with the push, over, under, under, under, push, over, under, under, push, over, under, under, under, push, over, under, under, under, push, all right? Next time in the next video we do on dance, I need you guys to practice so we can put it all together. We can do original with the number five downtown, with the number three, with the stomp, and then we're gonna do these back kind of crosses. All righty, skaters? So I hope you like this video and I hope you find it challenging and I hope you practice. I hope you get really good at it. Let me know in the comments section what you think and as always, I'm here to help you so if you see me at the rink, please feel free to say hello and say, Darity, can you help me with number four? And I'll be more than happy to help you. All righty, go practice!