What Roller Skating Skills to Practice in October!

Hello everyone, happy October. The sweaters are out, the cozy candles are burning and all of the fall recipes are waiting to be cooked. I used to be a full on summer girl. I had no interest in fall and I was sincerely missing out. Like I am really trying to make up for lost time here. I love all the cozy vibes of fall and I'm ready for it. I know that the weather is going to get a little rough for some of us and honestly, it's still too hot here to be wearing this sweater, but I'm all in. But before the weather gets a little rough for us, I hope that we can make use of it and skate in the nice weather for as long as it lasts. And for those of us who love skating inside, myself included, everything that I teach, I teach in this room inside. It is a pretty small space, so everything can be done with limited space. Everything that I teach, including the practice and the choreography, everything is linked together and builds on each other. So with every skill, no matter what level you are, I try my best to talk through the beginning, middle and how to advance it. And within the practice, you will find that those things that I recommend practicing, we'll talk about how to move it forward as you progress. Everything that I talk about can be accessed through my memberships on my website and on YouTube. All right, so let's get into it. This month, we have brand new choreography to Goo Goo Muck by The Cramps. If you watched Wednesday that came out last year on Netflix, it is the song that is used in the dance scene that was made very, very popular. And people did this to Bloody Mary by Lady Gaga as well. So you can use either song, whatever you'd like. It's some nice spooky choreography. My favorite thing about it is that Wednesday is known for being very deadpan. And so I tried my best to keep that look, the kind of spooky vibe during the choreography. But honestly, it is so hard not to smile when I'm dancing on skates. So I did my best. Our drills and skills for week one, we are doing drill seven and the C-step. Drill seven is labeled strut training. And when you think about the strut walk, yes, it is just a nice fun move to do, but it is also really good practice for transferring weight. So we're going to work on free leg control within this drills video. It is all about that free leg control, lifting, using the thigh, using your calves, using every part of your leg, including your hip and your butt, while also of course, tightening that core to make the free leg movement nice and controlled. This will help in your one foot balance and transitioning your weight from one foot to the other. So that leads us into our C-step, which is our skill for week one. The C-step is a very nice, fun move that does not take up a lot of space, but it's really, really good practice for your inner back edges. It is one foot doing an inner edge, and then the other foot doing an inner edge, literally making a C on the ground. And you transfer from one foot to the other foot, really alternating it back and forth. When you get a little bit more comfortable with this move, you can start to add a little bit of a bounce, and you can bend as you plant the foot, lightening the weight as you draw that inner back edge, bend the knee, come up a little bit. Now, when I say come up, I never mean come up to a straight leg, but you will eventually learn how to lessen the weight to make it easier to roll the skate. To practice for this skill, I recommend doing backward scissors first. Now, backward scissors is both feet on the ground doing an inner back edge. So instead of one foot at a time, like in the C-step, you can do both feet at one time, creating a lot more balance. You'll also develop that rhythm of bending and coming up throughout the scissor. I then recommend moving on to backward edges. So like I said, the C-step works on that inner back edge, but we can't forget about that outer back edge. So when we are skating, I always recommend coming back to the edges, no matter what level you are. That is honestly the first thing that I do when I put my skates on is an outer forward edge, inner forward edge on each foot, and then turn around backward, outer back edge, inner back edge. I will say this when we move on throughout the month, but the rock over is my favorite way to warm up. It's outer, inner, outer, inner, just doing it over and over until I am warmed up, until my knees are comfortable. When you are doing backward edges, please make sure to bend your knees and use your butt to help you balance. So we don't want to look forward. The most common thing that I see when we are learning backward skating is bending forward to kind of look down at our feet. There's nothing interesting happening down there, I promise you. So if anything, if you're not looking straight, I want you to look back behind you to make sure you're not going to run into anything. When you do look over your shoulder, look behind you, you don't want to move your entire body. You want to tighten up your core. You want to pull one shoulder back, whichever direction you are going to look, and then turn your head to look behind you just briefly. You don't want to keep it back there. You want everything to be squared off when you are skating backward, or shall I say, when you're learning to skate backward, when you're not super comfortable yet. Last thing to practice this week is the dribble or the slingshot. Now the dribble is another really great skill to practice without a ton of space. And it does alternate one foot and then the other, but you leave both feet on the ground. So it's a really good skill for any level. Now, when you do the dribble and you start to get really comfortable, you can then add the rotation to make it the slingshot, which is kind of like doing a C-step. So all of these things are related. And I want you to realize that, that when you learn one skill, there are so many other things that you may be unlocking within it. So all of these things are connected. Also, pro tip, if you want to skip the elliptical at the gym, the dribble is pretty much the elliptical. You can keep going and keep going. It's great cardio. Okay, week two onto our choreography. Now I want everyone to start with the beginner intermediate choreography. It connects directly to the advanced choreography. So you can have a full routine, but I do recommend starting with the beginner intermediate right here in week two. Of course, if you want to start this in week one, that's totally fine. But our choreography involves a lot of different skills. We are using the heel toe step, the downtown, the two foot spin, and a heel to heel transition. So we use a lot of different skills in our choreography. I kind of disguise them with dance moves to make us a little more comfortable and to help us learn without feeling like we're learning too much. It makes it a lot more fun. For our practice this week, we're going to work on some of those skills. So the two foot spin can be done a lot of different ways. You can do it with your feet wide and it'll be kind of a slow spin. You can start to bring your feet toward each other, never running into each other. Please, please don't run your feet into each other when you are doing a two foot spin. Or you can pop up to the heel and toe if you really, really want to spin it fast. When you are spinning, no matter what spin you are doing, make sure you are tightening your core and your entire body is rotating with you. On that note, let's go into our inner forward heel to heel transition. This is the most commonly used heel to heel transition from forward to backward, stepping on an inner edge, opening up the hip onto an inner back edge and closing it. I always say it's kind of like closing a book or closing a door. Now, when I said in the spin to rotate your entire body, that is also super, super important in a transition. We don't want to leave anything behind. So when we are transitioning, we have to make sure we start one way, we open everything at the same time. Our entire body is working together to open that book and close that book. When you do finish your transition, make sure to really bend your knees and again, stick that booty out a little bit. I like to arch my back and think booty out and chest out, all to balance myself out because we really, really want to make sure we have balance back there when we are skating backward. We never want to stiffen up and push our hips forward. We want to keep everything nice and engaged, knees nice and soft, booty out just a little bit. Now, lastly, into our downtown. Now, I think my favorite part about this choreography is that I do a downtown with like a little subtle shimmy. You don't have to do anything too crazy. The downtown is super fun because you can make it kind of sloppy as you get better at it, which sounds very counterintuitive, but I will explain it a bit. But this one in the beginner intermediate, I recommend really focusing on the crosses. So a downtown is literally just a cross in front and a cross in back with some rhythm. So we do that cross in front and a cross in back and I do it with a very subtle shimmy with hopefully no expression in my face for this choreography. All right, onto week three. We are working on drills 12 and the one foot spin. Now, a one foot spin can also be done various ways. There's always something new to try, a different arm position, different foot position, different knee bend even. But in order to help us get there, whatever we wanna do with it, I do recommend working on drills 12. Drills 12 is off skates, actually using your skates as weights to help us gain strength to rotate. Now, when we think of rotating, a lot of us just think about the foot, but everything has to work together. So I think that the most important thing, at least for myself in skating, is focusing on the core. That is where all of my stability comes from. And in my rotation, I really focus on rotating my core, pulling one side back and tightening one side of my core the direction I'm traveling. Now with that, I do think it's helpful to hold weights to really force us to engage that because when we're skating, sometimes we like to flail around a little bit and that is not going to help us in our spins. We can't really spin while flailing arms around. Even when we are doing something artistic with our arms, everything is intentional. Everything is really nice and tight and in its place. So when we are drilling this and working on the rotation, I highly recommend holding a weight. You can use anything you want, but I use my skates. It's a nice moment to realize how heavy our skates are. We're used to them being on our feet, but when we hold them in our hands, they are so heavy. Now the one foot spin, like I said, there are many ways to do it. I really want you to focus on going from a two foot spin to a one foot spin, working on transferring that weight. So like the C-step, we worked on transferring from one foot to the other. That inner back edge that we're doing in the C-step is the same inner back edge as the one foot spin. When I say one foot spin, I'm talking about an inner back upright. That's another name for it. That is the most common one foot spin. We have different edges. You can do an outer forward, you can do an inner back. There are many ways to do it, many edges, so much to go over, but for this week, I'm focusing in on the inner back upright. So that same edge that you are doing in the C-step, the inner back edge. But work on getting your weight over to that one foot. So when you're doing a two foot spin, I want you to focus on evening your weight out in each foot, really finding your center. Then when you move on to the one foot spin, I want you to focus on transferring that weight to one foot and refinding that center. So that center is going to be over that knee that you are standing on. You wanna make sure your core is nice and tight. You're pulling everything around. Again, with that rotation, we have to make sure our head, shoulders, knees, and toes, everything is working together. So really focus on that. And please let me know if you have any questions. Like I said, there are a bunch of different ways to do it. So you never know if one way is going to unlock something else. All right, to practice for week three, I want you to revisit that C-step. Like I said, all of that technique that you are doing in the C-step can be transferred to the one foot spins. We wanna make sure we are practicing those together. I also have a video talking about how to get more rotations when you are spinning. A lot of times, our spin stops because something is disconnected. So when we focus in on how to get more rotations, we really have to work on tightening certain things up. Now, for me, like I said, my core is most important. For some people, it's the shoulder. For some people, it's just a matter of realizing that they're not turning their head. So there are many things to look at. There are many things to work on. If you can, film yourself and review the video. I know it can be one of the hardest things to do. We are our worst critic. I know I used to hate watching myself skate, and I still do when I'm really trying to work on something. It's awful, but I promise it is the best way to see what you are actually doing. We have to be honest with ourselves, and we have to look at our video and see what we can fix. And like I said, please let me know if you have any questions. I am happy to help you. And lastly, our edge rock over. So like I previously mentioned, this is my absolute favorite way to warm up. A rock over is going from one edge to another. So when you are skating on one leg and you press an outer forward edge, and then you rock over to the inner forward edge, some of us do that on accident, and we don't mean to switch over to another edge, but when you learn how to do it on purpose, that's really good. So edge rock over switches from one edge to another. It is really nice to know how to do that quickly. And with your knee, I like to bend and come up, bend and come up. The rhythm for you may be a little bit different, but it's all about finding what works best for you. It's really great when you need to avoid something very quickly on the floor. So whether it's a toy in your house, whether it's a rock when you're outside skating, whatever it may be, an edge rock over is a very quick, very good way to avoid something. It's also very pretty. All right, lastly, week four, our advanced choreography. Now, of course, there are a lot of skills within this choreography. And like I said earlier, this goes directly after the beginner-intermediate. So it's nice because I was gonna say the beginner-intermediate is kind of like a warmup for the advanced, but it's really nice and challenging because it is definitely more difficult than the beginner-intermediate. And of course, we're already a little bit tired after doing the beginner-intermediate, but that's just how it goes. And it is really fun to do all of it connected. So I do hope you check it out. No matter what skill level you are, I do suggest checking out the advanced, change it, make it your own, do what you have to do in the choreography to make it fit your skill level at the time. But challenging yourself to work up is not a bad thing. It can be a really, really great thing. I do credit a lot of my success in skating and especially in competitive skating to the fact that I learned really difficult dances. In dance skating, there are set pattern dances. And at my age, I was, I remember like five, six, seven, eight years old, and my dad was teaching me dances that the 18, 19, 20-year-olds were doing. And I couldn't quite do them yet. I was really struggling, but I was learning a lot and I was learning what works for my body. Now I'm not saying go try to do a double axel when you're not ready, nothing like that, but I do suggest checking it out, seeing what you can pull from it and seeing what you can do right now. Okay, I'm gonna have to read these because I can't quite memorize them. But in our advanced choreography, we are doing the crab walk, downtown, inner forward heel to heel transition, one foot spin, C-step, down pivot or a toe pivot, and a body roll. All of that is included in our advanced choreography. And like always, if you want to edit it and change it to fit your own style, please do. What I do with my arms and my body is not necessarily what will work for everyone. So if you want to manipulate it a little bit, please do. All right, to practice for week four, I want you to work on the crab walk. In the beginner intermediate, we do a heel toe, and then in the advanced, we do a crab walk. You can make the crab walk really fun and kind of more Charleston-like if you would like, but we are doing the crab walk to travel to the side. Now it's alternating lifting your heel and your toe, just like the heel toe step, but we do it in a way that allows us to travel to the side. So please check that out. Then we are going to work on our downtown again, but this one is a slightly different video. It's finding your flow in the downtown. So like I said earlier, you can kind of make it sloppy and make it quicker and a little bit more artistic. You can also add some turns and spins. When you get to the sides, there's so much you can do with a downtown. A downtown is, I think, one of the most important skills to learn if you are going to an event or you will be skating with other skaters because it is the one move that we always get into the center of the floor and do together. So work on your timing, play with your timing. You can do it slow, you can do it quick. Find your own flow within your downtown. And lastly, toe pivots. Now I do this in the choreography at the very end when it says you better duck, I do a down pivot. Now, pivots can be done on your toes, it can be done on your toe stop. I do them on my toe stop, but if you're not wearing toe stops, if you don't like to wear toe stops, that's totally okay. You can actually do it on your toe wheels. It is a little bit more difficult. You really have to know where to put your weight in those toe wheels and where to hold it. Just remember, knee over toes at all times. So whether you wanna do this on your toe wheels or your toe stop, doesn't matter. You can do toe pivots forward, you can do them backward, you can do them up, you can bend a little bit, or you can bend a lot. Now, one of my favorite ones to do is my right outer back. So I plant my right toe stop, and as I get ready to do the pivot, I am moving my left skate around on an inner back edge. I bend my knee and I sink down. This one is my favorite one. It's my favorite spinning direction. It is a really comfortable down pivot for me, but the secret cheat code of this is that you can use your hands on your thigh or your knee to help yourself back up. So a lot of people tell me, they're like, I can't get down and then get back up. Like, that is so much work. There's a little cheat code for that. You just place your hands on your thigh or your knee and push yourself back up. But when you do that, you wanna make sure you do it gradually. You don't wanna pop down and you don't wanna pop up. Everything needs to be nice and slow, intentional, and just really, really focusing in on those certain key things like soft knees. You'd never wanna drop it and you never wanna pop up. Soft knees and tightening your core. Again, since you are rotating, make sure everything is rotating together. So that's it. That's the month. At the end of every month, I encourage you to submit your progress. I don't care if you do the choreography, if you do a skill, if you do a drill, anything that you are proud of, I want you to submit for the community progress video. It is amazing to look back on this. And I know that I myself don't go back and look at my own video. I like to go back and look at the whole community progress video. And it's just a nice reminder that we are all in this together and we are all progressing at our own stages. It is such a beautiful thing. I hope you never, ever get mad at yourself for not progressing or progressing, or simply, this is the most common one, not progressing quickly enough. There are no rules here. We are all on our own journeys, on our own paths. And I want you to feel proud of yourself no matter where you are, because I am proud of you. So, like I said, all of these videos that I mentioned are through my memberships on thatnicolefiori.com or on YouTube. And I hope you check it out and I will see you later.