What Roller Skating Skills to Practice in September!

September is here and summer is on its way out, fall is on its way in. This month always represents change and a chance to learn new things, new opportunities, and embracing the beauty around us. This month we have two new skills as well as choreography, drills, and a ton of other skills to help us learn. Those two new skills are the outer back to outer forward heel to heel rotation and the outer forward counter turn. We'll get more into that in a moment but you can find all of these videos that I'm talking about within the memberships on thatnicolefiori.com or on YouTube. You can also book private lessons with me whether you're a member or not. All of those links are below. All right let's get right into it. Week one we are doing drills 15 and that outer back to outer forward heel to heel rotation. Drills 15 is an off skates drills video. This was my warm-up for years when I was a competitor. I'm calling it drills but really it is a full complete workout if you want it to be. You can use it as a warm-up before you get your skates on or you can use it as a complete workout on its own. I used to go straight to the skating rink from school, put my stuff inside and walk back outside to go through these drills before I got my skates on. It's really good for getting your heart rate up and getting your body ready to skate for a few minutes to a few hours. I do recommend light stretching either before or after. Have your stretching after if you have the time and the energy to help you recover and help your flexibility around your skating as well. The outer back to the outer forward heel to heel rotation is a very important rotation to learn. If you ever find yourself skating backward and you're like uh shoot I don't know how to turn forward carefully, this is the go-to. You can do this from a bunch of different edges but this outer back to outer forward is the most common heel to heel rotation from backward to forward. You can pair it with an inner forward heel to heel rotation to make a complete turn. If you are an artistic skater or if you like artistic skating the chase waltz corner is the one to look at. I will also link that diagram in the full blog. Okay some extra credit to practice again that inner forward heel to heel rotation that is stepping on an inner forward edge, picking up your other foot, putting it down heel to heel and then turning backward. So it's a forward to backward rotation using both feet. If you have a hard time with rotations, I personally do, then I really do encourage you to press into your edges a little bit more. You can kind of cheat your way around if you know how to press your edges. So with everything edges, edges, edges. Our edges will save us almost every single time so please practice those as well. Since we are working on transitions from forward to backward and backward to forward, backward skating is very important and I have an entire section on my website within that membership on backward skating as well as a section on forward skating but there is one specific video labeled backward skating that will cover all the basics that you will need to know. When you are skating backward, please remember to kind of guide yourself with that booty. You want to make sure your hips are pushed back. The last thing we want when we're skating backward is our hips to go forward and lose our balance backward. Trust me, it is not a fun fall. 10 out of 10 do not recommend. Let's not do that. When you are skating backward and you want to rotate to forward, instead of the outer back to outer forward heel to heel transition, you can also do an inner back to an inner forward heel to heel transition. There are a lot of different transitions we can do and we are covering all of them. That inner back to inner forward heel to heel transition is best out of a cross pull. If you want to practice your backward cross pulls and then a rotation forward, it's a nice smooth transition to get you back into your forward skating. Like I said earlier, you can find all of these videos within the blog and within my memberships. All of these videos are actually linked for the website membership and for the YouTube membership at the bottom of each section in the full blog. Now on to week two. We are doing, drum roll please, September by Earth, Wind & Fire. Duh. This song comes on at almost every party, especially around this month. So the 21st night of September, we will be ready for that if we learn our choreography now. This choreography does involve a few skills. We use our heel toe step, our strut walk, our two foot spin and a reverse strut walk. But the coolest thing about this choreography is it's kind of like a line dance. You can do it over and over and over again. You can repeat it and you can rotate it. So you can face forward, side, back and the other side. So grab your friends. They don't need to have skates on. You can do this on or off skates and have fun with it. So like I said, we do use that heel toe step. So our extra credit, what I want you to practice is the heel toe step. That can be a cool dance move on its own, but it's a really good skill to learn to alternate heel and toe. It's a really good brain exercise, brain and body connecting it because we use that a lot. In one foot turns, we either lift the heel or the toe if we hop it. And even when we slide those turns, we lessen the pressure in our heel or our toe. So just knowing how to alternate heel toe lifting one and then the other, super important skill to have. Next up, our strut walk. This was made famous by TikTok and it is a staple now in roller skating. Transferring your weight from one foot to the other, placing one foot in front of the other on wheels is a lot more difficult than it looks. So in this video, I break it down and we can do different variations of it. You can do it slow, you can do it quick. If you don't want to actually pick your feet up, I recommend checking out the dribble. It is a similar weight distribution transferring from one foot to the other, but without lifting your feet. Next up is our two foot spin. A two foot spin is another very important skill to have. Even if you don't love rotating, if you don't like spinning, if you are someone who gets very dizzy, that's okay. The two foot spin does not need to be a quick spin. You can really work on your edges within this spin. You don't even have to go more than one time around. So a two foot spin really focuses in on the inner back edge and the inner forward edge. If you rotate to your left, your left foot will be skating an inner back edge. Your right skate will be skating an inner forward edge and vice versa. If you rotate to your right, we are always more comfortable one way over the other. If you're rotating to your right, your right skate will be doing an inner back edge. Your left skate will be doing an inner forward edge. You can always pop to your heel and toe if you do want to rotate and add more rotations to that. That's the best way to do it. All right, week three. We have another drills video that is off skates. We are doing drills 16. This is all about putting pressure into the ground. So one thing that we start to develop when we start doing one foot turns and more difficult moves is putting more pressure into the ground in certain areas of our foot. And in order to really start learning that, I recommend starting off skates. We tend to overlook off skate training and off skate training can work wonders for our skating. The skate obviously adds weight to our foot and wheels so it likes to roll around. So I always try to learn things off skates first. All of the choreography that I make is honestly started off skates and turns, everything like that. We do practice it off skates a lot. So don't overlook that off skate practice, especially if you are uncomfortable with your skating. If you're more at the beginner level, practice everything off skates. Get your body used to it without the wheels underneath you and then transfer it to skates. It'll be a lot easier that way. Then we have our outer forward counter turn. All right, so all of the one foot turns that we have are the three turn, bracket, rocker, and counter. I've been holding out on this one because it is important to learn all of them and I do recommend it in that order. The three turn, the bracket, the rocker, then the counter. But if you're just joining me right now, that's okay. Check it out, see what you think. Turns do get confusing. It gets difficult to see which turn is which and that's totally okay. I am here to help. If you have any questions, please let me know. The counter is kind of like a turn that unwinds. That's how I think of it. So it's very similar to the outer forward rocker turn, which we have, but you are rotating the opposite way. So you'll be starting out on an outer edge and then rotating toward the outside of your circle. If that doesn't make sense right now, that's okay. Check out the video and let me know if you have any questions. Now to practice for this week, our extra credit is outer forward swings to start with. The outer forward swing is how I like to enter my counter turn. So the swing allows you to stretch your foot in back and swing it forward all on an outer edge. It's very important to know how to stabilize yourself with your free leg in back as well as in front. So that is what a swing is perfect for. It will also make sure that you are holding that edge. It's a little difficult to rock off of it when you are doing a swing and that is one of the main things that we have to practice when we're getting into really solid edges. Next up is that outer forward rocker that I was just talking about in relation to the counter turn. The rocker goes from an outer edge to an outer edge, just like the counter. However, when you do a rocker, the outer forward rocker, you are rotating toward the inside of your circle. Again, just like the counter. If you are confused with it, please let me know. Turns are one of my favorite things to work on and if you are hopping a turn, you are simply lifting up the heel wheels. The forward to back turn, the rocker and the counter, if you're hopping the turn, it doesn't mean jumping up and down. It means simply for a second lifting your heel wheels. When you develop your technique to slide the turn, instead of fully lifting the heel wheels up, you will put more weight toward the front of your skate, toward your front wheels so that you can slide the heel wheels across. That's the only difference. If you are hopping, don't get too mad at yourself. Don't get too frustrated. You're on your way. You just have to figure out how to lessen the weight in the heel wheels. Not so much that you're hopping it, but enough so that you can slide it across the surface. And lastly this week is our one foot spin. So we've worked on rotation. We've worked on lessening the weight in the foot. We've worked on one foot balance a little bit. Now we have to put all of it together to do a one foot spin. The one foot spin is not too far of a departure from the two foot spin. Of course, you are on one foot instead of two, but the foot that was doing the inner back edge on the two foot spin is now going to be the foot that is on the ground for the one foot spin. So when I say one foot spin, I'm really talking about an inner back upright. If you want to get technical with artistic skating, it's an inner back upright, and that is because you're pressing on an inner back edge and you are upright. We have sit spins as well. You can do an inner back sit spin, but a sit spin means that you are sitting. So the one foot spin that I'm talking about is technically an inner back upright. All right, last week of the month we're on to week four and our advanced choreography. Now this advanced choreography still has that line dance feel, but it has more difficult skills because it is the advanced choreography. We have a lot of skills within this choreography. We have a cross behind, a cross in front, a downtown, a rotation using our heel to heel transitions, a series of turns that aren't quite pressing edges but you can press edges if you want, a two foot spin, and a strut walk. Lots to go over. So it is a really good series of different skills to practice. Choreography is my favorite way to practice skills, and especially one that's jam-packed like this. We don't really have time to think about technical things that can kind of weigh us down, so it's nice to watch the videos to learn the skills, get the complete information about it, and then throw it into choreography so that you don't really think too much. Thinking too much is the downfall for a lot of us, myself included. So I want us to do all of those skills within choreography so that we, number one, have fun with it, and number two, kind of get out of our own way. All right, our extra credit this week, things I want you to practice, number one is our Drills 15. Yes, again, Drills 15 is one of my favorite drills videos. Like I said, it was the series of drills that I used to do as my warm up for years. So I used to do this nearly every day. I do want you to try to do it at least once a month, but if you don't get to that, we did it in week one and we're going to do it again in week four. So that will be enough to get you started. Drills 15 does get easier the more you do it, I promise you this. I know it can be a little frustrating at first, but I promise it will get easier as you get stronger. The second thing I want you to practice this week is your Outer Forward Bracket. This turn, I have to admit, is one of the most difficult turns for me personally, but a really cool thing about it is that you, yes, it is a one foot turn, but you can use your other foot, leaving it on the ground kind of as like a kickstand to help you do the turn. So in this bracket, we're going from an outer edge, ending our turn backward on an inner edge. So watch that video, check it out. And like I said, with all the other turns, please let me know if you have any questions. And to finish off the month, we're going to have some fun. We're going to do the Downtown. So a Downtown is a series of crosses, crosses in front and back. We do this all the time. This is like the number one thing that we do when skaters meet up at a party, at a meetup. Anytime skaters are together, a Downtown will be done. Pretty much. You can add spins, you can add footwork at the end. It goes side to side. You can also rotate it. So along the same lines as kind of line dancing, what our choreography is doing this month, you can do the same thing with the Downtown. In fact, it is in our choreography this month. So have fun with your Downtown, play with the speed of it. You can do it slow, you can do it fast. You can really add some knee bend, make it funky. Whatever you want to do with the Downtown, do it. It's a fun one to play with and to spice up every now and then. All right, that is it for this month. At the end of every month, I encourage you to submit your progress videos. I do encourage you to film your skating, whether you do submit it or not. That is one of the best ways that we can learn. Yes, we are our worst critics. We are hardest on ourselves. Please try to be nice to yourself when you watch your footage back, but it is one of the best ways to learn. I myself hated watching myself back, but it is so, so helpful. So be nice to yourself, but do watch your footage back and see what you like, what you don't like, what you can improve. And like I said, all of these videos that I talked about, all of these different skills, pieces of footwork, drills, choreography, everything is available within the memberships on thatnicolefiori.com and on my YouTube channel. Have fun with it. I am here to help and I will see you later. Bye.