EDGING ON INLINE SKATES!

Hey guys, welcome back to the Distant Soul Skate Shop YouTube channel. I'm Ifo. We're here at the Distant Soul Skate Shop and we're going to learn everything there is to know about edging. Edging is a fundamental part of every trick that you're going to learn on inline skates. Hey skater. Hey. There's three edges basically. This is the center edge. This is the inner edge. And this is the outer edge. You can also do the left edging or right edging. There's one more nuance and that's that you can edge on your heels or on your toes. And doing it like that really makes a difference for some tricks. I'm going to go through some exercises for you of things that you can do to improve your edging. For the front and the back edging, it helps a lot if you have a rocker. And a rocker means that your outer wheels are a little bit higher. For example, I have a rocker frame here and you can see that the outer wheels don't really touch the ground. And this means that I can push on the back and that the front wheels don't touch the ground. If you edge on the back like this, it's a totally different experience than if you edge on the front like this. So that's why you have front left, back left, right front, right back. So in total, there's six edges that you can experiment with. We're here at the biggest skate shop in the Netherlands, of course. But to practice this technique, we're going to go in the park because right behind it is the Vondelpark. And this is a lovely place to skate. You can also get some rentals from us. And we also do classes here in the Vondelpark. One of the fun things about edging is that it's totally different than most ice skaters think. Because if you have some experience with ice skating, then you're used to having control over your edges in a certain way. But with inline skating, that control is totally flipped. With ice skating, if your center edge, you can slide. So if you want to do some breaking techniques on your ice skates, you only have to turn your body like this, or your skates of course. And then you go into like a hockey stop or something. And if you do left or right or inner or outer edge, then you have grip and then you can make like a turn. And so for inline skating, this is the other way around. And you have grip when you're center edge. And if you want to slide, you have to go on your edges like this and go like that. And the deeper you are on your edges, the better you slide. Another thing where edging comes into play is with aggressive skating. And you see a lot of aggressive skaters actually standing like this a lot of the times. And aggressive skaters are really used on standing on their edges because it's a big part of grinding. And grinding is when you slide over rails and you always have like a weird looking foot position. I mean, if you're not a skater, they look kind of like odd, like positions like this, like that. And almost all of these positions all have to do with the outer edge. And the better you are in putting your skate all the way on their side, the better you are with aggressive skating. Because it prevents wheel bite. Because if you put your skate like this on the ground, the wheels kind of like come up and stick to your obstacle less. So aggressive skaters also are really good at edging normally. Then there's one more trick that has to do with edging that we're not going to discuss any further today. It's something for a later video when we're going to do like a whole series about aggressive skating. And that's called set sliding. Today we're going to discuss sliding and the difference between set sliding and normal sliding is that set sliding is on the boot. So then there you edge so deep that your wheels will lift all the way up and then you slide like this on the boot. And it's a little bit easier on aggressive skates than on my skates of course right now. So all right. Let's dive into the edging. I've never done it with water. Easy. All right, we wanted to skate in the water. In the little pool normally there's no water in there, but unfortunately today's a warm day so the kids will play here and there's water. These are the two easiest edges, like the center edge, this is what you normally do. So that's no problem, all right. Then the inner edge, that's also very easy because it's actually quite nice and stable. But the outer edges, those are really hard and they're also scary. So the first thing you need to be able to do is learn that it's okay and that you can catch yourself if you fall. And you're going to do that with the mermaid technique, because the edging is actually a part of the mermaid technique. Because if you want to do a good mermaid, first you get down, then you go on your edges, you reach out and then you sit. We have an entire video just about the mermaid technique, so if you want to dive more into that, please look it up on our YouTube of course. But for now, just trust me and practice the mermaid technique a couple of times. Also do it maybe on one foot, like this, and then learn that you're okay. And then also, you want to be able to do it with some speed. So, you skate, you get down, you go on your edges, and you sit. You see, nothing to matter, I'm not hurt. So, now I know I can actually do it, I'm safe, and then I can start practicing. Alright, let's do some exercises to make you better at edging. I'm going to run through all the different tricks now that have some edging in it. And I think the first one that you should do is just skate normal and see if you can actually do this. Bend your knees sideways as much as you can, then get some speed again, and do it again. So, do it for a couple of, like, five meters until you run out of speed a little bit. Bend your knees as much to the side as possible, like that. A good way to flex your edging is to put your foot next to each other, like this, and just try to sit like this. See if you can do that. It's also a nice little exercise. I do this a lot before I go skating. I just go, just sit like this for a little bit. It's kind of like flex my body a little bit, get it moving. Once you are able to do this, just try to make a little bit of turns. So, each time you make your edges, you also try to make a little bit of a turn. Then, what you should pay attention to if you make those turns, is that if you go edging, it almost goes automatically, but also if you turn your head, you actually make a turn like that. So, if you go on the edge and you turn your head, boom, you got it. Once you got that, you want to make a big turn, like this. And most beginners do those turns like this. They turn like this. I'll show you. They go like this. But, now we're making a video about edging, and you clicked on it, so now you have to improve. And you want to make your turn with your foot next to each other, on your outer edge, with your inner leg. So, try to push your knee outside, flip your foot like this, and make a turn like that. Obviously, once you do it, turn your head again, and just go in a big circle. Once you got it, try to make it as deep as you can. Just lean really deep, make a really deep turn, and then you can also make the radius, like the circle that you're making smaller and smaller every time, until you can do it like this. Notice that I'm also lowering my body when I'm doing it. I go like this, I get down, boom. There you go. Nice. So, when you're making turns like that, you need to be in a predator stance, and that's when you have one foot in front, and one foot a little bit behind you. And there's about eight ways to do a circle with the predator stance. You can do it to the left, to the right. You can do it with your left foot in front, and with your right foot in front. And of course, you can do it backwards. So, that's eight. There's four ways to do it forward, and four ways to do it backwards. Practice at least four forward ones, and that's going to cause a lot of friction probably, because some of these things are going to feel like as if you're bicycling with your hands wrong on the steering wheel. But after you do it more and more and more, it's going to feel more and more natural as well. All right. So, that's it about slalom, turning, predator stance. Let's move on to the next topic, and that's when you just skate normally like this through the park, and you want to have an efficient stride, a good push. Then, beginners, they put their feet on the ground like this. So, the toes outwards all the time. Like this. It's called like a penguin skate. All right. If you're a little bit better, then you put your foot forward, and then you move it to the side. But the real good guys, they do the double push. And with the double push, the foot first goes inwards, and then it goes outwards. And when it goes inwards, you're on your outer edge. See that? So, look at my outer edge in here. And if you do that, you're going to get a lot more speed. And that brings us to the next topic, because the next topic is sliding. And sliding is, of course, their advanced breaking techniques where your wheels slide over the ground. It's nice and slippery here. So, that's good because there's a little bit of moisture on the ground. And that's actually what you want because if you just have the rough tarmac, it's really grippy. And for slides, you want it to be easy to slide on. So, to practice sliding, you can do it on something that's a little bit moist. But eventually, when you're better at it, you want to do it, of course, also on the normal ground because that's where you need to break when you're normally skating and it's dry. You need to be able to do these sliding techniques because it's really important for your safety to learn them. So, what we already discussed regarding sliding is that it's the opposite of ice skating. So, when an ice skater does a hockey stop, they do it like this. And then they slide sideways. But when we do a hockey stop, we need to do it like this. In general, the steeper your skate is, the better it slides. And if you want to learn sliding, then the first slide that you need to learn is the snow plow. It's the same from skiing. So, you open up really wide, put your toes inwards, and then your feet are going to like slide a little bit. All right, let me show you. Go wide, toes inwards, and then come to a stop. All right, the next one that you want to learn is the sole slide. And it's the same technique as the snow plow, but then you only do it with one foot, like this. And that's the first, like, real slide. Another fun way that a lot of people want to learn to slide is the power slide, where you go backwards and then do it like this. The premier thing, of course, the thing that people really want to learn is the hockey stop. It is one of the most difficult ones that there is. Ice skating is really easy, but with inline skating, it's really hard. And before you can do the hockey stop, you need to be able to do the magic slide. The magic slide starts with the sole slide, and when you have the sole slide, you turn your back foot with it as well. Let me show you. So, first you do a sole slide, and then you turn your back foot as well. When you do a sole slide, your total weight needs to be on the foot that's still riding. So, you actually need to take your nose and put it as far away from your sliding foot as possible, because the less weight that you have on your sliding foot, the easier it is. Once you master the magic slide, you can slowly move on to the hockey stop. First, you do it slow, and then you can speed it up later. And also, the hockey stop, you can do it in a little bit of a turn. Usually, each slide that you do has the shape of a question mark in reverse. So, you ride in a straight line, then you go to the right, and then you make a turn to the left to start your slide. So, start straight, then I go to the right, and then I go to the left. I go in a straight line, first I move to the right, and then I go to the left. So, these are all the things that I can think of that you can do with your edging. You can do slides, you can do grinds, of course, and you can do slalom and maneuverable turning tricks like that. If there's anything that I missed, drop it in the comments so that we can all learn from each other. And if you want to learn more about skating, check out our YouTube channel, of course, or you can take a lesson here in the Vondelpark at This Is All Skateshop. So, I'll see you in the next video, or I'll see you at the shop when you visit Amsterdam. Bye guys, see you next time.