How To Rollerskate - BOMBING DOWNHILL + STOPPING DOWNHILL + STOPPING VARIATIONS ~ From a USARS Coach

Hey guys, it's Appalooza. Today's tutorial is stopping. Now this is a more intermediate to advanced to past advanced ways to stop even going down a hill. I do highly recommend for any outdoor skating, or indoor skating for that matter, to have protection. Wrist guards, knee pads, elbow pads, helmet if you would like. As always, skating is a sport and you need to skate at your own risk. I always recommend staying within your level. I do have a series beginner, intermediate, advanced. So if those skills are displayed in your level, those are the skills that I would work on for that level. In all my descriptions, I put the time signature of where we're starting, various kinds of skills. So you can always come back to a tutorial and go to that time in the video if you want to play this video over again. Don't forget to subscribe if you like this video. Let's get started. So this stopping is not going to be for beginners. If you do want a beginner tutorial on how to stop, please watch the beginner tutorial here. We're going to move on to more intermediate and advanced ways of stopping, T-stops, and how to stop downhill. So first, let's start with the T-stop. The T-stop is going to use the inner two wheels, or the inside blade if you have inline skates, of the back foot. So you have the standing foot, the one that you're standing on that's supporting you, and the back foot, the one that's dragging behind you. So you can use either foot. Typically, you want to stand on the foot that has better balance. If you're right-handed, I would say most people probably have better balance on the left foot, but everybody's different. You want to put your weight on that standing foot. Make sure that knee is tracking straight ahead. The weight is in the center of the foot so it rolls well and it stays underneath you. If the weight is on the back heel, you could fall backwards more easily. If the knee's conked in, you're really not going to be able to do this stop. You have to have really good balance over that left foot, bend the knee, and then you're going to place the inner two wheels of the back foot down perpendicular, or the inside blade on an inline skate, directly behind your heel. Not out to the side, or way back here, directly behind your heel. Arms can be used for balance. Make sure your core is tight. Get into this. You're going to roll in safety, reach back, and drag the inner two wheels behind you. Depending on what kind of wheels you have, they'll either slide, or they might bounce a little bit. If they're outdoor wheels, they might be a little bit more rubbery. They might bounce. You just have to play with how much pressure you put on those inner two wheels. If you put it down really hard, that's probably fine, but down lightly, they might bounce a little bit. You just have to gauge how much weight you want to put onto that foot to slow you down. Again, common mistakes are turning that knee in, or leaning to the inside edge. You really want to stay flat center on the standing foot, weight over it, knee bent, shoulders locked, and foot directly behind you. Okay, so that is a T-stop. I'll do it one more time. Safety and T-stop. You can end with your foot flat. Another variation to do this is to keep the back wheels flat. I'm keeping that take. And just to drag all four wheels, but it's really light. All four wheels, really light. Another way to stop, if you have stoppers and they're nice and low, you can stop backwards on both stoppers. You do need to already know how to do transitions really well and backwards skating. This is a very advanced move. If you don't know how to do transitions, watch them here, and come back to this video, look in the description of where you want to catch up in this video, and I'll see you then. So I'm creating a little triangle with my toe stop and my front two wheels, and my hips are forward. They're not back, they're forward. And I don't have too much weight on the wheels because then my feet could slip out. So I'm really over the toe stops, but I'm not just on the tippy toes like this. So to do this, you are already backwards, and you lift the heels and lean forwards. So my knees are pressing forward over the toe stops, my belly's tight, and I'm gliding to a stop. And you can hear the glide to a stop. It really takes a lot of practice, so I encourage you to practice that one. That is actually how I go backwards down hills. I don't typically stop my momentum going forwards. It's rather cumbersome. It can be done if you have inline skates. That is something that I would recommend doing if you do have inline skates. So when I go backwards down a hill, I'm either doing one stop or down behind me, like a traditional backward stop, or I'm using both stoppers. And that just helps slow me down. And the harder I press into those stoppers, the faster I'm going to stop if I need to stop. So let's take this downhill. Okay, I found a nice hill, and this is how I'm going to go down. I want you to watch, though, that I'm keeping my weight really far forward, and my knees are pushing forward over my... And I have to come all the way back. The next way I'm going to go down is with one stopper. It just helps slow me down. If I press really hard, I can come to a stop. You do really want to make sure that you are watching for debris also. If your wheels roll over debris, if your weight's forward, it may not be a big deal, but it can always catch a wheel, and you can go down. That's why it's so important to have protection on. If you can look over your shoulder without turning your hips and keeping your hips square, you can make sure that there's no debris. Okay? And my body is pretty far forward to make sure my weight is forward over the toe wheel so I don't fall back. If you have inline skates or you want to try going down the hill forwards and you're not able to go backwards or it's a little scary, you can drop a stopper to slow you down. You really have to make sure your weight is in the center of the rolling foot, and again, make sure there's no debris. If you hit debris, get into your safety position and don't lift your toes up. But because you're in safety position, you are closer to the ground, you can always fall safely. If you need to review that in my very beginning level video, you can definitely do that. Second way you can go down, if you have inlines and you don't have heel brakes, like hockey style inlines don't have heel brakes at all, if you have a heel brake, it's great to go down with the heel brake. That is absolutely perfect to go down with, and you just use the one. But if you don't have brakes at all, I would recommend doing your T. You might have to lean back just slightly. If you lean forwards, it's too much weight forwards. You might have to make sure your weight is staying at the center of that foot. It's not the best way to go down a hill, I'm really going to say that it is not the best way, but it is an option. You can also slalom down the hill. That will definitely cut down the speed that you have going down the hill. If you need to watch a slalom video, but just monitor how tight you want to go down. You really got to turn the hips, pretend you're going around a cone, you turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, keep your weight off the toes a little bit, turn the hips, press your edges. You can use that to go down a hill and slow yourself down. If you want to go a little faster, there you go. Oh man, I'm going to have to go all the way back up. Now I definitely see some rocks and debris, and I'm making sure to slalom around those. If I did hit one, I might do something like this. If it does trip you, you know to always go back into safety position roll. If you do fall, hey, you fall, but you're closer to the floor, and know that falling is sometimes a part of learning how to roller skate. I can't stress enough how important safety is, especially for outdoors. If you are doing the slalom, or you are doing the T, or the toe stop forward, or the backwards toe stops, you can always do a safety position if you trip. It is really important to get in the safety position and not do this, because that is just going to end up landing you on your butt, because you don't know where your feet are. Plant those feet underneath you, get down, and try to put pressure on all four wheels equally on each foot. I hope that was helpful. I'm Appaloosa. Enjoy your skating, but please be safe. If you do need some gear recommendations, it's listed down in the description. If you want to come back to this video, I also have listed out where everything is in the video, so you can always come back to where you want to come back to. Please subscribe if you like this channel. I'll see you next time.