SKATING 101: Keep Your Head Up!

Hello, everyone. Today, I want to talk about a very, very important thing to remember when we are skating, and that is to keep your head up. Before we get into the video, hello, my name is Nicole Fiore, and I am a four-time world champion roller skater, and I coach roller skating online as well as in person. There are so many different options of ways to learn. We have the membership right here on YouTube as well as on my website. The foundations course, we have in-person lessons, we have online lessons, and we have workshops, so check it all out. All of the links are in the description. Now, when I say keep your head up, I don't mean literally like head up. I know a lot of people start to do that, and then it eventually falls because that's very uncomfortable to keep. I don't mean literally keep your head up. I mean, honestly, keep your head level. Like, just look straight ahead. When you look straight ahead, you should be able to see things around you and even down on the ground. Even without lowering your head, you should be able to kind of peek down ahead of you. When you're skating, you don't need to look directly down at your feet ever. Unless, I shouldn't say ever. Sometimes I do ask a student to look down at what their feet are doing, but it's for a brief second because you may be getting your feet too close together or your wheels are touching. So I have them look down so they can go, oh, I shouldn't do that. And then look back up again. So when I say lift your head up, lift your chin up, it's usually only because the skater has their chin down here or their face down here, and I just want them to bring it up to level. So there's a lot of scientific stuff within the body, reasons why you should have your head level when you are skating or doing a lot of active things. You need to develop muscle memory in order to consistently do it. And that is very, very important in skating. So if you get used to your head being down here, your body is going to get used to your head being down here and you're gonna skate like this. Now, if you get used to it being here, then you will skate like this. If you get used to it being here and performing, then you will skate like that. So I have a story that I tell quite often, but I used to get in trouble for looking down at the ground. I was and still am, but I really was, as a kid, I was not a fearless kid. It's great when kids have no fear and are taught correctly because they really will keep those skills for a very long time, and they won't be afraid of things as they get older. I was not that way. I was a very cautious kid. I was a very scared skater. And I would look down because I would shrink. I would get scared and I would get small. And my parents always told me, my parents were skating coaches, my mom still is, but my parents always told me, you need to lift your chin and work on your posture, work on your presentation, because when you get into a competition, if you're used to practicing here, then you go to here and then your balance is in a completely different spot and you're gonna fall backward. And I was like, whatever, you're wrong. I know better. I was like a six year old. I was like, they don't know what they're talking about. They had been skating for their entire lives and were coaches. And I still thought that they didn't know what they were talking about. So sure enough, I get into a skating competition and I lift my chin up and I am performing. And what do I do? My skates go forward, I go backward. Because the liquid in my brain, in my inner ear, all of my balance, it was just like, hey, we're not used to being here. We must have to go backward. So there's a lot that goes into your balance. If you're used to being here, when you do lift up, it's gonna be bad news. So I always say, you don't wanna look at the ground because you don't want to go to the ground. I, for one, hate falling with a passion. So I don't want to meet the ground. I really don't wanna meet the ground. So if you look down, you're gonna end up going toward the ground. If you look straight ahead, that is where you actually want to go, I would assume. So make sure you look where you want to go. Keep your chin up. And by that, again, I mean, keep it level. Keep everything as level as possible. Your chin, your shoulders, your core, your hips, it should all be in line, all working together. Nothing should be fighting with the other body part. So make sure it is as level as possible. As you are here, if you're skating outside especially, you can look down at the area. You can drop a little bit if you need to and then come right back. But make this your normal. Everything's level, everything's tight. Knees are slightly bent. Chin is just level. You're looking straight. There's nothing too complex about it. But you will hear everyone, pretty much every skating instructor, say lift your chin or keep your chin up, look up. They don't literally mean look up. They mean keep it all level. So they're not making this stuff up. We all say this for a very, very specific reason. So please, please do yourself a favor and it will make every skating coach appreciate you so much more. If you just keep your chin level. Plus you look so much better. You look so much more confident when you're here rather than here. When you're here, everything goes down. Your posture goes down. And like I said, you will go toward the ground if you're looking at the ground. So your posture, I did make a video on that and I know a lot of you watched that. So keep your back really nice and tight. Roll those shoulders back. And if you roll your shoulders back and your posture's in a good place, it's actually really difficult to lower your head like this because you have to push your head forward so much. So that will kind of signal like, hey, that's not supposed to be there. So keep your chin level, roll those shoulders back, bend your knees. You'll be good to go. As always, please let me know if you have any questions at all. I am here to help. There are tons of ways to learn online as well as in person. And I hope you have a beautiful week. I'll see you later. Bye.