30 Days of Roller Skating

Yes, I got into roller skating and I documented the entire process. I know what most of you are thinking, Sophie, this is so random. I agree. This is very, very random for myself. This idea kind of happened out of nowhere. The reason why I even got interested in skating is because when I was on my birthday trip with Weylie, she mentioned that she was going to get a pair of skates and try it out. And I just thought to myself, hmm, I think I'm going to do that too. It's been such a fun experience and I'm really excited to share with you guys just the journey because it's been a really long time since I found something that is actually so enjoyable. Like I've never really had that kind of activity or hobby that kind of gave me that release that I needed. So I bought a pair of skates and watched a ---- ton of YouTube videos. There is a lot of tutorials on skating out there. The whole process was super, super fun and I'm really glad that I documented it. I didn't plan on it, but then once I started watching tutorials, I saw Skate With Linda's video. So Linda, if you're watching, hey girl. It was really just fun to see her progress and it made me realize why not document this and then I'll be able to visually see how much I've improved from day one to day 30. So that's how this video came to be. As far as my background on skating, there isn't any. However, I did already know how to stand up and move forward, but that was about it. So yeah, without further ado, let's roll the tapes. I am going to just focus on getting comfortable with rolling forwards and backwards and we're going to do it right here in my home. Here is my gear. These are my adorable skates. It says IB in the front. I got the full gear, y'all. Like I even have shorts that has padding on the butt and sides. I don't care how crazy I'm going to look. I'm going to wear these. Do you see that padding? I'm fearless. I'm going to put on the elbow pads, knee pads, and the wrist guards. Oh ----. Whoa. It's day two of practice. Whoa. It is day two of practicing and I've been waiting all day to put these skates back on. I think I may practice outside for the first time, but I do want to just warm myself up indoors. I'm thinking about going to a nearby tennis court, somewhere where there's like flat surface. Today I'm just focusing on moving forward, moving backwards. Maybe like some crossovers. So day two, let's get it. Dude, once you figure out falling doesn't hurt, you'll be fine. You're covered everywhere, so there's nothing bad that could possibly happen to you. Let's just fall. Just fall. Wrist down first. Wrist. See? On day three, I continued to practice skating backwards. I drilled this over and over again until I felt more comfortable. I even got ahead of myself and tried incorporating cross pulls, which ended up being quite frustrating. It is day four of skating. Today's goals are to continue with moving forward and backwards. I'm practicing crossovers after doing it over and over and over and over again. I finally picked it up, so I'm really happy about that. Yesterday's session went really well. I finally feel like I got comfortable with going backwards. But every time I get back on the skates, I feel like I don't know how to skate all over again. So, let's see how today goes. Today's goals. I'm going to practice the scissors. Okay? It's better on my left side. Today was all about dips. It's pretty similar to a lunge where one foot is forward and the other is placed towards the back on its toes. When most skaters are doing dips, they switch out their bulky toe stops for jam plugs. They are much smaller than a traditional toe stop, so it allows you to have more freedom on your toe wheels. Since it's only day 6, I didn't feel comfortable buying jam plugs just yet. So, even though my toe stops are getting in the way, I continue to at least get familiar with the positioning of my body and skates. I continue to practice my dips and started feeling a lot more comfortable doing them. Once I started to apply most of my weight forward while looking back behind me, I saw a huge improvement because this allowed me to really open up my shoulders and hips, which is key. I also got a little brave and tried spinning for the first time, balancing on heel-toes, and heel-to-heel transitions. My focus for this day was forward-to-backward transitions. Transitions are everything when you're skating because it allows you to seamlessly merge your forward and backward strides. I decided on day 9 that it was finally time to loosen my trucks and my wheels. Technically, this is something you should do the first day you get your skates, but I didn't because the idea of it sounded scary to me at the time. But it's really not. Loosening your trucks allow you to have more grip to the ground, which then helps you with your outer and inner edge. You'll see me here skating with a new friend that I met yesterday. Soon enough, we became skating partners. My goal today was to practice my dribbles. Dribbling is essentially when your skates are alternating sides and the foot that is moving forward is always on its front wheels, while the foot that's moving backwards has all four wheels on the ground. This is another move you want to practice with your jam plugs since you'll be on your front wheels a lot. As you can see, my toe stop was getting in the way, but I already ordered my jam plugs, so I'm just waiting for them to arrive in the mail. Another thing I've been working on is transitioning backward to forward. I'm very comfortable doing the opposite, but moving backward to forward has definitely been more of a challenge, so I've been doing a lot of drills to try and perfect it. On day 11, I decided to stop by a tennis court, and luckily no one was there, which is every skater's dream. I thought by being on a smooth surface would overall help with my skating, but I actually got so used to skating on a rougher surface at the basketball court, so I was more worried about slipping and falling. My boyfriend and I drove up north for the weekend, and we ended up at this empty parking lot. My boyfriend has a little background in rollerblading, so I convinced him to get back on some skates, and we skated throughout the night. I honestly felt like a kid all over again. On day 13, my transition started to look so much smoother, even with a couple of falls. This entire lot was on an incline, so I wanted to practice on picking up speed on a downward slope. It got really scary though, so it was kind of hard to commit. The next day, I made it back to LA, and I decided to meet up with my friends, Sydney and Zoomy. On this day, I wanted to focus on my spins, so you'll see me here drilling that over and over and over again. We've officially made it to the halfway mark. Today was all about Crazy Legs. Now, this move is really confusing, there's no doubt about it, but realistically, I knew it would take me a while to learn this, so I wanted to start practicing ASAP. Crazy Legs is considered a dance move, and I cannot begin to explain how it works, but there's a ton of YouTube videos on it, so if you're interested, I recommend watching lots of tutorials. I'm headed to my very first skating lesson, and it's going to be for one hour, so hopefully if she's comfortable, I'll be able to get some footage. I will see you guys there. Hannah is teaching me the downtown. It kind of looks like your feet are moving in a zigzag line. I've seen a lot of skaters incorporate some form of the downtown, so I'm super excited to be learning it. Halfway through our session, she teaches me a short choreo. I was a little skeptical because I'm not a dancer without my skates, so to try and do a choreo with them on seemed quite challenging, but Hannah has this light-hearted energy that just made the entire routine super fun. Round up, booty. Don't be going back and forth at once. Once my lesson was over, I decided to stay back for another hour and practice the downtown over and over again until it finally clicked. By the end of practice, I felt really accomplished with where I was at. Ow! What the heck? I'm excited to practice what I learned yesterday. I honestly started to get the hang of it. My first time at a roller rink in years. The smooth surface allowed me to spin and move around much more fluidly. I had one hard fall, which hurt like hell, but besides that, I had the best time just letting loose. Holy ----, you guys! I just got my jam plugs in the mail. I haven't been able to practice my spins the way I want to because my toe stops do get in the way. Now, I can practice without it. I don't know what this is going to be like because I'm so used to my toe stops to save me. It's so different. On this day, I went to an outdoor hockey rink, and it was a whole vibe, from the music to the diverse group of people. Once again, I'm practicing my spins. However, this time, I'm spinning on both of my front wheels. This is called a toe-toe spin. Back to crazy legs. I studied all morning watching multiple tutorials and wanted to devote my entire session to really honing in on this move. Now that I have jam plugs, I'm able to skate on my toes and maneuver a lot easier. I finally got to a place where it just made sense and was starting to see the crazy legs in full effect. It wasn't perfect, but I was happy about it. The next day, I practiced more spinning, but this time, while moving forwards. Spins in general haven't really clicked for me just yet, but one day, I know they will. I continue to practice and perfect my crazy legs. As you can see, I've already improved a lot compared to the first day trying this out. This is also my first time trying out the zero. However, I didn't watch enough tutorials beforehand, so I'm kind of confused and just figuring it out as I go. On day 27, I was so stoked to be able to skate at The Barracks. It's a cool location with a smooth surface. Continue to practice my dips, dribbles, and spins. I've also started to play around with toe-stop spins, which is when you use one of your toe stops and drag the other foot around in a circle. Day 28. I went back to the outdoor rink and, yet again, continue to practice my heel-toe spins and crazy legs. Not gonna lie though, I started to feel a little defeated when it came to my spins. Just because I could never seem to complete them, but I had to remind myself that it was going to take more time and practice. Welcome to day 29. I haven't skated in over a week because I pulled my groin somehow. This was a huge setback for me and I was pretty sad about it because not only could I not skate, I couldn't work out, so I've just been like home, useless. But today, I really want to try skate and just see what happens. I'm not going to do anything crazy, but I don't know if I can just stay at home any longer. Alright, let's do this. When I got to the basketball court, I took it easy because I wasn't fully healed and was worried about injuring myself even more. When I'm spinning, I'm usually spinning to my left, but since my left leg was the one that I pulled, I decided to practice spinning on my non-dominant leg. I'm so bummed out because I was probably here for 10 minutes and I realized I shouldn't be skating on my leg. There's nothing I can really do, I don't want to force it. I think the best bet for me is to rest. I just knew in my heart, if I kept skating on it, I was going to prolong this whole injury in itself and the pain would probably get worse because it's already pretty painful. That's my day. I just got here, now I'm leaving, but I'll be fine. Wow, you guys, we made it to day 30. Today was all about having fun, letting loose, and enjoying everything that I've learned in the last 30 days. Picking up a pair of skates was probably the best decision I've made in a long time. I truly haven't felt connected to a hobby like this ever in my life and I'm honestly just proud of myself for taking on this challenge and committing to it. This whole experience has been refreshing and my skating journey doesn't stop here. It's truly just beginning. There you have it. 30 days of skating and I had the best time. It was so awesome going through the footage and being able to see my improvement. It kind of just happens out of nowhere because every day you're just so focused on learning that you don't realize your improvement. Let me know down below if any of you have started roller skating and if you guys are interested in my skate Instagram, check out the link down below if you guys want to just follow that journey. I know this video was just super random but it was really fun and different, a nice switch up that I felt like I needed. I hope that you guys enjoyed this video and that's it. Love you guys and I'll see you in the next one. Bye!