How to FALL on roller skates WITHOUT getting hurt (in 10 minutes)

If the fear of falling on roller skates is the thing stopping you from putting on your skates or trying new skills, you're definitely not the only one. It's one of the most common worries I see with beginner skaters, but falling on skates doesn't have to be a big deal if you know how to do it safely. In this video, I'm going to show you the safest ways to fall, how you can get back up, and right at the end, I'll share one small trick that you can use if your skates keep rolling out from underneath you. Hey, I'm Tracey. I'm from Suns Out Skates Out. I teach adults how to roller skate with confidence through in-person classes, one-on-one coaching, and my online course. And falling is one of those things that can sit in the back of your mind when you're learning to skate. It can make you hesitate to put your skates on or even try something new. So I want to walk you through a few simple things that can make falling a lot safer and a lot less intimidating. Sometimes I hear people say, once I get good at skating, I won't fall anymore. If that's you, I'm going to burst your bubble a little bit, sorry. And actually, I'm curious, have you had your first fall yet? Or are you still trying to avoid it? Let me know in the comments below. But falling can happen at any level of skating. It might be something on the ground you don't see or another skater who's a little bit out of control at the skating rink, or you simply are just trying a new skill. But falling isn't just a beginner thing. The difference is that experienced skaters know how to fall safely and how to get back up again. And something happens the more that you skate. You fall more, so your body gets used to the feeling of falling. Your reactions get quicker, you learn how to move and fall easier, and you're able to fall in a much safer way. So it's not just knowing how to fall, your body actually learns how to react and handle it. And I just want to point out that in my videos, I don't wear protective gear. And that is because of my competitive artistic roller skating experience. So I've spent a lot of years skating and falling. So my body is used to falling. I don't panic. It's not to say that sometimes I don't fall in the wrong way. But 99% of the time, my body knows how to react because I've fallen so many times. But I'm comfortable with the thought of falling. So instead of trying to avoid falling completely, it's much more helpful to understand how to fall safely. And there are a few simple things that can make a really big difference when you're learning. Number one is the obvious, it's protective gear. So let's get some protective gear on. Just a couple of tips for protective gear. Sometimes I get asked which pad goes where. So you'll see the knee pads are the biggest and the elbow pads are the smaller pad in the pack. With the wrist guards, when you put them on, make sure the hard bit is at the bottom because that is what's going to take the impact on the ground. I have seen beginner skaters put these on the top by mistake. So just make sure that that bit is at the bottom. And sometimes I get asked which way do the protective pads go on. And my answer is if your protective gear has a label, that will go at the top like mine is here. So for a helmet, I don't have one on today. Make sure that you've got a roller skating or a skateboard helmet. Please don't go and use a bike helmet. They are built differently for impact. All protective gear can prevent you from getting injured. And it also gives you a bit of confidence. As soon as you've got your protective gear on, you'll feel a little bit more invincible. So if you usually skate with your protective gear, you'll get used to feeling more confident with it on. And then if you ever do skate without your protective gear, you'll kind of feel like you're naked. So it definitely gives you a boost in your confidence. So as well as your pads and helmet, another thing that I'm seeing skaters wear a lot more often these days are protective shorts. Basically, they are bike pants. And they just have a little bit of foam padding on the sides of the shorts. And they have a piece of padding in this lower area to protect that tailbone. So definitely worth investing in if you want a little bit more protection. One thing that can also help is practicing falling. So if you're nervous, start somewhere soft like on carpet or grass. The more familiar it feels, the less intimidating it becomes. The fall we want to really try and avoid on skates is slipping backwards onto your tailbone. This one really hurts. And it usually happens when your legs straighten up and your weight shifts backwards into your heels. So one of the easiest ways to make falling less scary is learning to stay low on your skates. So the closer you are to the ground, the less distance you have to fall. So bending your knees and dropping into a slight crouch actually helps give you a lot more stability and control. This is a really useful skill to be able to do because it helps bring your weight back center. So if you're feeling out of control, we're bringing all these arms that are flying around into a low crouch position. It's bringing your center of gravity in and we're getting closer to the ground. So it's going to hurt a lot more if we fall from up here versus if we fall from down here. Yes, falling onto knee pads is definitely better than slipping backwards onto your tailbone. And if you do fall, your hands can touch the ground slightly to help balance. Just try not to lock your elbows. Keep them slightly bent so that your arms can absorb that impact. Now, I do want to mention something here. Falling forwards onto your knee pads isn't something that you want to make a habit of and rely on. But if you ever didn't have your knee pads on and your instinct was to drop straight forward onto your knees, you could end up doing some serious damage. So think of this as a safer way to fall while you're learning and wearing protective gear. Not something you want to rely on every time. Another option is falling slightly to the side. And this is actually what you want to do most of the time if you can. If you feel yourself losing balance, what you want to do is try and shift your weight slightly to the side instead of going straight. So start to shift that weight over to whichever side that you're going to fall on. The idea here is to let your body slide out a little rather than stiffening up and hitting the ground hard. Usually when people get hurt, it's because they panic and their body goes really stiff. So if you can, try to stay a little relaxed and move with the fall. And when we do try and fall to the side, it's because we don't want to fall on the tailbone, but we've got a little bit more cushioning on the sides here. So we want that to take the impact. So we get low to the ground, falling onto the side. Now, when you do fall onto the side, it's the same as when you fall forward. We don't want to fall and lock the elbow. We want to fall to the side and we want to land with a soft elbow and try and slide that wrist out a little bit. So that will take away the impact of hitting the ground so hard and it will avoid doing any wrist or elbow injuries. So try and land soft and try and slide. The one skill that I would suggest practicing for falling safely is crouching. So just skating along, bending your knees, dropping to a crouch, coming back up. You can do that over and over as a warmup, which is a great way to prepare your body for any falls that might happen in your session. So now that we do know how to fall safely, I'm going to demonstrate how to get back up. So let's say that we have just fallen onto our side. What we're going to do is come onto our hands and knees. We're going to have our toe stops on the ground. We're going to put one skate up flat. We're going to put one hand on our knee, other hand on the knee, and we're going to push out of that skate straight up, bring the other skate flat, knees are soft, posture's up, arms are back out for balance. So that's the correct way to stand up. What you don't want to do is keep your hands on the ground, bring your skate up and keep your hands here, because what happens is you get stuck in this position, your weight's thrown over. It's actually really difficult to bring the other skate from here and then try and stand up. So you're much better to bring that skate up, use your hands and your knees and push straight up and you can easily go back into a nice postured position. If you're feeling really nervous or really wobbly when you first start skating, there's one small trick that can help. And I do this with some beginner adult skaters and I also do this with kids who are just super wobbling. So you can actually tighten up your wheels so they don't roll as freely. So that's going to give you a little bit more support and it's going to stop your skates from slipping out as quickly. So falling is a part of learning to skate, but once you understand how to fall safely and how to get back up, it really does start to feel a lot less scary. And if you're just getting started and want a clear path to build confidence on your roller skates, I've got a free beginner workshop where I walk you through the key steps that help adult skaters feel more in control. I'll pop the link in the description down below. If this was helpful, please feel free to like and subscribe. Thanks guys. And I will see you in the next video.