Author Topic: BLF, teach me how to rollerskate.  (Read 688 times)

I, myself, is absolutely terrible at rollerskating. It infuriates me how I'm on the floor struggling to go 5 seconds without stumbling while some cheesy person pulls ahead of me looking at his or her phone. I now have a fear of rollerskating regarding the fact that last time I've went, I fell and slammed myself so hard 2 times all in a matter of 10 minutes. One of those two times were my hips and wow, does that hurt.

It's pretty embarrassing how children who are six years old skate better than me. Considering the fact that most people boast on Blockland Forums about their talents, how about you guys put that into use and help me get better at something that almost seems impossible.

please...

ask Bryan Cranston to teach you

be warned though: once you begin you will never be the same






how fast were you going when you fell


is this 1980?

it's pretty easy once you teach yourself how to stay still standing at idle. to propel yourself, you kind of angle one of your feet and push, and the other foot, etc.

but i don't think there's a feasible way to stop. i just rub myself against the walls of the rink to stop
« Last Edit: February 06, 2016, 09:53:01 PM by hillkill »


I don't know that you can teach someone this without being with them.

It's not exactly the easiest thing to do convey over text, but I'll try. You want to sort of glide all the way through, roll your foot at a bit of a direction and then lift in back into position so you don't break your kneecaps. Do the same for the opposite foot and repeat. Also when you lift your foot, lift it flat and don't a "swinging" motion with your foot which usually leads to people falling down. Be sure to also use your arms to keep your balance.

Congratulations, you should now be skating assuming I didn't word everything too poorly. Once you get the feel for it you can always try going faster and challenge yourself by doing more complex maneuvers.

ok first, run without getting your feet to leave the ground

notice how you're not going anywhere, because the wheels are rolling beneath you?

now try pushing with the sides of your skates, then lifting that leg and reorienting the foot so you can keep your balance

now do that faster

ok dont fall

run faster

DONT FALL

DONT FALL

RUN FASTER

DONT FALL

what i did to learn to skate in a few trips to the rink (id spend like 2 or 3 hours on each trip) :
trip 1: stuck to going back and forth on the railing until i was confident with my balance, then started skating slow laps next to the wall
trip 2: stuck to the walls to warm up, then skated away from it while holding my mom's hand (she's a rly good skater)
trip 3: again stuck to the walls, sometimes skated away from them
trip 4: was able to skate away from the walls with ease

just skate lots of laps, take it slow, keep your arms out to the side to help with balance, and don't be stiff.

I usually just keep my knees bent like Im out of breath or something

keeps my balance up p. well



I can ice skate well enough to play hockey decently. I can teach you I guess

I've been inline skating since I was about 5 years old. Not exactly rollerskating, but pretty much the next closest thing (unless you actually mean rollerskating, in which case, awesome).

Here are the two biggest things beginners don't usually get which are imperative to learning to skate.

1) Do NOT lock up you legs or keep them stiff. It will be scary at first and you will almost certainly fall, but do your best to keep your knee, hip, and ankle joints loose, yet still firm enough that you don't flop to the ground (duh). The faster you go, the more you crouch down. Stay loose, my friend.

2) Your balance should NOT come from your waist up. In general, yes, a lot of your balance does come from your torso. But that's mostly passive balance. What I'm talking about is active balance - that is, shifting your weight. Shifting your torso will cause you to fall over far more because you're shifting your entire center of gravity. Most of the time you will end up overshooting and falling on your butt. Instead, balance from your hips down. This is done less by shifting your center of gravity and more by adjust your leg and joint positions. Even a slight adjustment in one ankle can make or break your balance, but it's far easier to control a small ankle movement instead of trying to adjust more than 50% of your body weight.

Both of these things should be practiced in combination. Once you've gotten a bit better at that, consider moving on to some of the below exercises.

  • Balance on one foot for as long as you can (both moving and stationary).
  • Simply try to walk/jog around in the skates on a variety of surfaces. A large part of learning to skate is about becoming "one" with the skates.
  • Once you're a bit more confident, setup a slalom course. As you get more confortable, shorten the distance between each cone (or whatever you're using) and speed up a bit.
  • I also strongly suggest learning how to stop properly - both with the brake and with another method (possibly a turn-stop). Remember, grass will not always be there for you to land on, and I don't think running into cars is too comfortable either. ;)

Hope you can get something out of this. Keep on skatin'.

Thanks for the replies. Don't want to get this going now that I had some excellent tips. Locking thread.