Disclaimer: I skated for the first time in my life this week, for not more than an hour. Every­thing I say in this post is based on personal experi­ence, so use your own judgment before doing something silly and injuring yourself. The respon­si­bility is all yours.

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The ‘quad’ roller skates are simply shoes with four wheels under­neath. You wear the shoes and, instead of walking, you skate (or fall).

They say practice makes perfect, which is certainly true to some extent. However, like any other sport, there is a technique to doing it right that is far more impor­tant. Here’s a break­down of what I discov­ered this week:

Bend your knees

This is true for almost any sport. Bending your knees automat­i­cally forces you into a crouching position, moving your weight ahead of your feet. This ensures that you don’t fall backward, which is painful and dangerous. The instinc­tive reaction to falling forward is to put one foot ahead and stop the fall, which is exactly what you need to do to start skating.

Gather momentum

The simplest and probably the only way to gather momentum is to put one foot ahead and put your weight on that single foot. You have your knees bent, right? The trick here is to apply pressure on the foot not directly straight ahead but towards the side. That is, you push your right foot forward and towards the right, and then your left foot forward and towards the left alter­nately. This provides some control over your motion.

Don’t straighten up

…unless you know what you are doing. If you are moving slowly, it is alright to straighten up temporarily, but you need to bend your knees again before stepping again.

Don’t put you weight on both feet

Consider your normal walk: your front foot presses against the ground, while your back foot provides support. It’s the same principle at work here. Naturally, you can’t put pressure on both feet, other­wise your feet will drift wider and wider apart until you do the splits.

A possible misun­der­standing by the novice is to imagine that the wheels would magically carry him ahead. In reality, the best analogy to roller skating is walking, except that the ground is rolling away behind you. Ergo, you need to lift up one foot at a time and place it ahead.

P.S. — How often do you get to use the word “ergo” in your posts?

Tags: Quad Skates, Roller Skating, Sports

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 11:24 and is filed under Tips and Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.