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How To Keep Balance On Roller Skate – Useful Guide For Both Rookies And Pros!

Are you a newbie to roller skating? Then you may have thousands of questions about the basics of skating. “Is learning this sport difficult? How to keep balance on roller skate for the first-time player? How much time do I have to invest to become professional?”

Hang on, guys. Don’t panic. We all know that learning to skate or keep balance on roller skate is quite tricky at first. Just like any other sports, being a roller-skating pro needs some practice.

For this reason, we are here to help you. Scroll down to consult our ultimate guide.

Choose The Suitable Roller Skate

Choose The Suitable Roller SkateWhen it comes to types of skates, there are several different varieties available on the current market. In order to choose a suitable roller skate, you must consider what you need and which skill you want to master. Here are some types of skates you can opt for.

  • Indoor skate. It is a traditional roller skate with four wheels, mostly used to skate indoors. This option is really useful for those who have tried a roller skate for the first time.
  • Outdoor skate. This is an advanced version of indoor skate with higher durability and strength. Its wheels are designed to be used under harsh outdoor conditions. What is more, another outstanding feature of this type is the specialized wheels, helping to skate on any road material surface including concrete, asphalt, you name it.
  • Speed skate. Of course, this one is born for pro-skaters. Speed skates offer fast speed, which is much quicker than both indoor and outdoor skate. Besides, this type is utilized in some skillful performances, such as flying down the street, perhaps.

Notes Before Learning To Keep Balance

Not only a competitive sport, but roller skating is also a leisure activity for you to let your hair down. However, the matter is that keeping balance is much more challenging than you can imagine, and asks a long-term process to learn for sure.

Hence, if you don’t want to end up with a broken leg right from the first time you use it, understanding some fundamentals below will be a good kick start, indeed.

Prepare The Spare Parts

Prepare The Spare PartsIn order to start roller skating, obviously you cannot lack a good-quality roller skate. Choosing the standard shoe size of your foot can make you feel comfortable while using roller skate. You will be ill at ease in too-big shoes, or hurt your feet with too-small one.

Please don’t think that it is enough when you have got skates. It is also necessary to prepare some protective gear from head to toe. You may think it is overwhelming but it’s not. We cannot predict the future, of course, so we don’t know whether we fall off the roller skate whenever trying to keep balance or not. As a result, cautiousness is the best thing ever you should prioritize.

To be more specific, a helmet, knee and elbow pads, and wrist guards are a must. These go-to items are all considered as a good investment for your whole life ahead. Why?

Will you be willing to purchase a helmet of only 40$ or suffer from any concussion of the brain later? Also, a pair of knee, elbow and wrist pads are indispensable for roller skating and they are truly worth your investment. Do you agree that the first body part reacting when you fall is the arm for the upper half and knee for the lower half? If yes, there is no reason to pass by these skating safety gear.

Besides, you must know that these spare parts cannot prevent all the injuries you have, but they are not superfluous.

Learn The Right Posture

Learn The Right PostureThe fastest way to learn to keep balance on roller skate is to know the right posture. Let’s straddle for at least a shoulder-width and bend your knees mildly. At the same time, lower your backside and lean forward to sit on your heels comfortably.

Keeping a squatting posture plays an important role in preventing your body from falling and recovering your balance quickly. So don’t hesitate to practice this posture over and over at first and remain it all the time on wheels, or you never master your skill of gaining poise during roller skating.

The Right Way To Keep Balance On Roller Skate

That’s only the end of the preparation. Let’s move to the way to keep balance on roller skates.

Practice Duck Walk First

Practice Duck Walk FirstDon’t challenge yourself to glide when you haven’t done a duck walk yet. Do you know how a duck walks? All you have to do now is to imitate exactly the movement of a duck.

Let’s keep your heels with the toes pointing outward, then stroll forward and alter the left and right foot continuously. Don’t forget to maintain the squatting posture and keep your body stable on the wheels. It will be best if you practice this walk until you control your foot comfortably. After that, you can walk with longer strides.

It must be mentioned that you may fall down a few times while practicing this walk. But don’t worry. That’s what your pads work for. Only hard practice will help you boost your confidence.

Learn How To Glide On The Roller Skate

Learn How To GlideHere is an important part. It’s time to roll your wheels.

You need to lengthen the strides by slightly pushing one wheel to let your body along with the roller skate move forward. After losing the momentum, do the same with the other wheel.

You can turn right and left one after another to shift your body weight accurately. During this part, one foot is on the roller skate and the other foot is above the ground.

What is more, remember that the squatting position must be kept all the time during your practice. It is advised to keep gliding until you are skillful enough. Besides, in order to move on the roller skate faster, you can put a little pressure on the wheels along with moving the elbows back and forth.

Congratulation! You have reached the halfway point of this guide. Now, let’s move to the last step.

Find Out How To Stop The Roller Skate

Find Out How To StopLearning how to stop the roller skate, like when you try using the brake to drive your car for the first time, is as crucial as how to start. There are two basic ways to stop that you can refer to.

First, let’s utilize your knee pad to stop. As you have put on safety gear already, you can lower one knee and drag it on the ground. This performance needs a little skill, that’s why it is perfectly suitable for beginners like you.

Second, perform a plow stop. You should let your legs wider than shoulder-width while rolling, and it’s fine to bend your knees a little. After that, let’s point your toes inward slightly. Please remember our guide! Just slightly or you will end up with falling.

To get a full stop, you have to bring your feet closer together slowly, and your knees are still bent slightly. When the front wheels rub each other, your roller skate will slow down and stop completely.

Again, if you allow these wheels to slam together, it is understandable that you lose balancing and fall flat on your face.

Improve Your Balancing Skill

Improve Your Balancing SkillMastering all the basic moves will be a stepping-stone to improve your balancing skills. Let’s follow these techniques below.

First, how about a crossover turn? Let’s start with a few glides to get the momentum. When you are skating at a stable speed and posture, try crossing one skate over the other gently to make a turn, and move your body forward to the direction you have turned.

It is also advised to lean your shoulder a bit and bend your knees so that you can keep stable balance.

Second, you can try skating backward. Skating forward works because you put your feet in V-shape, then let’s form an inverted V-shape to skate backward. In other words, your heels are kept far apart; meanwhile, your toes are closer.

When lifting your right foot, you should put a little pressure on your left toe, then drop the left foot. Repeat this process for a while until you will quickly get used to this kind of skating. Under no circumstances should you lean backward as we don’t want you to suffer from any severe injuries.

Final Thoughts

Once you come across the world of roller skating, you will find out several beneficial things apart from an active sport, including a leisure activity or an exercise to keep your body fit.

However, this activity requires a lot of practice to keep balance on roller skate at first. We do hope that our guide above will be helpful to you. Now, do not hesitate to flash your skill in roller skating and be ready for all eyes on you.

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