There are some moves, particularly the tomahawk 180 turn, that took FOREVER for me to learn. For two weeks straight, spectators at the local roller rink could witness me practicing slow turns repeatedly like a weird, friendless loner at the empty end of the rink. Eventually, I mastered it and now pull off beautiful turns.
While I felt accomplished by learning my tomahawks, I wished the time learning it could've been shorter. That's when a lightbulb went off. I'd heard of bootcamps where they taught stops off skates, so why not learn everything off skates first?
I can't even count the number of times I tried a new move on my skates and promptly tripped over myself because my weight wasn't distributed correctly on my wheels.
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| This should be a warning at all rinks. |
So now with this new idea to nip those awkward spills in the butt, I tried backwards walking, backwards jumping, one-legged 180 jumps, anything I could think of really. Each move I took careful note of where on my weight was balanced on every small part of my foot and how it transitioned throught the skill. And you know what? It worked like a charm. Granted I still needed to practice on my skates to really hone in the technique, in the end it took me less time and less practice to nail a move.
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| Oh yeah that's totally me. |
So next time you have two left skates and nothing is working right, take those puppies off and concentrate on how you normally balance when doing things without skates, because eventually you want your skating to be as natural as walking.
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| Walking barefoot in grass = AWESOME! |
