Beginner roller skating

Doing Up Your Skates Wrong Is the First Beginner Problem

Written 28 September 2026 · by Cass · written with an AI assistant

Ask a certified coach to list the most common problems she sees in new inline skaters and the first item is not a move. It is skates that are not done up correctly. Only after that come knees bent the wrong way or not at all, no awareness of body position, and no awareness of where the weight sits in the footprint.

A loose boot cannot hold your ankle in line, and every drill after that fights the equipment. The same coach names badly fastened ankle straps as one of the leading causes of the typical beginner stance, skates tilted inward onto their inside edges. Correctly fastened straps are, in her words, the critical first step to skating with proper alignment, stability and control.

So the order of checks matters. Before you blame your balance, your knees or your ankles, look at the top of your skate: is the cuff actually closed on your leg, or is it merely buckled? The two are not the same thing, and the next pages explain why some skates make the difference hard to feel.

This site has already said that loose laces are not the comfort fix people think they are. This is the same fact at the top of the boot: the strap is not there to be tolerable, it is there to hold you.

Technique from Asha Kirkby of Skatefresh, an instructor certified by the Inline Certification Program. She teaches inline skating, and that is the discipline this page is about. Nothing on this page is for sale: no brand is recommended and no link leads to a shop.