Beginner roller skating
Four Faults Behind Most Beginner Wobbles
Unexpected wobbles, sore feet, skates tipping inward: ICP-certified coach Asha Kirkby traces most beginner trouble to four faults. Skates not done up correctly. Knees bent the wrong way, or not at all. No awareness of where the body is. No awareness of how the weight sits in the footprint. Each has its own fix on this site; the point is to check all four before blaming the skates.
Unexpected wobbles, sore feet, skates that keep tipping inward: new inline skaters tend to blame the skates, the ground or their ankles. A certified coach traces most of it to four faults, and none of them is the equipment.
One: skates not done up correctly. A boot that is loose around the ankle cannot hold it still, and this site has already said never to loosen your laces for comfort. Two: knees bent the wrong way, or not at all. Straight knees put the weight behind the wheels; knees that drift inward put the skates on their inside edges.
Three: no awareness of where the body is. Weight forward or back, hips under the shoulders or pushed out behind them — most beginners cannot say, and the wobble is the body finding out. Four: no awareness of how the weight sits in the footprint. Heel, toe, inner side or outer side: the skate goes where the weight is, and if you do not know where that is, neither do you.
Each of the four has its own page on this site. The point of the list is the order of blame: check all four before deciding the skates are the problem. The coach's own phrase for the alternative is learning by trial and error, and her view is that nobody would learn to drive that way either.
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.
Keep going: this is one section of the full Roller Skating for Beginners guide — sizing, gear, stopping, and where to skate, in one page. Free, no sign-up, nothing to buy.