Beginner roller skating
Aim Your Knee at Your Little Toe Until the Wheel Stands Up
Your skate rolling inward is not fixed by tightening anything. A certified coach's cue is a direction: push your supporting knee slightly forward and outward, toward your little toe, until the wheel underneath is standing completely upright. Practise it while scooting — one leg supporting on a centre edge, the other pushing continuously, like a scooter. Technique from ICP-certified coach Asha Kirkby.
A skate that rolls inward is one of the most common faults there is, and almost nobody is told what to do about it. Tightening the boot does not fix it. Buying a stiffer skate does not fix it. It is a direction problem, and the fix is a direction.
Push your supporting knee slightly forward and outward, toward your little toe, until the wheel underneath is standing completely upright. That is the whole cue. Your knee travels a couple of centimetres and the edge under you changes.
Practise it while scooting. One leg supports on a centre edge, the other pushes continuously, like a scooter. Your regroup stays straight ahead and your push turns out slightly. Because you are pushing the whole time, you get hundreds of seconds on that one supporting edge instead of a handful.
What it is costing you while it lasts. A collapsed skate wastes energy, ruins any glide on one leg, and — this is the part that matters — leads to slow-onset pain in the ankle, knee or hip, the kind that arrives months later and seems to have no cause.
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.
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