Beginner roller skating
Six Wheels on the Floor Before Four
The progression has four steps and everyone jumps to the last one. Squat on the spot first, skates hip width, arms out in front, on a beat. Then, still squatting, stretch one leg out while keeping all six wheels on the floor — four under you, two under the extended foot — and pull it back, using an arm to help. That six to four crossing is the step that decides whether you get the move. Only then, one foot, then rolling. Quad technique, from Najete Kada.
The progression into that one-legged squat has four steps, and almost everyone jumps straight to the last one and concludes they cannot do it.
First, squat on the spot. Skates about hip width, arms out in front to hold your balance front to back, down and up on a beat. Second — and this is the one that gets skipped — stay down in the squat and stretch one leg out while keeping all six wheels on the floor. Four under you, two under the extended foot. Pull it back in, using an arm to help.
Going from six wheels to four is the step that decides whether you get the move. Everything before it is a squat; everything after it is balance on one skate. That crossing is where the difficulty actually lives, and it deserves its own sessions.
Only then does step three make sense: shift your navel over the standing leg and drop straight down onto one foot. Step four is the same thing rolling, entered from a small lemon. Your arms stay in front throughout. Quad technique, from Najete Kada's Tuto roller series. She is a French champion in artistic roller skating and teaches quad; nothing on this page is a claim about inline skates.
Keep going: this is one section of the full Roller Skating for Beginners guide — sizing, gear, stopping, and where to skate, in one page.