Beginner roller skating
Skate Dance Starts With Where Your Weight Sits, Not Where Your Feet Go
First dance steps on quads are usually taught as foot positions. A certified coach turns that round: the feet matter, but what matters most is where your weight is on each foot, because that is where stability and balance come from. Learn each position with the weight placed right and it holds; copy the feet alone and it wobbles. Technique from ICP-certified coach Asha Kirkby.
The first dance steps on quads are usually taught as pictures of feet: this one forward, that one turned out, heels together. Copy the picture and you have the step. Except that most beginners copy the picture and wobble.
A certified coach teaches the first steps the other way round. The foot position matters, but what matters most is where your weight is on each foot — because that, not the shape of the feet, is where stability and balance come from.
Two skaters can hold identical foot positions and only one of them is balanced. The difference is invisible from outside: one has the weight placed where the position needs it, the other has it somewhere else and is compensating with the ankles.
So each position is learned with its weight placement, not before it. Where does the weight sit in this one, on which foot, how much? Learn that and the step holds on its own; copy the feet alone and it stays a picture.
Technique from Asha Kirkby of Skatefresh, an instructor certified by the Inline Certification Program who also teaches quad skating. This page is about QUAD skates first: it comes from her roller-skate and quad tutorial, and the site's own skater does not practise quads, so nothing here is vouched for by her.
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