Beginner roller skating
One Drill Takes the V Out of Your Stride
Push out to the side, then pause in the middle with both skates exactly parallel, close enough to squeeze an imaginary line between them. Push again, pause again. You are not training the push here — you are training the regroup, because the pushing skate has to angle out anyway. Over the weeks you shorten the pause until it vanishes and you are simply skating straight ahead. Inline technique, from ICP-certified coach Asha Kirkby.
If your skates angle outwards on every step even when you are cruising, there is one drill that takes it out, and it is deliberately slow.
Push out to one side. Then bring that skate back and pause in the middle, with both skates exactly parallel, close enough together that you could squeeze a line between them. Knees fairly close, inner ankles nearly touching but not quite. Then push out to the other side, and pause again.
Here is the part that is easy to miss: you are not training the push. The pushing skate has to angle outwards, there is no way around that and no reason to want one. What you are training is the regroup — the moment the foot comes back underneath you — because that is where the fault actually lives. Angle out to push, come back dead straight.
Do it with a bit of speed already on, not from a standstill; balancing on parallel skates is much easier rolling than it is stationary. Give yourself a full beat in the middle at first.
Then, over weeks rather than minutes, shorten the pause. Push, pause. Push, pause. Push pause, push pause. Eventually there is no pause left and you are just skating with a straight set-down, which was the whole point. Inline 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.