Beginner roller skating
Stepping Plough Mistake: Your Feet Drift Until Your Skates Collide
The most common stepping plough fault is stepping up and down on the spot. Each step lets your feet migrate inward until your skates clip each other mid-stop. The fix is deliberate: every time you pick up a foot, lift it up AND out to the side, so your stance stays wide and stable all the way to a full stop. Toes in, heels pushing out, and the base never narrows. Technique from ICP-certified coach Asha Kirkby.
There is one fault that spoils the stepping plough more often than any other, and it does not look like a fault while you are doing it. It looks like walking.
Stepping up and down on the spot lets your feet migrate inward. Each time a foot leaves the ground it comes back down a little closer to the other one, and after a few steps your skates clip each other in the middle of the stop — which is the worst possible moment to lose your base.
The correction is deliberate, not automatic. Every time you pick a foot up, lift it up AND out to the side. You are not trying to walk; you are trying to keep a wide stance while the toes stay turned in and the heels keep pushing outward.
The base never narrows. That is the whole check, and it is the one you can feel without a mirror: if the gap between your skates is shrinking, the stop is already going wrong, whatever the toes are doing.
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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