Beginner roller skating
The Stop That Doesn't Eat Your Wheels: The Stepping Plough
Tired of replacing wheels worn flat by T-stops? The stepping plough is a certified coach's favourite non-emergency stop, and it causes zero wheel wear: instead of dragging a skate, you turn your toes in progressively — a subtle angle first, more as you slow — and reposition your feet step by step until you stop. It also chains with a plough or a T-stop for downhill speed control. Technique from ICP-certified coach Asha Kirkby.
If you replace wheels more often than you think you should, look at how you stop before you look at the wheels. Any stop that drags rubber across tarmac pays for itself in flat spots, and the T-stop is the one most beginners lean on.
The stepping plough costs nothing in wheel wear. Nothing is dragged: you turn your toes inward and let the angle of the wheels do the slowing, then reposition your feet step by step until you have come to a complete stop.
The angle is progressive, not fixed. Start with a subtle turn-in while you are still moving quickly, and increase it as you lose speed. Committing to a deep angle straight away is what makes a plough feel like it is about to throw you forward.
It also chains with other stops. On a hill you can scrub the first burst of speed with a gentle T-stop or a wide regular plough, then switch into the stepping version for the last part, where control matters more than power.
For what it is worth, I stop in a T myself, so I am the exact skater this page is aimed at. 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. Personal account from Cass, a non-professional street skater — not a coach, and this page does not pretend otherwise.
Keep going: this is one section of the full Roller Skating for Beginners guide — sizing, gear, stopping, and where to skate, in one page. Free, no sign-up, nothing to buy.