Getting Started Roller Skating – Part 6 – Falling Down & Getting Back Up

In today’s episode, I cover:

How to fall down the right way in roller skates.
How to get back up safely from the ground.
Starting on the ground when you are first starting out.
Practicing standing up from the ground.

If you haven’t already, please go back and listen to episode 22 about picking out the right safety gear. It’s important to have this gear to protect yourself from a fall.

If you’d like to see some videos of how to fall and get back up, check out my How to Roller Skate and How to Rollerblade pages.

Episode 23 Transcript

[0:04] Hey everybody, Welcome to the Roller skate Dad podcast.

[0:09] This is episode # 23.

[0:13] Let’s get started.

[0:17] Welcome to the roller skate Dad podcast, the show that covers everything and anything in the wonderful world of roller skating.
Now, here’s your host, the roller skate dad himself, Jeff Stone.

[0:37] Hey everybody, welcome to the roller skate Dad podcast. I want to thank you guys so much for being here.
It’s another episode and today we’re gonna be talking all about how to get started roller skating.
This is a continuation of the series that I’ve been doing for a while now, and in this episode, we’re gonna talk all about falling down and getting back up again.
One of the most important things to learn when you’re first learning how to roller skate for the very first time, you got to learn how to fall down and got to learn how to get back up properly.
And so the roller skating series, how to get started roller skating series started a few years ago and I never finished it and we’re actually finishing that up here in these next few episodes.
And so in the first episode, I covered the right skaters mindset, how to get into that mindset if you’re first learning how to skate or if you’re coming back to it after being gone a long time.

[1:38] And then in part two and three, I talked all about tips on how to pick out the right roller skates, especially for those of you who are picking out your first pair things to look for, what to watch out for, things of that nature.
And then in Part four of the series, I went in and gave you recommendations on some quad skates, some roller blades, and in line skates for beginners.
And then in the last episode, I talked a lot about safety equipment, the safety equipment that every beginner really needs to have to get started and so today, and for the next several episodes, we’re going to talk a lot about just the actual act of roller skating.
So this will be the fun part because I think most people would do this via video, not via podcast, but I wanted to give it a try. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. So let’s go.

[2:31] So when you’re first starting to learn how to roller skate, the first thing you need to do obviously is put your skates on, you know, tie them up and sit down on the ground.
Obviously when you’re doing this, I tell all beginners, you really shouldn’t sit in a chair or sit on a bench, sit on the ground because you can’t fall from the ground.
You’re already you’re already on the ground. So what you wanna do is um.

[2:56] Actually start there, start on the ground, everyone’s down there and then we just practice getting up and so before you start skating it all, you start on the ground and you’re going to pretend like you’ve,
practically already fallen down, so you’re on the ground, you want to put your feet out in front of you with your legs straight and you know, be able to look at your skates and,
so what you want to do from there is you want to start to get up, but this is the important thing to remember um that if you’re on your bottom, you want to spin around,
and get on both of your knees.
So you’ll be kneeling, kind of like if you were if you’re like me and you went to a catholic church growing up, you know, like you’re kneeling to pray, so you’re on your on your two knees,
and basically what you’re going to do then is um you’re gonna want to watch your fingers as you spin around, you know, make sure you don’t trap them underneath your skates or smash them,
and so typically you want to learn how to keep your hands off the ground whenever you’re practicing getting up, especially at a rink,
just because I’ve seen beginners so many times, like throw their hands down and then leave them there as they’re getting up and somebody comes rolling by and rolls right over their fingers and that hurts, that hurts a lot,
so what you want to do is roll around, get down onto your both knees.

[4:22] And then what you want to do is actually pick up one of your legs and get into kind of a tim Tebow football stance where one knee is up and one knee is down on the ground.
So this is a you know, typical football stance.
And basically what you try and do is just make sure that your balance there on that one knee and then what you do is take your two hands and put them on the knee.
That’s up where your skate is actually touching the ground and you’re down on one knee, you should be very stable in this position.
You want to take your two hands and place them on top of the thigh there, right towards towards your body, away from your knee.
Don’t put your hands right on your knee, but just a little bit uh south of there, put both hands there and then basically what you’re gonna do is push up off that leg until you get into a standing position.

[5:21] So when you’re first starting out, it’s really important to practice this movement over and over again,
a lot of people who struggle with skating actually just have bad balance and so the best thing to do is to try to, you know, practice this getting,
up motion over and over again from the floor, because when you’re first beginner,
if you’ve never skated before, you probably are gonna fall, like I’m just being honest with you up front, you’re gonna fall, so you want to try as best you can to be good at being able to get back up off the ground.
Um So what you want to do is.

[6:01] Really practice on getting down onto your bottom, sitting with your legs face straight out, then.

[6:09] Tuck your tuck your legs off to one side and spin yourself around, preferably without your hands to the side of you, if you do need to put your hands on the ground, try to put them in front of you,
nobody can roll over your fingers if they’re in front of you only, you can roll over them if they’re in front of you,
and basically get into two into a two knee stance where you’re down on both knees,
and then push yourself up to where one leg is kind of in a tim Tebow kneeling style, like I said, and then push off that knee and come to a stand to a stance.
And so this is how you properly get up from a fall from a fall, you know, especially if you’re at a crowded roller rink.
Um This is definitely how you get up.
You know, if you’re out at the park and there’s nobody around or you’re in your garage, it’s not as big of a deal, but I’d like to tell people, you know, if you practice the right way, then when you are in a crowded situation and if you do take a tumble,
you don’t have to worry as much about um somebody rolling over your hands.
So that’s how I teach everybody to start is basically starting on the ground.
And it, it kind of aggravates some people because they’re like, hey, wait a minute, I thought we were going roller skating, why am I down here on the ground?
And it’s because a lot of people don’t know how to fall down correctly and they don’t know how to get up.
So the next thing we’re going to talk about is falling down, so.

[7:35] You know, the biggest thing I think for adults, especially if you’re coming back to roller skating after being away for a really long time, you know, if you’re a little bit older,
I’m 47 I know some of you out there listening to me or you’re, you know, in your fifties, sixties, even have a few folks in their seventies and eighties who have reached out to me,
and you know, the biggest fear obviously as you get older is you fall, things tend to break,
you know, it’s, you’re not quite as springy as you used to be when you were, uh, you know, when you were young and spry, so at least I know I’m not, I’ve certainly broken my share of elbows and,
other other things like that as I’ve become an adult and fallen on skates before.
So that’s where my last episode was really important. Talk about, you know, getting the right roller skates, safety gear.
So if you haven’t listened to that, go back and check out that episode.
Um and I think that’s actually what keeps a lot of adults from really ever trying to skate because they’re like, oh, that’s for kids, I’m not going to do that, I don’t want to hurt myself, I can’t hurt myself.

[8:39] And if you follow the correct steps and you go slow and you wear safety gear, I’m not saying you won’t fall, but you shouldn’t really hurt yourself.
Typically it’s people who are trying to skip a bunch of steps,
and they’re just trying to like, you know, speed skate with the the local rink rat,
who is up at the rink, you know, six days a week, who’s,
15 years old, you know, you know, you got to understand, you know, your limits and where you’re at and just understand that it, you know, it takes time to get up to that level, so, um.

[9:15] So I want to talk a little bit about what the typical reasons are for um why you fall, you know, and how you go about avoiding it.
Um I would say as a more advanced skater, someone who has skated my whole life,
I think the most important thing to learn is balance, obviously, no duh,
right, but I think the other thing that’s really important, especially as you get better for all of you, intermediate skaters out there listening to me is learning how to be more agile on your feet,
and so what do I mean by that?

[9:51] I mean basically that like I know a lot of skaters, even intermediate skaters and for the most part, all they really know how to do is skate forwards, some of them know how to skate backwards,
most of them who have been skating for a while, you know how to do crossovers,
um and that’s great, nothing wrong with that, but I really would push those of you who are more intermediate skaters, you know, to learn how to do turns, learn how to do spins, um these kinds of things, while they’re more maybe from the artistic genre,
they definitely help you when you get into,
crowded roller skating rinks and you’ve got people around you that don’t necessarily have great balance,
and I have dodged many a person with a crazy one ft turn or you know, a um,
You know, a two ft quick dive out of the way, jump up, jump over someone, I don’t recommend that, but I’ve certainly had to do it before.
Um So as you’re progressing and you become, you know, your your past the beginner level, which I know a lot of you listening to me are, you know, this is why practicing and learning new things every time you go to the rink,
is important because it will actually help prevent you from falling and getting injured.

[11:12] Um so let’s talk a little bit about um falling down, you know, tips to keep in mind, so whenever possible you want to fall forward.

[11:25] Obviously you don’t want to fall at all if you can avoid it, but if you are going to fall or you think you might fall, always fall forward.
Falling forward is the way to go.
It’s very rare that when you fall forward you’re gonna hurt yourself because you have.

[11:42] A opportunity, especially if you’re wearing the right safety gear, you have the opportunity to catch yourself with your hands and your knees and,
hopefully not your elbows, but but that as well, but you know, you want to make sure that when you’re first skating that you know you keep your knees bent when you skate, you know bent knees are going to give you more balance and that gives you less chance of falling.
A lot of skaters. When I first I am teaching them how to skate, they kind of walk like a mummy, you know their legs are like super straight and they have no bend in their knees.
Uh for beginners, you should really over exaggerate it, like you should bend your knees like a good,
uh get down into almost like a little bit of a squad because that actually helps to center you on your skate and um keeps you from from leaning backwards.
We want when we’re skating, especially when we’re first starting out to,
bend down on our knees and bring our shoulders forward just a little bit so that we’re up over our skates because again if we’re going to fall, we want to fall forward, not backwards, so.

[12:55] Uh and when you feel shaky and every new beginner does and you think you’re going to fall,
one of the techniques that’s really great is tried to fall down back to that Football stance, that Tim Tebow one knee stance where you drop one knee down and if you’re,
if you’re wearing kneepads, this actually makes it really pretty easy because you can use that knee pad if you do have a little bit of speed to kind of to kind of slow you down.
Obviously the first thing you want to use is your toe stops, but if for whatever reason as you’re trying to use your toe stops and you’re trying to slow down, you feel like you’re gonna fall, try to as best you can drop down to that one knee.
Another thing that really helps when you’re doing that is you can actually put both your hands out to your side and so you basically make like a a.
T. Formation, you know, your body being the base of the tea and your two arms stretched out being, you know, being the cross across the T.
And that really will also help your balance as you drop down to one knee.

[14:05] Um So those are those are a couple of kind of beginner tips when you’re first getting started and um you know if you fall forward more because your speed is up,
then you’re going to probably wind up not being able to stop by just putting one knee down and you may start to try to do that, but then your body may start to turn as you fall.

[14:28] And so if that happens, you want to try to you know, land obviously kind of more on your side, on your elbow, shoulder, try to obviously you’re trying to protect your your head.
You know, hopefully for you beginners out there, if you listen to my last episode, you’re wearing a helmet,
and so you know, you want to use the places that your padded, you know, if you’ve got elbow pads and wrist guards and knee pads and a helmet,
those are the things that help your helmet should be the last thing to ever hit the ground just so you know, but you can use those things to kind of help brace,
your falls and try to use those areas.
Um if you are like my wife because she’s a beginner skater and I bought her padded shorts or as I like to call it a butt pad um then you can also use that because it’s super padded, like you can fall,
pretty much anywhere in the lower part of your body and it’s gonna,
those those padded shorts will protect your thighs and your gluteus maximus and you know, your your quads on the front and everything, they’re pretty thick.
So use your pads when you’re when you’re falling and that’s why you want to wear pads when you’re first learning how to escape, you know, you want to avoid.

[15:43] Though when you’re falling forward doing a superman, which is basically where like you fall down to your knees and then,
you miss your hands completely and you basically flop straight down onto the ground on your chest, right, because then you’re going to hit your chin and.

[16:00] Nothing good comes to that, you know, you’re going to wind up with road rash on your face or potentially, you know, a missing tooth, so you definitely, you know, don’t want to do that, you know, avoid falling face first.
And so this is why I kind of like when you are falling, if you’re falling too fast, kind of turning to one side as you fall is a great way to kind of avoid that,
Most of you when you’re first starting out shouldn’t really be going that fast, you should be trying to keep your speed down and really, really, really work on balance, that’s the most important thing.

[16:37] And so you’re gonna want to start off going slow and because of the slow speed, you know, you should be able to practice going down to that one knee and using your toe stops to stop very easily.
And so anyway, this is why you want to wear pads, especially when you’re first starting out because what we’re really trying to do for for beginners when they’re first learning how to skate, we’re trying to build your confidence.

[17:03] Because, you know, especially if you’re at a rink and this is why for some folks, I actually say like go practice in your garage or your basement if you live up north um because there’s nobody there and you know, it can be embarrassing when you fall down.
I mean, I used to get embarrassed when I fell when I was first learning how to skate even as a kid.
And so if you can practice kind of out of sight of everybody else for some of you, I know that can make all the difference because you don’t want to be embarrassed by falling.
Just realize that like everybody has started where you’re at, if you’re a beginner, every single intermediate skater listening to me is shaking their head, yep, I’ve been there like nobody comes out of the womb and just can skate,
like everybody learns at some point, maybe they learned when they were two years old and so they’re, you know, really amazing.
Other, others of us, you know, learn when we’re, you know, seven or eight like I did and then some of us don’t learn until we’re, you know, 78 and that’s okay too.
I think the most important thing is that you have fun.
And so obviously the less you fall, the more fun it will be.
And most importantly, I really think a lot of people stopped skating after they’ve tried it once or twice because they just, they lose confidence, they think I’m not good at this. I’m never going to be able to do this.

[18:25] I’m here to tell you, you can do it, you absolutely can do it.
I used to have pigeon toes as a kid, I don’t know if you guys know what that is, but that’s basically where your two ft point inward.
And so I used to trip over my feet all the time. Um I was one of those kids in elementary school that had to wear corrective shoes.
Um I didn’t have braces down my legs like forrest gump, but it wasn’t too far away from that.
And so my feet were pretty, pretty pointed in and when I first started roller skating, I still had that problem and so my skates would hit each other a lot.
But my dad still to this day says that skating was the best thing ever for fixing my pigeon toed feet,
because he said, you know, I didn’t have to buy those, correct those, they’re expensive, those expensive corrective shoes anymore.
He goes, instead, I just bought you really expensive roller skates.
And uh because we were artistic skaters and those skates actually, they do cost a lot of money.
And um but it it did it fixed that problem.
And so so anyway, you can do it if I can do it. I was pretty klutzy. Um I know you can do it too.

[19:40] So let’s talk a little bit and now that we’ve talked about falling down going forward, which is the ideal way to fall going forward,
let’s talk about the dreaded way, which is falling backwards,
and it’s going to happen, I’ve fallen backwards hundreds of times and,
mostly when I was an artistic skater because you just lose your balance, you know, you try to perform a axle or a double toe loop or something like that and you miss rotate it and you wind up falling backwards instead of forwards, it happens.
Um and so if you fall backwards, you’re almost certainly going to fall on your hands, your wrists, maybe your elbows, certainly your bottom, like you’re gonna hit your butt.
And um and so the worst part about falling backwards is it’s it can most often be the,
almost impossible, ah it’s almost impossible to control the fall as you’re falling backwards.
And so typically most beginners are falling backwards because they don’t have their knees bent.

[20:52] And so they’re standing straight legged and they’re standing potentially with their back straight as well and they’re leaning backwards and so then they lose their balance, their feet go forward.

[21:05] Towards their face and they fall back.
And so those are scary because um you may miss your bottom completely land on your back and hit your head.
And I’ve seen that so many times from beginner skaters at a rink that I used to work at when I was a kid seen it at the current rank that I skate at as well and um you know, and none of the adults have helmets on.
And that’s okay if you’re a good skater and you’ve skated before or you have really good balance and, but um, it can be really.

[21:37] I’ve had concussions before, They suck, they’re really they’re really not fun and so um yeah if you’re just starting out and you’re not sure about your balance, you need to put that helmet on.
Uh So skating at the rink and you know someone takes your feet out from under you.
I’ve had that happen a few times, not a lot because I’m usually pretty good at avoiding people but um sometimes you can’t avoid everything, you know people don’t usually come to the rink to take other people out at the feet,
but it happens and so that’s another way you can fall backwards and it’s actually how I’ve fallen backwards a few times over the last, you know, probably five or six years is because somebody came zooming around, lost their balance and took me out and I didn’t know they were coming.

[22:28] Um So it’s just harder to control backwards fall.
So you want to learn how to pull your arms in actually instead of falling with them flailing out.
And I know that may seem counterintuitive but you actually kind of want to land on your bottom, especially if you’re not wearing pads.
Um It can be actually really dangerous to to throw your arms down to try to brace your fall because if you don’t have a risk guard on.
And even with a wrist guard, this can still happen, you can actually hit your hands so hard on the ground that it actually can vibrate up your arm and,
it can actually shatter your elbow now that’s not common, it doesn’t happen, I’ve only seen it happen once or twice.
It’s never happened to me, but it can happen. And so typically when you fall backwards, you’re you want to land on your bottom if at all possible. And so.

[23:26] You know, you also want to try to turn your body just a little bit so you kind of land on one cheek or the other.
Uh especially if you maybe don’t have a lot of padding on your bottom, you know, if you’re maybe a skinny but your tailbone probably could hit the ground when you fall backwards.
And so that’s another reason why those padded shorts really help, they help prevent and ensure that you don’t damage your tailbone when you hit hit the ground.
And I have hurt my tailbone before falling.
I don’t have as much of a problem with that anymore because I’m a little bit big, little bit bigger now than I was when I was in my twenties and teenage years.
But um but anyway, that’s how you want to fall when you fall backwards if at all possible. Again, don’t fall backwards if you can avoid it, but sometimes you can’t.
So again, what are the tips here?
The tips to remember? Are that if you’re going to fall, try to fall forward right, and try to keep your knees bent when you’re skating and lean just a little bit forward.
Not, not crazy, not super exaggerated, right? Just a little bit, just you want to take basically though the weight of your body and just shift it a little bit forward when you’re skating.
Um This is this is for every skater, but especially for beginners as you get a little bit more intermediate, you know, it’s certainly advanced artistic skaters, you guys know what you’re doing already. Um so.

[24:53] Those are my basic tips on falling, never fun.
But so that some of the tips to remember that we just covered, you know, you want to try to get up when you’re when you’re when you’re falling, try to get up quickly.
Don’t sit around laying on the floor, Making snow angels on the roller rink floor a great way to have other people roll over your arms.
Um I’ve seen people just lay flat on the ground. That’s not good because somebody may not be paying attention, could roll right over your face.
Um I’ve seen so many multi skater accidents before because the person who fell, you know, I didn’t get up quick enough and so um so you want to.

[25:34] Around get up on two knees, put one leg, you know, do that lunge at football stance where you bring one leg up the one legged Neil and then you want to put your two hands down on your knee, push yourself up to two ft, then you’re ready to go.
You can start skating again and you know, the the biggest tip for me is really just if you need to put your hands on the ground, try to put your hands in front of you when you are getting up, don’t put your hands to the side.

[26:03] You could probably put your hands behind you.
But that probably isn’t going to really help you much um to try to get up from something. So put your hands down in front of you.
If you do have to put them on the floor.
Um And then when you’re falling down, you know, try to keep your knees bent to prevent falling down and then um you know no Tin man, no straight legs.
Um You want to you want uh you want to fall more like uh.

[26:34] You know forward if at all possible, you know, keep your knees bent and when you feel yourself unbalanced and you think you may fall forward, you can always go down to one knee,
especially if you’re wearing kneepads and if you’re going super fast and you hit somebody or you lose your balance and you fall.

[26:56] As you’re falling forward, try to turn just a little bit to one side or the other, so you don’t face plant or superman, that’s never any fun.
So ah but I want you guys to remember that, you know roller skating is fun and you don’t really fall that often, especially if you take it slow,
so like if you’re just starting out and you’re brand new.

[27:22] The first thing I tell people is like I was just having this conversation with my wife the other day because believe it or not roller skate dad skates pretty good, I think, I mean I’m not like insane, but I’m pretty decent.
My two girls are very good skaters, they’re in there,
late teens, early twenties and my wife who is a few years older than me used to skate when she was a child but hasn’t really skated since and as my kids were growing up,
that was kind of daddy daughter day was to go roller skating because my wife stayed home with our Children and while I was you know, programming for companies, computer programmer,
and um and so she never really came to the skating rink with us to skate,
and so I’ve been taking her to skate sessions with me from time to time here over the last year,
and I’ve been just trying to help her, you know, kind of learn how to,
how to get started skating and the thing I was just telling her actually a few weeks ago we went to an adult night and I said you know you just need to get used to having this weight on your feet,
like, you’re not used to walking around in skates, skates way more,
than tennis shoes do.
And so just getting used to the skates being on your feet is a big deal and you know, we’re going to cover some of these tips here coming up in the next few episodes, but I wanted to kinda tell you that, like, you know.

[28:51] Tightening your wheels up and making it to where they don’t roll as much or at all, which is what I did to her skates.
Um So she was just out on the floor, basically walking on her skates, but it really helps people because you get used to what it feels like to have this weight on your feet and to just get used to walking around in these skates.
So that’s actually a great way to practices. You know, if you’re at home and you just bought a brand new pair of skates and you’re not really sure about your balance.
I mean, you could tighten all your wheels down, especially if you have quads and just practice walking around on your carpet,
right or practice, go go in the backyard and walk around in the grass, even without your wheels tightened, you’re not going to roll.
And so just getting used to the feel of your skates on your feet makes a huge difference. Um.

[29:41] Then after that it’s about balance and some other things that we’ll talk about here in the next few episodes.
So the most important thing though is like you want to have fun and so if you guys listening to me who might be more intermediate or advanced skaters and maybe you’re teaching somebody that is a beginner.
The most important thing is to have a good time, because if you’re not, if you don’t have a good time,
you’re not gonna want to do it again, it’s it’s too much work, you know, you’d be like, oh, that’s supposed to be fun, everybody else is having fun, I’m not having fun and that sucks, like I don’t want that, I want you to have fun,
like, so that’s another reason to like do some of these other things like tighten your wheels and,
you know, to where they don’t roll or put in slow roll bearings,
because at least you’ll be out on the floor and you’ll be with everybody else and you’ll be having a good time, sure, you might not be the fastest skater out there, but if you can go slow and you can start slow.

[30:37] And you don’t hurt yourself and you know, they’re playing great music and everybody’s dancing, you’re having a good time with your friends or your family, you’re going to have fun and you’ll want to do it again,
and trust me over time, if you keep practicing, you keep going every couple of, you know, once or twice a week for, you know, several months, you’ll get good enough that you’ll be able to skate,
just like everybody else can, and you won’t need, you know, the pads and you won’t need the slow roll bearings or any of that stuff, so.

[31:07] You know, really try to focus as much as you can on balance, focus on trying not to fall if possible, obviously, no duh, you know, and after, you know, months of practice, especially for beginners,
you’re going to start skating without falls or bobbles, you might have a bobble every now and then I still do to um you know, if I’m tired or or haven’t skated in a while, you know, you can kind of hit the floor the first time might bobble a little bit.
Um so, you know, for me as a more advanced skater, you know, these days, I really only fall for three reasons, you know, I’m trying out something new, which I’m usually doing when I’m at a rink,
you know, like I’m practicing some jump for a spin,
and you know, I’m just not, I’m not good at it and you know, it can be frustrating because a lot of the stuff was things I used to be able to do when I was a teenager,
and, you know, I just can’t do it anymore and but I keep practicing it,
and so that’s why I try to do these new things that I’m trying to learn how to do, you know, certain jumps or spins, um or turns, you know, and I do them at a slow speed,
just like if you’re a beginner and you’re just now learning how to skate, you need to go at a slow speed to start.

[32:24] And so it just gives that slow speed gives you a lot more time to react and not hurt yourself. So don’t be um don’t be ashamed or embarrassed if you’re going like super slow, don’t worry about it.
You know the most important part is you’re trying and you’re trying to get out there and learn how to skate, learn how to do something new which is really great for your body, great for your brain.
Especially as we get older, learning new things is like super important.
And you know the second reason why the second reason why I usually fall is I’m being an idiot,
you know so you know I’m skating way too fast during an all skate which is when you’re supposed to skate normal,
and you know they come on the loudspeaker and they say hey everybody you need to be going nice and slow in the regular skating direction but they’re playing some awesome like Guns and Roses song or a C. D. C.
Speed skate song and I just want to go fast and so then I wind up running into somebody usually going the wrong way and it’s usually somebody with like escape mate.
Um you know these are those little white plastic trainers, I hate them there.
I’ve watched so many skaters get taken out by those things.

[33:43] We’ll save that for a different podcast episode though to talk about that.
Um you know and then the third reason why I usually fall is because somebody takes my legs out from under me.
Um And I didn’t see him or hear him coming. Um And you know this has only happened to me maybe, I don’t know three or four times in my life,
so it doesn’t happen very often for those of you maybe who are complete beginners and you haven’t even gone to a skating rink yet.
I don’t want you to think, oh my gosh, when you go to the skating rink, like everybody just kamikaze and takes you out, like that’s totally not what happens. Um.

[34:18] The intermediate and advanced skaters are very good at being able to identify the absolute beginners,
and the people who are like constantly losing their balance and they either do one of two things, they steer completely clear, as far away from you as they possibly can get or if they come over and they help,
so, you know, that’s typically what happens and you know, for the beginner skaters, most of you guys are going so slow that um,
you typically tend not to be a hazard to each other, where the hazards really come in is when the beginner skaters think they’re in intermediate skaters and they’re like, I’m just going to skate as fast as I can and they wind up taking somebody else out.
So, um you know, so I think the most important thing to understand about this is, you know, you want to start slow, you need to practice, it’s just like any other skill that you may be,
maybe you’ve tried to learn in your life, you know, you try to learn a new language, you try to learn a musical instrument, you try to learn some sport activity,
um it just takes a lot of practice, and um with just a few months of steady practice,
you’ll notice a vast improvement really quickly, actually.
Um so.

[35:40] I don’t want to I really want to reiterate that, you know, I don’t want to let all this talk about falling and getting back up, you know, keep you from roller skating.
Um so, like, I really want to make sure you get out there and you skate because that’s that’s the most important part.
Um and you know, just again, for your confidence, remember that,
we all start at the beginning, no matter what you’re learning, in this particular case, we’re talking about roller skating, everybody starts at the beginning, everybody stinks when they start something new.
And so, you know, it’s persistence time patients, you know, a desire to want to get good at it.
Um that’s what keeps you, that’s what takes you from being a beginner to a more advanced skater.

[36:28] Alright, everybody, I think that’s going to do it for this episode.
So now that, you know how to fall and you know how to get back up in the next episode, I’m gonna be covering all the different ways that you can stop on roller skates, roller blades, in line skates.
I actually already recorded a video of this.
It’s out on the website. It’s been out there for several months now, and I have like, I don’t know, 10 or 15 different ways to stop on roller skates.
Um so we’re going to go over some of that in the next episode.

[37:02] So, stay tuned for that. If you want more information about this podcast episode go to roller skate dad dot com slash 23,
On that page, I’ll have a transcription of this podcast episode, like I always do,
as well as any additional information about the episode and, you know, links to other interesting things that may help you out with this technique.

[37:30] Alright, everybody that’s gonna do it until next week. Get on out there and skate.

[37:36] Thank you for listening to the Roller skate dad podcast at www dot roller skate dad dot com.
If you liked what you heard today, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, google or wherever you’re listening.

Wrapping Up

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Want to Learn More About Skating?

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