Hi, this is Patrick Eaves. And in this video, we're going to talk about how to stop on your inline skates. Let's talk about a few different ways that you can learn to stop. The first way that a lot of beginners will start out with is what's called the plow. Now, if you've ever been snow skiing, you've probably used this to stop too, as beginners in snow skiing use the snow plow. So basically, what the plow is you're going to bring your toes. You're going to push them together. Remember, you're going to have your knees bent, and you're also going to bring your knees together. When you come together in this motion, it's going to slow you down. This maneuver is not really that effective if you're going very fast; but for slow skating and skating around the rink, this is a great way to start. Another very beginner maneuver for stopping is using your heel stops. What you're going to do is put one skate slightly in front of you while the other skate remains slightly behind you. In this example, your weight is still going to be straight up and down, basically distributed evenly between the skates, and pushing right down in the middle between the two skates. So it's going to look something like this. Your front foot is going to be your braking foot. So basically what you do to activate that heel stop is just lift your toe up on your front foot and pushing down on your heel. That's going to engage that heel stop. Now, you don't want it to be too radical of a maneuver. It just takes just a little bit to kind of bleed off speed. Okay, one last way I'm going to show you how to stop. This is a little bit more of an advanced maneuver. Again, it's going to cause some instability because you're going to be lifting one of your feet and going on to one foot momentarily. So again, practicing being on one skate is really important. So basically what's going to be happening is you're going to be skating along. When you're ready to stop, you're going to transfer your weight partially to one foot; with the other foot, you're going to lift it up, bring it straight behind the skate that you've put your weight on; and basically, what you're going to be doing is dragging your wheels. Now, your feet should make a perfect "T" and that means perfectly perpendicular. If I put this skate a little bit forward, it would form an exact right angle. Now, if you had your skate at a little bit of an angle forward, let's say a 45-degree angle instead of a 90-degree angle, what's going to happen is that's going to cause you to turn. So to slow down, you have to make sure that you have that skate perfectly in the shape of a "T." And remember, the best thing you can do is to find a local inline skating coach to help you learn all these maneuvers safely. Good luck and have fun.
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