Turning on skates is an important skill to master in order to avoid hazards in front of you. Learn how to turn on skates properly from a rollerblading coach in this skating video.
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Patrick Eaves has been an avid in-line skater since the late 1980's and has taught the sport both in the United States and in Costa Rica.
Hi, this is Patrick Eaves. And today, we're going to talk a little bit about how to turn on your inline skates. So there's a few different things you can turn. To start out in the beginning, the way you're going to turn is you're going to go to your ready position. Once you already have some forward momentum going and you're going to look into the direction that you're going to turn, keep your body straight over your skates and you want to push on the opposite leg of the direction you want to go. So if I want to turn right, I'm actually going to be pushing on my left leg. I'm going to transfer a little bit of my weight to the inside leg, and I'm going to bend my knee on my inside leg. This will allow my outside leg to swing around and initiate the turn, basically like that. You can see my weight is over on this leg. This leg I'm pushing against. Okay, now in the second kind of turn, this is a little bit faster return but is also a little less stable. So you want to be really careful when you're doing this turn. Practice it. Slowly make sure you have a coach or an inline instructor there to help you along the way. But basically what's going to happen is instead of keeping your skates forward as you're moving along, you're going slowly move one skate forward and the other skate backwards, and you're going to pretend you're holding a box. So you're in your ready position. You're going to move to this position. Go ahead and grab your box. Look into the direction you're going to turn and then slowly move the box into that direction, keeping your shoulders and everything straight with that box. As your body turns and you lean on that forward skate, you'll eventually going to turn. It's important to make sure you look where you're going to turn and move that box with you as you turn. The final turn is going to be what we call crossovers. This again is going to be an even tighter turn than that last turn, and basically what it's going to do is you're going to be able cut corners faster. You're going to keep your forward momentum going because you're actually skating through the turn. So basically what a crossover looks like is you're in your normal glide. You're going to step with your forward foot over your front skate. Now, if you're turning left, your right foot is going to be in front. If you're turning right, your left foot is going to be in front. Remember, contact your local inline skating coach or instructor or local specialty skate shop to get lessons and someone can help you one on one be a safe skater. Good luck and get out there.
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