How To Skate Backwards

Hi! I'm Stuart Thomas, I'm here at Roller City and I'm going to teach you how to roller skate. So I'm going to show you how to skate backwards. With your basic steps, were going to start with the snake.

Toes in, heels out, push your heels out and back in , heels out, back in. once you've got this motion going you can then lean as you take around corners and obstacles. Try practicing it both ways as well because you are going to need to change directions whichever way you go.

Once you've got this motion going you can then start to lift your feet up when you go around corners. It will make you cut corners better and faster. As you are going on an inside circle you can lift this foot up and into the middle and then back out.

You will find that you are almost pulling inside of the rink towards you which will then help you turn corners much faster. Once you've got this you can then do the same but push out going the opposite way, which will then give you much faster responses going around corners. Once you've got that going you can then put your own style and your own techniques into it.

You will find that once you start going backwards, everybody does it differently. Some people prefer to go out looking over this shoulder. Some people prefer to look in into the rink and cut his foot in.

so it's the same again your bringing it inside the ring towards you. I prefer to do it cutting outwards, you're still going the same way but you need to look further over your shoulder. Whatever you find easier it's always best to practice what you prefer doing, same with going the opposite way around and pull the rink in towards you or you can cut outwards.

Effectively I prefer to cut inwards. Going in a straight line, you can shift your weight between both feet, and you'll find you'll pick up speed quicker going backwards in a straight line by crossing them over. And that's the basic principle of skating backwards.