How To Stop On Skates

Hi! I'm Stuart Thomas, I'm here at Roller City and I'm going to teach you how to roller skate. So, now I'm going to teach you how to stop on skates. We're going to cover T-stops, hockey tops, backwards hockey stops and non-stoppers going backwards.

We're going to start with the easiest one, the T-stop and the having your feet in the T position push off and put the foot back down. Good if you're going forwards not the quickest stop in the world but it's one of the easiest. Skating forwards, on to one foot, second foot behind you, and slowly you drag it behind.

Keeping your feet flat is the key to it; you put four wheels on the floor, don't drag one foot behind because you will find that you will just injure your ankle and probably jam up your wheels slightly. The best thing to do is to keep that foot completely flat, pick a point of where you want to stop and as you get near it slowly push that foot back down keeping all your weight on your front foot. Use your back foot with the muscle pushing it in to the second foot.

Try not to catch the back of your second skate because that can also trip you over. Once you've got momentum going, on to one foot, second foot keep it nice and flat dragging it behind you, all four wheels on the floor. Now I'm going to show you a T-stop when you are going fast.

We are going to pick a spot where we are going to stop and I'm going to stop it at that. As you can see it takes quite a distance trying to stop going quite fast using a t-stop. I will show you a hockey stop which will shorten the distance hopefully before you get to a wall or a person.

With a hockey stop it's much quicker because you are using a much tighter space. What you need to do is plant one foot in a position and throws the second foot out kicking the heel. Don't put too much weight on to this foot unless you fall over; just keep all your weight on your back foot using your second foot as a guide to stop like a brake.

Let me show you. It's the same again I'll pick a position of where I want to stop, get my momentum up, pick a point where I want to plant this foot, flick the second foot out, that should cut down the area of where you want to stop hopefully before you crash into anything. I'll show you again.

So you've got momentum going, you're going to plant your foot and stop. Flicking that heel should give you a little bit more grip and it also makes a good noise. Now I'll show you how to do a front hockey stop with a backwards hockey stop.

Same idea but with your outside foot instead of flicking it going forwards into yourself, you're doing it keeping your foot out. Same again, pick a position of where you want to stop. When you're going backwards you will be looking one at one of your shoulders probably and you will probably find it easier to flick outwards than it is to try flick the opposite way that you are going.

Same again, plant the same foot and throw the other foot back out. So when you are skating backwards you are going to plant this foot flick out the second foot. Almost like an ice skater would cutting in to the floor, cutting in and keeping all four wheels flat which will make you brake a lot quicker.

Let me show you again, a lot faster. And that's how to stop on skates.