Let’s begin by addressing some questions related to your inline or roller skating practice: How many hours per week do you dedicate to your inline or roller skating practice? Do you have a specific weekly time goal for your wheels? Are you able to skate more frequently during weekends? Do you commit to participating in local urban group skates, or do you prefer skating in your neighborhood park or along a seafront promenade? Are you primarily focused on fitness, aiming to increase your skating distance and speed? What types of skating activities do you engage in while using inline or roller s ..read more

If you are about to face your first skating winter, then welcome! You are a true skater if colder weather hasn’t put you off. There are some advantages to skating through the winter, namely most skate spaces are much quieter without the summer crowds and this allows for more SPACE to those who remain. Imagine having better quality practice time in winter. Colder temperatures mean we tend to keep moving in winter, stop and chat a bit less and ultimately are more focussed on our skating. Imagine emerging in the spring a different, more accomplished, confident skater? Inline skating in winter can ..read more

Learning to inline skate without a heel brake is NOT the best way to become a good skater quickly. “What are you doing skating with that brake? Take it off, it doesn’t work, it’ll only get in the way.” This (and other versions of this) are the mantra and industry norm in terms of whether inline skaters should wear heel brakes or not. Almost all of the skate channels, gurus, manufacturers, your friends and people in the inline skate community believe this. That the heel brake hinders progress, gets in the way and stops people learning the cooler stops.  This is outdated and bad advice. Rem ..read more

Feeling stuck & feeling frustrated with slow progress in your skating? When adults start skating (on rollerblades or roller skates) there’s a HUGE variation in rates of progress from one person to another. We can say that new adult skaters fall into one of 3 categories when they begin to skate; average learner, slow learner and fast learner. Which one will depend on many factors such as; Previous exposure to skating (eg as a child or when they were younger). Have they skied before? Do they do other sports? How physically active they are? How much fear they have around falling? How fit the ..read more

February 2023 Flight time 10h 23 Time difference 8h Waking up in my lovely room in San Jose, the local time is 4am. One glance at the clock tells me to go back to sleep, no jet lag allowed if the skating doesn’t start till 7pm! The Aloha Rink in Eastridge has got quite a following. It attracts a varied group of skaters of all abilities,  and offers public sessions as well as dance classes. The highlight of the week is the Rhythm skate night on a Thursday and I absolutely have to be there! The second time I wake up it’s 7am. Time to grab a quick breakfast in the lounge, before goi ..read more

Have you ever practiced a skill for several weeks or even months and STILL not been able to do it Many people experience this with many new skills they want to learn. If practice did make perfect, then no one would struggle with new skills after some ‘practice’. I see a lot of time being wasted by skaters ‘practicing’. But practice is good, right? We all need to practice, otherwise we won’t progress? Well…. it completely depends on WHAT YOU ARE PRACTICING. No one is talking about what differentiates between ‘good practice’ and ‘trying it over & over’. I see the majority of skaters mak ..read more

Back in 2005 I started teaching Mark to skate at age 57. His doctor had told him to get some aerobic exercise and to lose weight and he was scared because his father died at age 60 of heart disease. All his life he had always wanted to skate but never had. He hated running and saw skating as his only chance of exercise he might enjoy. But he was terrified. He had already had two lessons with two other non-Skatefresh instructors who both told him he couldn’t skate and shouldn’t pursue it.  He hadn’t managed to skate in those two lessons without grabbing the instructor or shaking uncontro ..read more

I recently received this question from a student using the Skatefresh Beginner Online Course. I think so many wish they’d asked this question but  “heel brake shaming” is still so prevalent it’s probably why they didn’t ask. “I want to become very skilled at urban skating for personal reasons. I live in an area with very steep slopes so I haven’t ventured on an urban skate yet. I want to have a very solid stop and be comfortable going up and down curbs first. I have been practicing the heel brake since day one and I feel like I can brake almost as well as I would on a bike ..read more

Wizard skating is the new name given to a style of freestyle skating popularised by Canadian aggressive skater @LeonBasin and his friends from @Mushroomblading. They came out of the skate park and started using “flat ground” for tricks, transitions, jumps and flowing sequences of footwork. (For a thorough history of Leon’s journey and the origins of Wizard skating, check out the video link at the end of this Blog) Leon designed the first wizard frame with a slight rocker (plus variable frame lengths & wheel options), to facilitate the manoeuvrability of the wizard footwork. This new “genre ..read more

“When I started to skate aged 69, I think my friends and family were as surprised as I was that I could. I only heard encouraging things from them, along with amazed laughter: those who felt otherwise didn’t say anything.” – Edwina (now 74) This kind of reaction is not surprising given the daredevil nature of strapping wheels to your feet. The common belief that you “learn from falling over” puts off many people (of any age) who have an inkling they might want to try skating. And this leaves just the truly brave ones who ignore the doubts that ‘50/60/70 year olds shouldn’t start skating’ and d ..read more