I’ve always felt that one aspect of V-Steps is widely misunderstood, or simply overlooked: they’re performed largely on outside edges. This quality alone makes V-Steps an excellent tool for learning to glide for sustained periods on a single skate. That’s a hallmark skill that unlocks many other basic skating skills, including the T-Stop and Crossover.
This article is a collection of slow-motion videos that show you how to get there starting with humble V-Steps, which many skaters mistakenly dismiss as nothing more than a beginner’s exercise.
This collection builds on my first collection, which covers proper skating postures and falling techniques. See that article for my notes on normal-speed versus slow-motion playback, as well as instructions for downloading the videos so you can step through the clips forward and backward using your mouse scroll wheel for in-depth analysis.
For me, slow-motion videos are a way to understand and learn skating moves. I watch them over and over, imitate the movements physically, and keep going back and forth between observation and practice until the movements begin to make sense. This is how I learn, and perhaps it’s how you learn, too.
You’ll find more articles focused on slow-motion analysis here.
From V-Steps to gliding on a single skate
V-Steps are the best way to learn to skate. But they don’t feel natural at first. Left to their own devices, most beginners will try to “skate” as if they were walking in shoes, moving their two skates back and forth in a parallel II shape.
This II-shaped skate-walking is dangerous because the wheels can roll out from under an unstable beginner. This is largely because inline skating wheels grip the pavement only when pushed sideways. But that’s a topic for later. For now, just remember that we don’t move both skates back and forth. In general, we glide on one skate while pushing, or striding, outward with the other.
Without proper coaching, beginners who attempt these strides often develop a conspicuous pronation and learn to “shuffle” on skates. This is a popular topic online, and many video tutorials teach people how to correct the pronation habits they have developed this way. Beginners who shuffle with pronation finds it almost impossible to learn to glide on a single skate, a basic skill required for many, if not most, inline skating moves.
Beginners can leapfrog all these problems by starting with V-Steps on day one. See this section and this section of How to Inline Skate for details and YouTube tutorials. You already know how to practice on grass from my first slow-motion video collection. So go practice V-Steps on grass first, then come back.
The following slow-motion video demonstrates how V-Steps on pavement build good skating habits and naturally lead to effortless gliding on a single skate.
I started by walking in a V-shaped formation. I didn’t feel stable, and unlike on grass, my wheels rolled easily. I then crouched into a better Squatting Posture, which gave me much better stability. But this tired my leg muscles, so I rested both hands on my thighs. This not only reduced muscle tension but also gave me additional stability.
As I gained confidence with V-Steps, I began taking bigger and bigger steps. As a result, my skates glided for longer and longer distances.
Slow steps on outside edges
Start your journey with V-Steps by taking very slow steps, as shown in the following video. Pay attention to how I lift one skate and move it forward while maintaining a V angle relative to the skate that remains on the ground. Also notice how I keep the heel of the moving skate, also known as the “free skate”, very close to the other skate. Keep thinking about the letter V as you walk: maintain that V angle and keep the two skates close together.
As a side note, look at how I tilt the free skate just before setting it down. I tilt it so that its wheels contact the pavement on their outside edges. This tilt follows naturally from the orientation of your lower leg, so beginners don’t usually need to know about it or consciously control it when practicing V-Steps. I’m pointing it out here so I can refer to the “outside edge” in the sections and videos that follow.
V-Steps are one of the most effective ways to condition your body to stand on outside edges. To step in a V shape, your knees must pivot outward. This posture makes it much harder for your skates to pronate and land on their inside edges as you step forward. For more information about outside edge and pronation, see this section and the article How To Inline Skate.
Bigger steps lead to gliding
Watch the following video showing V-Steps turning into gentle glides. I started with conservative V-Steps, but soon began taking bigger steps, setting each free skate down farther ahead of the skate on the ground.
As I increase the stepping distance, my upper body leans farther forward with each step to counterbalance the skate left behind. This forward lean nudges the free skate I just set down into rolling forward. That skate, now in motion, becomes the new “gliding skate”. As I take more steps, I keep their length in check so that I remain comfortable with the amount of rolling each step induces. Towards the end, I returned to small steps to reduce rolling to prepare to come to a stop.
V-Steps habituate your whole body to cope with gliding on outside edges. And I mean the whole body, not just the feet and legs.
In general, to stand and glide on a single skate’s outside edge, your upper body must lean toward the opposite side from the free skate. If your free skate is the left skate, for example, your upper body will usually need to lean right, further than the gliding right skate. This can be a difficult mental barrier for beginners to overcome, because any noticeable body lean can trigger an instinctive sense of danger.
With V-Steps, however, these alarm bells don’t go off as you begin gliding on outside edges. Your brain doesn’t need to consciously figure out how to counterbalance. When you set your free right skate down on the pavement to become the next gliding skate, your body automatically leans both forward and to the right, thanks to the V-shaped footwork and outward-pivoting knees. Your brain simply interprets this movement as a forward lunge at roughly 45 degrees. No panic is necessary, and your balance is maintained naturally.
Small, fast-paced V-Step Gliding
Once you are no longer afraid to glide, however briefly, on a single skate while doing V-Steps, you can start increasing your gliding speed. One way to do this is to continue taking big V-Steps, but at a faster pace, as shown in the following video.
As you pick up the pace, you may notice one or both of two changes in your body movement. First, the skate being left behind at each step starts to look more like it’s pushing sideways, a movement also known as “striding”. But at this stage, you are not consciously pushing your skates outward. At least, I haven’t asked you to do that.
This striding is actually a consequence of the second change: your body gently lunges forward at a 45-degree angle, bringing the free skate forward at an increasingly faster pace. What looks like striding is, in my interpretation, the current gliding skate bracing against the pavement. This anchor allows the rest of your body to lean forward and bring the free skate around to the front. Watch the slow-motion video again, and notice how the upper body lunges first, in the opposite direction from the apparent striding that follows.
You see, the boundary between stepping, or walking, and gliding, or skating, is a blurry one. I argue that they are all the same: just rhythmic pretend-falls and recoveries.
Long, slow-paced Zig-Zag Gliding
Believe it or not, you can increase your gliding speed using a different strategy, almost the opposite of the previous approach, Small, Fast-Paced V-Step Gliding. I argue that this new strategy is much more efficient and teaches you to glide for considerably longer on a single skate’s outside edge. Mastering this hallmark skill opens the door to a plethora of next-level skills, such as the Parallel Turn and T-Stop.
Watch the following slow-motion video. I call this technique Zig-Zag Gliding, and once you watch the video, the name should be obvious. Start with V-Steps, but make each step not just long, but extremely long, perhaps 15-feet long. Each step then takes more than three seconds, allowing you to glide for more than three seconds on the outside edge of each skate. Each of these long, slow steps requires a substantial transfer of energy to keep you moving and build up speed over the course of the glide.
To glide for so long, you must deeply lunge your upper body toward a spot roughly 15 feet away at a 45-degree angle with each step. At this point, we can probably call each step a “stride”. But again, I want to emphasize that this has little to do with consciously “pushing” and everything to do with bracing your wheels for a deep forward lunge. Rewatch the video and notice how the body lunges well before you perceive any signs of striding.
There are further changes in your body movement compared with fast-paced gliding. Rewatch the video and notice how much more your upper body bobs up and down during this slow-paced gliding.
I’ve already mentioned the deep forward lunge, which converts your muscular work into kinetic energy. The bobbing is the second component to the this lunge. Note when my head reaches its highest point and when it drops to its lowest between steps. You’ll find that my upper body is lowest whenever a skate lands on the pavement and highest between successive landings.
So the lunge propels my upper body not only forward but also upward, requiring additional muscular work. Some of that energy is converted into kinetic energy, too. This movement is reminiscent of the “pumping” technique skaters use on pump tracks.
Here is another take on Zig-Zag Gliding before we wrap up this article. You will find more information about Zig-Zag Gliding here and here.
Always keep in mind these key points:
- Even beginner V-Steps are performed on outside edges.
- Notice the body lean, shin flexion, and ankle bending.
- Watch how you bring the free skate back to the front while keeping its heel close to the gliding skate.
- Never forget to toe out to maintain that V-shape.
- And finally, if you want to glide effortlessly and obliviously, lunge sideways at a 45-degree angle with every step.
Last updated: 2026-11-01