Tag Archives: how to inline skate

Inline skating as rhythmic falls and recoveries

Posted on May 8, 2022 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

Some of us argue that skating consists of repeated cycles of falls and recoveries. Specifically, a skater deliberately moves her upper body such that shifted center of gravity causes her to “fall”. During this fall, she continues to glide on one skate. But at the same time she moves her other skate, the free skate, towards the projection on the ground of her shifting center of gravity, with the aim to recover from the fall by planting the free skate onto the new projected center of gravity. The process now repeats, with the free skate becoming the gliding skate.

If this fall and recovery sound like walking… well, it is walking, but with a special skating gait. In the sequence shown, the skater leans to the left while gliding on his left skate. He is about to fall to the left, but during the fall he moves his right skate, the free skate, over to his left side. He catches his balance at the last second, by planting his right skate on the projection of his shifted center of gravity. Continue reading →

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How to Inline Skate

Posted on April 24, 2022 by Xinhai Dude 辛亥生

Since the pandemic of 2019, I’ve been regularly inline skating at Eisenhower Park after work. In these last two years, I’ve seen a large number of new skaters show up with a box of new skates at the park. They put on their new inline skates, and struggled around for a while. Most tried to walk around the rink by holding onto handrails at the outermost track. The brave tried to skate and fall. Very few approached me to ask for advise.

So a large number of first-time newbies showed up every week. But I almost never saw them a second time. Perhaps they went to a new park to skate. Perhaps they didn’t hang out around the rink after getting their footing, so to speak. But I suspect that a majority of them gave up.

This article is for those who attempt to learn to inline skate. This article is what I wished someone had written for me, when I was just learning to skate. Continue reading →

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