How to stop inline skate – INTERMEDIATE LEVEL
ADVANCED RUNOUTS:
Skating off pavement onto grass. You can weave from pavement to grass and back to pavement to control your speed, especially when going downhill. To stop completely just stay on the grass.
As you hit the grass, knees are kept bent, and one foot is ahead of the other. Nearly all weight is distributed on the foot that will hit the grass first, and you keep that leg real stiff, as if plowing a path for the trailing leg to follow. Very little weight is on the trailing leg. Muscles in the trailing leg are relaxed. The only function of the trailing leg is stability and balance. The leading leg does most of the work.
Beginners are often intimidated by this procedure, but it is really a very simple physical feat. The hard part, if any, is simply understanding mentally what it is you are trying to do, as I explained.
This is a lot of fun, too. I like to hit the grass full speed, and then skate as far down a slope as possible before the grass stops me.
One important requirement is that the ground should be dry. Wet dirt or grass will clog your wheels and your skates will also sink into mud (yuck).
(REGULAR) SPINOUTS/LUNGE STOP:
This is where you skate into a spin to transfer your linear momentum into angular momentum. To do this, you sort of stop-n-hold one skate at an angle to act as the pivot foot and the other traces a circle around it (and you). It may help to think of having each skate trace concentric circles, with the pivot skate tracing the much smaller inner one. The pivot skate will be turning on its outside edge, while the outer skate will be on its inside edge.
SPREAD EAGLE SPINOUTS:
A spinout with your skates in a bent spread eagle position (i.e., heels pointed towards each other, skates at slightly less than 180 degrees). There is no pivot foot here, instead both your skates trace the arc.
There are inside and outside spread eagles, where you skate on both inside or both outside edges. The above paragraph describes the inside spread eagle.
A sustained outside spread eagle is more of an artistic skating move than a practical stop, although I use it occasionally to stop on flat surfaces.
NOTE that all types of spinouts require a fair amount of room. Your forward motion is quite suddenly changed to angular motion so I’d recommend this mainly for low traffic areas where you won’t have people running into you from behind when you do the spinout.
CROSSOVER STOP:
This stop works both forwards and backwards at higher speeds. I call this the crossover stop because your feet are held in the position of a spread-out crossover. In this stop, you’re going to be arcing to one side. The harder and sharper you turn, the faster you stop. If you tend to trip on your skates, spread your skates farther apart (forwards-backwards).
The braking pressure comes from the turn. The harder you press with the outer edge of your back skate, the faster you stop. So if you’re turning left, your right skate is in front, the left skate is almost right behind it (so that all your wheels are in line). Press on the outer edge of your left skate (your back skate) and on the inner edge of your right skate.
There is also the inverted crossover stop where your feet positions are reversed: so you turn left with your left foot forward and right foot back (and vice versa for right turns). Watch ice hockey players just after play has stopped. More often than not, the circle around in the inverted crossover position.
Both crossover stops are good for high speed stops but make sure you have plenty of open space.
SLALOMING/PARALLEL TURNS:
For skiers, this maps over very nicely. This is more of a speed control technique rather than a stop, but it’s very useful to know. Explaining slalom turns can take an entire book in itself, so I will merely suggest that you find a skier or a ski book to show you how.
One way to practice this is to find a nice gentle slope with plenty of space at the bottom, set up cones in a line, and weave through the cones.
WIND-BRAKING:
Wind-braking is more for speed-control than outright stopping (although on windy days, wind-braking can stop you). Just stand up, spread your arms out and catch the air like a sail. You’ll probably need to lean forwards slightly, to counter the force of the wind.
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