Ever want to get down low to the ground while on roller skates, but you don’t know how to do it? Here’s how to do what we call “squats.”

Before you get down low on roller skates, we need to get down in our shoes.

  • Keep your feet apart slightly with your toes pointed straight ahead.
  • Stretch your arms straight in front of you like Frankenstein’s Monster.
  • Start bending your knees, but make sure as you bend you keep your arms parallel to the floor.
  • The deeper you bend the more you need to stretch forward maintaining parallel arms to the floor and your body centered over your feet.
  • Come back up and then try to do 20 of these. If you were able to do 20, go put on your skates.
  • Start in the carpeted area with your skates on and try those squats again, going up and down while maintaining that stretch forward, keeping your rear end down, pressing your chest to your knees. After you have successfully done this a few times try it again on the skating surface.
  • Once you have performed the squats on and off the floor, try it with a roll.
  • Do a few steps.
  • Bring your feet next to each other with toes pointing straight ahead.
  • Ride the roll and start to squat.
  • Do not reach back or lean back, keep that stretch straight ahead squeezing chest to your knees and pressing your rear end down.
  • You may want to squeeze your arms around knees to assist like you’re doing a cannon ball into a swimming pool. If you fall backwards it means the stretch forward wasn’t strong enough.

After doing this a few times, you should get the hang of it. Don’t get discouraged. Everyone progresses at different speeds, so just keep plugging away it. Once you learn how to squat, you can learn how to shoot the duck, which we’ll go over at a future time. Make sure to check with your local skating centers for classes to help improve your skating.