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Artistic Skating Skills
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Finding Your Skating Style – Part 2: Balance, Posture, and Alignment
Class Outline week of 04/8- 04/10/25
Welcome back to our series, “Finding Your Skating Style.” This week, we focus on the fundamental trio of balance, posture, and alignment—key ingredients for mastering any roller skating discipline.
Skate and Surface: Where It All Begins
Understanding balance starts at the point of contact between your skates and the skating surface—the wheels. Wheels dictate traction or slide, depending on your skating style and surface conditions. Floor conditions can influence everything from posture to knee bend, impacting the depth of your edges and the steadiness of your turns. Truck action further shapes your body’s weight distribution and alignment, essential for fluid edges in dance skating.
Equipment Meets Posture
Skating boots play a pivotal role in posture and balance. Artistic skate boots, with their elevated Cuban heels, shift your center of balance forward, requiring a counterbalance in your shoulders, back, and knee bend. Meanwhile, speed skates favor a low racer stance with bent knees and a forward lean. Choosing the right equipment for your skating discipline is a foundational step in developing your style.
Exploring Skating Disciplines
Roller skating offers diverse disciplines, each with its unique equipment needs:
- Artistic: Includes fundamentals, traditional figure skating, and contemporary styles like Rhythm and Jam. This style of skating requires a higher-cut boot for ankle support, a higher heel, and an adjustable truck action for control and maneuverability.
- Speed: For both quad and inline skates. Requires low cut boots for maximum articulation of the forward-lean from the knees and a low heel to facilitate a crouched racing position.
- Derby & Hockey: Intense and competitive skating forms. Requires a more modified boot height and heel to make quick stops and changes of direction easier.
- The balance, posture and alignment for each of these skating disciplines is different, but the skating fundamentals for all are effectively the same.
- At Artistic Skating, we specialize in Artistic disciplines, encompassing dance (traditional and modern), freestyle/pairs, school figures, and group performances. Although our focus is on those particular skill sets, our goal is to equip skaters with foundational skills that support all skating styles.
- The Next Step in Your Journey
- Whether you’re new to skating or a seasoned pro, revisiting fundamentals like balance, posture, and alignment is always valuable. Once you’ve honed basic skills, you can dive into a discipline that resonates with your personality and ambitions. If Artistic Skating speaks to your love of flow, musicality, and technical skill, you’re in for an exciting journey ahead!
- Practice and Progress
- Mastery begins with understanding the principles of how your body interacts with your skates and the surface. Regular practice in balance, posture, and alignment ensures smoother progress and greater enjoyment of the sport. Whether you’re starting fresh or fine-tuning your style, there’s always room to grow in the artistry of roller skating.
Keep on rolling!
~Coach Linda
Want to practice what we covered in class? Download your class notes PDF and keep working on these new skills. You’ve got this!
GrooveSk8 I
GrooveSk8 II
Artistic Expressions I
Artistic Expressions II
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Rolling Together: Partner Skating Unlocked!
Class Summary week of 03/18 – 03/20/25:
Are you ready to roll into the next level of skating fun? This week, we’re taking your skills to the floor with partner skating! Don’t worry—you’re more than ready for the challenge. Let’s lace up and dive in!
- GrooveSk8 2: Get ready for some silky smooth moves as we wrap up the St. Louis Ballroom—a stylish, slinky, and oh-so-sexy partner skating style. This dance offers endless possibilities with its diverse positions, patterns, and moves. Special guest Rob Nordstrom will guide us through the intricacies and help us team up on the floor. Plus, we’ll spice things up by trying some open-position forward/backward partnering for turning and swing-style skating.
- GrooveSk8 1: Time to polish those strolling and cruising skills! Remember the two-step we learned last month? That’s just one of the dances we’ll be doing tandem, and these moves will prep you for forward partner skating in various arm positions. Keep your movements tight and smooth, and you’ll be rewarded with the joy of skating together to mid-to-slow tempo tunes. Picture this: the lights low, the disco ball spinning—it’s pure magic!
- Artistic Expressions: This week, we’re elevating your dance skating to new heights. The Advanced group will explore traditional partner dance positions like Side B (Kilian position on ice) and the Closed (aka Waltz) position. We’ll practice these in circle exercises, mastering the corner steps of the Collegiate while refining our rotational skills. Meanwhile, Artistic Expressions 1 will focus on stroking drills in three side-by-side positions, honing precision footwork and impeccable body alignment. Keep those feet in close, and try not to look down!
Mastering these skills will not only boost your confidence but also open the door to endless fun and creativity on the rink. With every glide, turn, and partner move, you’ll find new ways to connect, express yourself, and truly enjoy the magic of skating!
See you on the skating floor!
~Coach Linda
Want to practice what we covered in class? Download your class notes PDF and keep working on these new skills. You’ve got this!
Not a member yet? Join our skating community to access full class notes, practice guides, and more!
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“Turn-Turn-Turn” into Better Skating Turns!
Class Summary week of 03/11 – 03/13/25:
Get ready to pivot into something spectacular! This week, we’re diving into the art of turns (aka “transitions”). We’ll be working on mastering 2-foot turns like the slalom turn, the “C” turn, and the “S” turn—covering transitions from forward to backward and backward to forward.
- Tuesday GrooveSk8 I & II: Let’s apply what we’ve learned in Downtown and St. Louis Ballroom! We’ll refine those 2-foot turns with proper technique to make every move smoother and more stylish.
- Artistic Expressions Groups: We’ll take a deep dive into the mechanics of turning. Together, we’ll work on shoulder rotation, tighter skate placement, and fun exercises to sharpen your skills. Plus, we’ll bring these techniques to life with exciting new dance steps from the Southland Swing and Collegiate. For an extra challenge, we’ll even partner up to explore how keeping your feet close can transform your turns into showstoppers.
Whether you’re spinning solo or turning with a partner, this week is all about elevating your skating finesse with confidence and flair
~Coach Linda
Want to practice what we covered in class? Download your class notes PDF and keep working on these new skills. You’ve got this!
Not a member yet? Join our skating community to access full class notes, practice guides, and more!
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