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By Kathy McSparran
Beginner on inside edges "Get on your outside edges." You may have heard this piece of skate wisdom a million times but still find it hard to to manage, let alone understand. But we're going to change all that right now. For starters, here's a way to understand it: Your wheels can be considered to have three "edges" — the top, inside and outside. The top (or center) edge is the one that hits the ground when your skate is straight up and down. The inside edge is the one that hits the ground when your skate is angled away from the opposite foot (see photo, right). The outside edge is the one that hits the ground when your skate is angled toward the opposite foot (see photo, below). "Get on your outside edges" doesn't mean that you should always be on the outside edges of your skates. (That would be impossible.) It means that you should land each skate, after each push, on its outside edge. Doing this provides all kinds of benefits. It lengthens your push, thus giving you more power. It improves your control and maneuverability. And it eliminates a lot of ankle blistering and bruising. So how do you learn how to do it?
Racer on outside edge Start by focusing your attention on where you set down your feet in relation to your body. When we first learn to skate, we naturally assume a wide stance, like a linebacker's. We do this because it feels stable. But as we become more comfortable on skates, our stance naturally narrows. Once we are landing our feet directly under our hips, we are skating on our center, or top, edges. That's good. But we can do better. The next step is to concentrate on landing each foot closer and closer to the centerline of the body. A way to visualize this is to imagine yourself skating on a straight chalk line and concentrating on landing the wheels of each skate as close as possible to the line and eventually landing them directly on top of it. (You can practice this using a lane marker on a street. Just don't get run over!)
Once you're landing on the centerline (imaginary or not), you've found your outside edges. You coudn't be anywhere else (unless you're ankles turn out) due to the way our legs hinge from our wide-slung hips. You're doing great. But don't stop there. Take it a little further by working to bring your wheels down on the far side of the centerline. That will give you an even more effective stroke. If you find this difficult, don't get discouraged. It takes a lot of practice. Just be patient and remember to have fun. ... Pretty soon, you too will be telling all the newbies to "Get on your outside edges!" ...
Related reading: • Skate Tip of the Week Archive
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