SKATE TIP OF THE WEEK
Inline secrets from the world's top skaters and coaches

This week's tip:

Finding Your Edges

By Kathy McSparran
July 6, 2007

"Get on your outside edges."

You've heard it a hundred times, so what does it mean?

The first thing you need to understand is the concept of "edges."

Skate wheels may look round, but they are said to have three "edges" — the top edge, the inside edge and outside edge.

• 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, above).
• 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 lots of benefits. It lengthens your push, thus giving you more power. It improves your stability and maneuverability. And it eliminates a lot of ankle blistering and bruising.

So how do you learn how to do it?

Start by focusing your attention on where you set down your feet in relation to your body. When you learn to skate, you naturally assume a wide stance, like a linebacker's.

You do this because it feels stable. But as you become more comfortable on skates, your stance naturally narrows.

Once you are landing your feet directly under our hips, you are skating on your center, or top, edges.

That's good. But you 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 your wheels directly on top of the line. (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.

Once you've found your outside edges, take it a little further. Work on bringing your wheels down on the far side of the centerline. That will give you an even more effective stroke.

Don't get discouraged if you find this difficult. It takes time. Just be patient and remember to have fun. ... Pretty soon, it will be you telling the newbies to "get on your outside edges."

...

Kathy McSparran is director of the Phoenix Inline skate school and writes the Inline Planet's Skate Coach column. She holds holds five IISA teaching certifications: Level 1 (Beginners & Advanced Beginners), Level 2 (Intermediates & Advanced Intermediates), BladeFitnessTM, Freestyle Dance and Fitness Inline Trainer.

• Kathy's Skate Coach archive

Related reading:

• Skate Tip of the Week Archive
• Beginners Guide to Outdoor Racing
• Beginners Guide to Inline Skating