Such a great video and explanation! This is what I do on my weak leg, skating backwards all the time! I couldn't recommend your course How To Skate: Advance Level enough. The lesson Secrets to Advanced Backwards Skating is the best I've seen out there to be able to skate backwards fluently! It is fantastic to learn to glide in 1 leg with both legs!
Well done You for taking on the challenge and actually DOING the content in that "Secrets to backwards skating" lesson in the Advanced course. It was one of my biggest "head pop" moments when after years of correcting advanced skaters' backwards I realised they all had the same fundamentals missing, the ability to glide on each leg backwards in various different positions. This led me to bring my students back to these fundamental skills which looked so easy but are in fact very difficult to execute correctly. But once you can, it opens up almost ANY skill involving some backwards in it. There's no short cuts I'm afraid but the path of filling in all the gaps is really satisfying (hopefully). Keep up your good work.
@@SkatefreshVideos Thank you! Skating backwards as fluently as possible (always a work in progress) opened me to my beloved Slalom! I absolutely love Slalom, which helps me improve my overall skating skills.
You caught me right at my skill level today. My backwards skating is built from hockey as a youngster. I have control going backwards, but no variety. I've been looking to up my finesse while skating backwards. Your notes are always so very helpful.
Love some good timing! Sounds like you really could do with striding backwards like I showed at the beginning of the video. However, you may have seen it already it but I did a tutorial on backwards striding which I think you could gain a lot from. This kind of intermediate and advanced backwards striding is HARD because it generates speed quite easily and this is then where the body (at some individual speed level) will say "too fast" and begin to be uncomfortable. Training near that edge is going to help you a lot. th-cam.com/video/zFAO_kQbXJo/w-d-xo.html&t
@@SkatefreshVideos You weren't kidding about the extra speed. I have put a 'backwards skating island' in my morning skate sessions. I've been using it to force transitions and backwards skating every few minutes for my morning hour long session . Today, I started to apply this advice, and it's too fast for my little island. I get 3 strides before needing to round the corner. Time to find a flat (difficult in a mountain town) open stretch where I can practice. A bigger island or the like. Thanks for all the videos.
Perfect practice makes perfect execution, or perfect habits. Thank you for all your years of coaching and teaching. Very grateful to learn from the best.
Yes it really does matter WHAT you do and if you can't do the thing, whatever it is you want to skate, then you must practice the individual steps to get there. I don't think there's a short cut that's worthwhile.
I consider Asha one of the best if not the best inline skates training instructor. I've watched and keep watching such videos on YT. One thing I notice is how easy it looks on film. I have had to keep practicing each and every move over and over before it clicks. Once I get the hang of it, every move becomes effortlessly easy. With all due respect, may I say that I think this one looks akin to "what comes first - chicken or egg" situation. I'm wondering 🤔 could the reason why you are able to do the tap tap with your lead leg effortlessly is because you already are competent in doing the one foot backwards glide in the first place?
What a great question. Comparing my ability to back scissor and tap with your ability to do it (or anyone else's) isn't the most productive route to go down. I've been on wheels since I was 10 years old and I'm now 51. I can scissor and tap and also balance on one leg so the scissor feels uber easy. But an upper intermediate skater doing this kind of backwards balance work, can try and balance on one leg over and over and over, but the success rate will be random and occasionally there will be a sideways overbalance outside edge stumble and the balance will never hold for long. In truth the fundamental place this 1 leg balance gets learned is in the back scissor weight in trailing leg. It has to "click" here, where you feel that support leg holding you up AND you can steer and control your direction. From here it's then a semi straight line upwards to weight bare more and more on that skate to allow taps and then longer taps and then 1 leg glide.... Neither journey gives a short quick result. But the later one does almost guarantee (if you do it correctly) success at the 1 leg glide. But as you correctly confirmed, it does take TIME. So the magic I think is really being IN the journey. We have to become satisfied with tiny increments of improvements that come from being very mindful and "in your body". Then this kind of progressive practice becomes a joyous experience of "getting better all the time". That's my idea anyway.
Glad it was helpful! Let us know here how you go with actually doing some of those progressions. There’s a bunch in there and each one can feel like a huge shift in difficulty. Should make one realise what a tricky thing it is to roll backwards on one skate…. Feels good tho.
@@SkatefreshVideos Update: I put in a few hours today and my balance has increased. I can hold my dominate leg (right) for about 5 or 6 more seconds on average. My left remains around 4 seconds. My outside forward to backwards transitions are really where that lesson is helping though. I have been actively trying to exit the transition on one leg (right side) and hold for 3 to 4 seconds. I wasn't able to do this before so your video most definitely helped. Thank you again, I recently self taught myself the outside transition into backward crossover about 2 weeks ago and it pretty much opened up Pandora's box of all sorts of flow skating combinations. Thank you again of course Asha, you're videos are always insightful. I look forward to your next educational video.
Doing any skate moves off skates is really useful practice. standing in a backwards one foot glide position barefoot or in sports shoes and holding it will help you notice that with the bent knee you're standing on, that knee will be making micro-adjustments in and out in order to stay balanced on one foot. Thos micro-movements need to become very controlled and conscious as when on skates they are what creates your conscious steering and controlling your edge so you remain on the centre edge. You'll also feel the muscles tire quickly and can build strength by trying to stay there for 10, 20, 30 seconds. Then change and notice the differences on the other leg! I can sympathise with the weather getting bad. It's hard to skate less in winter.
@@SkatefreshVideos As I mentioned a couple months ago in another post to one of your great videos, I JUST literally bought your intermediate lesson bundle about 10 minutes ago. I figure I would like the exercise instruction as well. I tried to purchase a while ago but my bank was blocking certain areas overseas, so i had to contact them to allow purchase. "I am with you in spirit. Imagine I’m skating beside you, encouraging your efforts and always watching your knees." Comforting thought. :) Working on my muscle memory from 22 years ago. I was a regular/frequent skater for most of my childhood, teen and early adult life into my early 30's. I cannot believe the things I used to do on both quads and later inlines. Now at 55, I cannot imagine doing most of that stuff simply because things will probably break. HA!! I definitely feel it in my whole body as I work on getting my skills back and "skating muscles" into shape. Skating forward, carving and brake stops all were pretty much there on day 1, though very sloppy, not anywhere near anything resembling grace and nothing attractive or flattering about my movements, though I have improved over time I am glad I am not doing this in public yet. Balance has come back, so some progress is being made. Cross overs, backward skating power slides, power stops etc are works in progress for sure. Wearing the pads is something I got used to because i never wore any of that stuff before and it is a good thing. I am no longer that child of the 70's where such things "were not cool". It looks like the intermediate courses will be exactly what I need to progress to learn and definitely relearn everything in my skate journey. I am going to be doing this until my body will not allow me. I look forward to more of your videos and will enjoy your instruction. Happy Holidays!! EDIT** Micro adjustments... i have finally got past the irritation and stiffness of the micro adjustments in my feet and my lower leg muslces on the sides of my shins and down. I was reminded of that on my first 12 hours of so on my skates. I thought it would be great to go back in time to the first time I felt that. Oh to be young again. :) :)
@@SkatefreshVideos I already tried it on my trail skate yesterday! After trying the drill a few times, I could already tell my normal backward skating (which is shaky at best on trails) was better! THANK YOU! Super helpful!
@@SkatefreshVideos I don't doubt that this is the case! You make it look so easy. Thank you for sharing the theory. It's up to us to put in the practice.
@SkatefreshVideos If your videos didn't exist, i wouldn't know skating like at this time. You are my role model. I adore skating and exchange experiences about that
It's one of my favourites "Happiness is a Skate of Mind". I made it for Skatefresh's 20th birthday in 2020 but it's still available (if you're looking for a xmas present to ask a relative to get you hahahaha). skatefreshtshirts.teemill.com/product/happiness-is-a-skate-of-mind-mens/
@julianpenfold1638 Body upright ish is a good idea and get each part to turn and twist, hips, trunk, shoulders, neck, head. If you lean forwards too much from the waist you sacrifice turn which means crappy visuals…. The good slalomers stay pretty upright and their legs do crazy things right?
@@SkatefreshVideos Well indeed the need to look back, which entails trunk rotation, is what makes backwards harder. The difference between my good side and bad side looking back is just ridiculous. Lots to work on!
@@julianpenfold1638 Oh me too! When I force myself to do back crossovers & crossunders looking over my weaker shoulder it just feels so.....unnatural. I have tot think, I have to bring my speed down and I try to do some drills with some repetition so my body "settles in" to the movement. I realise I have literally weaker oblique ab muscles on that side. But that's the only way to make it stronger (and less weird). Recently did a very windy skate and into the wind I decided to do simple backwards striding on my weak side. Next day the sides of my torso ached like I'd lifted in the gym!
@@SkatefreshVideos Yup, obliques weaker on one side for me too, also I think less mobility in the neck and torso in that direction. Also too much anti clockwise rink skating means I have not put the miles in looking over my weaker side, with the consequence that it just feels odd. When outdoors I try to do the weak side all the time.
Such a great video and explanation! This is what I do on my weak leg, skating backwards all the time!
I couldn't recommend your course How To Skate: Advance Level enough. The lesson Secrets to Advanced Backwards Skating is the best I've seen out there to be able to skate backwards fluently! It is fantastic to learn to glide in 1 leg with both legs!
Well done You for taking on the challenge and actually DOING the content in that "Secrets to backwards skating" lesson in the Advanced course. It was one of my biggest "head pop" moments when after years of correcting advanced skaters' backwards I realised they all had the same fundamentals missing, the ability to glide on each leg backwards in various different positions. This led me to bring my students back to these fundamental skills which looked so easy but are in fact very difficult to execute correctly. But once you can, it opens up almost ANY skill involving some backwards in it. There's no short cuts I'm afraid but the path of filling in all the gaps is really satisfying (hopefully). Keep up your good work.
@@SkatefreshVideos Thank you! Skating backwards as fluently as possible (always a work in progress) opened me to my beloved Slalom! I absolutely love Slalom, which helps me improve my overall skating skills.
You caught me right at my skill level today. My backwards skating is built from hockey as a youngster. I have control going backwards, but no variety. I've been looking to up my finesse while skating backwards. Your notes are always so very helpful.
Love some good timing! Sounds like you really could do with striding backwards like I showed at the beginning of the video. However, you may have seen it already it but I did a tutorial on backwards striding which I think you could gain a lot from. This kind of intermediate and advanced backwards striding is HARD because it generates speed quite easily and this is then where the body (at some individual speed level) will say "too fast" and begin to be uncomfortable. Training near that edge is going to help you a lot.
th-cam.com/video/zFAO_kQbXJo/w-d-xo.html&t
@@SkatefreshVideos You weren't kidding about the extra speed. I have put a 'backwards skating island' in my morning skate sessions. I've been using it to force transitions and backwards skating every few minutes for my morning hour long session . Today, I started to apply this advice, and it's too fast for my little island. I get 3 strides before needing to round the corner.
Time to find a flat (difficult in a mountain town) open stretch where I can practice. A bigger island or the like.
Thanks for all the videos.
Perfect practice makes perfect execution, or perfect habits. Thank you for all your years of coaching and teaching. Very grateful to learn from the best.
Yes it really does matter WHAT you do and if you can't do the thing, whatever it is you want to skate, then you must practice the individual steps to get there. I don't think there's a short cut that's worthwhile.
I consider Asha one of the best if not the best inline skates training instructor. I've watched and keep watching such videos on YT. One thing I notice is how easy it looks on film. I have had to keep practicing each and every move over and over before it clicks. Once I get the hang of it, every move becomes effortlessly easy.
With all due respect, may I say that I think this one looks akin to "what comes first - chicken or egg" situation. I'm wondering 🤔 could the reason why you are able to do the tap tap with your lead leg effortlessly is because you already are competent in doing the one foot backwards glide in the first place?
What a great question. Comparing my ability to back scissor and tap with your ability to do it (or anyone else's) isn't the most productive route to go down. I've been on wheels since I was 10 years old and I'm now 51. I can scissor and tap and also balance on one leg so the scissor feels uber easy. But an upper intermediate skater doing this kind of backwards balance work, can try and balance on one leg over and over and over, but the success rate will be random and occasionally there will be a sideways overbalance outside edge stumble and the balance will never hold for long. In truth the fundamental place this 1 leg balance gets learned is in the back scissor weight in trailing leg. It has to "click" here, where you feel that support leg holding you up AND you can steer and control your direction. From here it's then a semi straight line upwards to weight bare more and more on that skate to allow taps and then longer taps and then 1 leg glide....
Neither journey gives a short quick result. But the later one does almost guarantee (if you do it correctly) success at the 1 leg glide. But as you correctly confirmed, it does take TIME. So the magic I think is really being IN the journey. We have to become satisfied with tiny increments of improvements that come from being very mindful and "in your body". Then this kind of progressive practice becomes a joyous experience of "getting better all the time". That's my idea anyway.
Your videos always motivate me to keep practicing. 😊
I'm so glad! That’s my intent. It’s all about good practice of the right movements.
Thank you, Asha. This was actually what I needed to prepare for 1 foot transitions.
Glad it was helpful! Let us know here how you go with actually doing some of those progressions. There’s a bunch in there and each one can feel like a huge shift in difficulty. Should make one realise what a tricky thing it is to roll backwards on one skate…. Feels good tho.
@@SkatefreshVideos Update: I put in a few hours today and my balance has increased. I can hold my dominate leg (right) for about 5 or 6 more seconds on average. My left remains around 4 seconds. My outside forward to backwards transitions are really where that lesson is helping though. I have been actively trying to exit the transition on one leg (right side) and hold for 3 to 4 seconds. I wasn't able to do this before so your video most definitely helped. Thank you again, I recently self taught myself the outside transition into backward crossover about 2 weeks ago and it pretty much opened up Pandora's box of all sorts of flow skating combinations. Thank you again of course Asha, you're videos are always insightful. I look forward to your next educational video.
Thank you!! Going to practice this in the gym. Due to wintery, rainy, wet, windy weather, I am restricted to a racquet ball court.
Doing any skate moves off skates is really useful practice. standing in a backwards one foot glide position barefoot or in sports shoes and holding it will help you notice that with the bent knee you're standing on, that knee will be making micro-adjustments in and out in order to stay balanced on one foot. Thos micro-movements need to become very controlled and conscious as when on skates they are what creates your conscious steering and controlling your edge so you remain on the centre edge. You'll also feel the muscles tire quickly and can build strength by trying to stay there for 10, 20, 30 seconds. Then change and notice the differences on the other leg!
I can sympathise with the weather getting bad. It's hard to skate less in winter.
@@SkatefreshVideos As I mentioned a couple months ago in another post to one of your great videos, I JUST literally bought your intermediate lesson bundle about 10 minutes ago. I figure I would like the exercise instruction as well. I tried to purchase a while ago but my bank was blocking certain areas overseas, so i had to contact them to allow purchase.
"I am with you in spirit. Imagine I’m skating beside you, encouraging your efforts and always watching your knees." Comforting thought. :)
Working on my muscle memory from 22 years ago. I was a regular/frequent skater for most of my childhood, teen and early adult life into my early 30's. I cannot believe the things I used to do on both quads and later inlines. Now at 55, I cannot imagine doing most of that stuff simply because things will probably break. HA!! I definitely feel it in my whole body as I work on getting my skills back and "skating muscles" into shape.
Skating forward, carving and brake stops all were pretty much there on day 1, though very sloppy, not anywhere near anything resembling grace and nothing attractive or flattering about my movements, though I have improved over time I am glad I am not doing this in public yet. Balance has come back, so some progress is being made.
Cross overs, backward skating power slides, power stops etc are works in progress for sure. Wearing the pads is something I got used to because i never wore any of that stuff before and it is a good thing. I am no longer that child of the 70's where such things "were not cool".
It looks like the intermediate courses will be exactly what I need to progress to learn and definitely relearn everything in my skate journey. I am going to be doing this until my body will not allow me. I look forward to more of your videos and will enjoy your instruction. Happy Holidays!!
EDIT** Micro adjustments... i have finally got past the irritation and stiffness of the micro adjustments in my feet and my lower leg muslces on the sides of my shins and down. I was reminded of that on my first 12 hours of so on my skates. I thought it would be great to go back in time to the first time I felt that. Oh to be young again. :) :)
Fabulous video, as always! Thank you so much!
Glad you enjoyed it! Will you try and do the drills shown or was it more of an entertainment watch?
@@SkatefreshVideos I already tried it on my trail skate yesterday! After trying the drill a few times, I could already tell my normal backward skating (which is shaky at best on trails) was better! THANK YOU! Super helpful!
Thanks for your work. Greetings from Poland
It's my pleasure. I hear the skate scene in Poland is really happening. I;d love to visit one day...
Great advice. Thanks.
Let me know if you take it and try any of the drills. They're harder than they look I think.
@@SkatefreshVideos I don't doubt that this is the case! You make it look so easy. Thank you for sharing the theory. It's up to us to put in the practice.
i wanna apologise you because of bad comments. dont get angry. you skate incredibly nice
Not to worry. I don't remember the comment now. It's all good. Thank you or your apologise, very sweet.
@SkatefreshVideos If your videos didn't exist, i wouldn't know skating like at this time. You are my role model. I adore skating and exchange experiences about that
bad comments about what?
Always keep this in mind
"you will never see a hater doing better than you"
@@someonelsy did you think: by hate isn't being achieved anything?
Thanks again for the great video. Can you do one on cross unders skating backwards?
Or if there is already a video, please direct me to it
I like that shirt.
It's one of my favourites "Happiness is a Skate of Mind". I made it for Skatefresh's 20th birthday in 2020 but it's still available (if you're looking for a xmas present to ask a relative to get you hahahaha).
skatefreshtshirts.teemill.com/product/happiness-is-a-skate-of-mind-mens/
Is posture important? Any recommendations for upper body position - head, chest, shoulders?
@julianpenfold1638 Body upright ish is a good idea and get each part to turn and twist, hips, trunk, shoulders, neck, head. If you lean forwards too much from the waist you sacrifice turn which means crappy visuals…. The good slalomers stay pretty upright and their legs do crazy things right?
@@SkatefreshVideos Well indeed the need to look back, which entails trunk rotation, is what makes backwards harder. The difference between my good side and bad side looking back is just ridiculous. Lots to work on!
@@julianpenfold1638 Oh me too! When I force myself to do back crossovers & crossunders looking over my weaker shoulder it just feels so.....unnatural. I have tot think, I have to bring my speed down and I try to do some drills with some repetition so my body "settles in" to the movement. I realise I have literally weaker oblique ab muscles on that side. But that's the only way to make it stronger (and less weird). Recently did a very windy skate and into the wind I decided to do simple backwards striding on my weak side. Next day the sides of my torso ached like I'd lifted in the gym!
@@SkatefreshVideos Yup, obliques weaker on one side for me too, also I think less mobility in the neck and torso in that direction. Also too much anti clockwise rink skating means I have not put the miles in looking over my weaker side, with the consequence that it just feels odd. When outdoors I try to do the weak side all the time.