A Wise Athlete Sport and education. Both.
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The base at home, the sport at a club

Roller skating at home

Skates, a helmet and pads, and a flat, smooth, traffic-free surface; a rink and a coach for each kind of skating.

1 cards at home 6 for a park or court 1 for the club

What should we practise today?

Tell us where you are and who is playing. You get one card and the reason.

Where are you?
Who is playing?

Start a session

New to roller skating? The game in a minute

Read this once before the first card.
The sport in short

Skating on boots with wheels: quad skates have four wheels in two pairs, inline skates have their wheels in one line. Everyone starts with the same base: standing, falling safely, gliding, stopping and turning.

The kinds of skating

Speed skating is racing round a track, and the first across the line wins. Artistic skating is jumps, spins and dances to music, judged for difficulty and quality. Roller hockey is a team game with sticks and goals. Roller derby is a team race on an oval track where one skater on each team, the jammer, scores by passing opponents. There is also skating in skateparks.

Rules children break first
  • Helmet, wrist guards, knee pads and elbow pads every time.
  • Fall forward onto the pads, not backward.
  • Everyone skates the same way round a loop.
  • Only skate where there is no traffic, on a dry, smooth surface.
At home you start on a smooth, safe surface

Standing up and falling, gliding and stopping, skating round a loop, then backward skating, crossovers, changing direction and stopping at speed.

Words you will hear (18, in plain language)
Quad skates
Skates with four wheels in two pairs, or with the wheels in one line.
Toe stop
The rubber stopper at the front of quad skates, or the brake at the back of an inline skate.
Helmet
The protective gear worn every time.
V stance
Standing with the heels together and the toes apart.
Glide
Rolling along without pushing.
Stride
Pushing one skate out to the side to move forward.
Heel stop
Sliding the brake skate forward, toes up, and pressing the heel brake down.
Plough stop
Feet wide, toes turned in, heels pushed out to slow down.
T-stop
Dragging the back skate behind at a right angle, like the letter T.
Lemons
Moving by pushing the feet apart and pulling them together, making a lemon shape.
Crossover
On a curve, stepping the outer foot over in front of the inner foot.
Transition
Turning from skating forward to skating backward, or back again, while moving.
One-foot glide
Rolling along on one skate.
Crouch
Skating with the knees deeply bent and the body low.
Slalom
Skating a zigzag round a line of cones.
Loop
The circuit skated round; a rink is a hall or court made for skating.
Pack
In speed skating and derby, the group of skaters; in derby, the jammer is the skater who scores.
Edges
The inside and outside of the wheels, used to curve and turn.

Try it, nothing to buy

Mark the space once. Every card starts from it.

The cards, level by level

Nobody is late. A beginner of any age starts at Basic.
Basic 3 cards · show· hide Familiarisation (safety, equipment, contact with the skates, how to stand up and fall down), then standing, gliding, stopping and skating forward around the rink.

Move on when the child meets the self-checks on b1 to b3.

Intermediate 4 cards · show· hide Backward skating, the crossover turn, forward-to-backward transitions (and back), a one-foot glide for 5 seconds, a crouched cart position and a lap in 20 seconds. Stops, safe falls, backward skating, crossovers and transitions come before any contact skating such as roller derby.

Move on when the child can do the test items without falling.

Advanced 1 cards · show· hide A fast efficient stride and pack skating for speed, jumps and spins for artistic, derby and hockey skills. Each kind of skating has its own club programme.

Teaching this at home

Movement, safety and the words at home. The sport itself needs water, a boat, a horse or a coach.

You do not need to know the sport. Each card tells you where to stand, what to say and what to look at. Pick one thing to say in a session and say only that. The first week looks messy; that is normal. End every session on one that works.

Cards marked At a club are taught by a coach. They tell you what the coach teaches, what is safe at home, and what to ask the club before your child joins.

How to warm up before playing is at workonfitness.com. The rules of the game are at sportsmaze.com.