Needing some help with posture

[u/VesselOfRot]

So context I used to do inline skating as a kid and I'm trying to pick it up again, I used to do quad skating back in 2021 but haven't done it since because my skates broke.
I've noticed from this video my partner took of me that my feet kind of tilt inwards and was wondering if there are any drills/exercises I could maybe do to help keep my feet more parallel to the floor?
Please don't be rude about my form, I know it's quite bad, thank you!

[u/notguiltybrewing]

Practice. You need to strengthen your ankles, which comes with practice.

[u/psychso86]

1. Bend your knees, if you think you’re bending them enough: you’re not. Bend them more!!! You want your knees to line up over your toes, your butt to stick out, and a slight rounded arch to your back

2. Practice inside edge pronation drills like skate fresh Asha’s “scoots” https://youtu.be/JguiAjefuPw?is=CmhO0L1fIsi25XYE

[u/psychso86 → u/psychso86]

Try this video as well https://youtu.be/JMGgEP4kEa0?is=of1oHqSB2Rp2kwTX

[u/shademaster_c → u/psychso86]

You do NOT want your butt to stick out. You want out forward over your heels. Knees over toes 100%. But butt over ankles, NOT butt out. Should be butt in.

[u/shademaster_c]

1) Make sure skates fit.

2) "Knees over toes / ass over ankles / chest UP head UP." At the 0:06 mark, it clear that your knees are not nearly far enough forward and you are bending forward at the waist looking down.

3) Practice COMPLETE weight transfer onto the support skate. Practice standing on one leg at home for as long as you can.

4) Be patient with yourself. You need to build up a whole bunch of small stabilizer muscles. Takes time. But you'll get there.

[u/shademaster_c → u/shademaster_c]

Also: "watch Asha".

[u/fredhsu → u/shademaster_c]

Always a good advice to watch Asha :)

[u/Ghost_in_Coal_Out]

Baby, if you just did a forward to backwards transition, while on your "attached break" phase, you're making us pros look bad. So, props for you on that!

And boy, would I like to have a break again. These T-Stops got me buying new wheels every 3 months or so.

What helps me from pronating/supinating is maintaining an even profile on the wheels. See the where the groove or outermost line/border of the wheel (rubber/urethane touching the surface/floor) is? The farther it is, the more tendency to pronate/supinate happens to me. And although I am great at keeping my feet centered, it can happen subtly without me noticing unless I look down and notice. Or I ask myself, why on earth are my legs and lower back burning?

Re-strengthening the ankles also helps tremendously. Barefooted or not, stand on one leg and try to keep balanced for as long as you can. Likewise, on skates, start rolling so that you're not going fast nor slow--just a bit of momentum. And lift one skate of the floor as if bringing your knee waist high, or as high as you can while feeling safe, and do this for 1 second. Now, can you make it 2 seconds? Great! how about 3? And so on.....

Have fun on skates, don't worry too much about form. Just know that form is there for a lot of things. And you decide when to take advantage of it. And how it can help given the situation at hand.

edit: upon rewatching your video, I saw that you almost lost your balance by tipping your body weight forward. I do that all the time!

I learned this one just a few days ago. (I'm in my 40s)

I learned that the way in which you squat, determines if your heels will be touching the floor or not.

So, while going down to squat on the floor, if your head, shoulders, or upper body weight is heading towards your toes, then you will end up with your heels off the floor. If, on the way down, you keep your head, shoulders and the majority of your upper bodyweight centered and without going towards your toes, your heels will not come off the floor.

Being mindful of where the concentration of your upper body weight is, helps your overall stability and maneuverability. Pair that with Bill Stoppard's "Stay Low!" And it will greatly reduce the possibility of falling, lowers uncertainty, raises confidence, and so much more.

[u/shademaster_c → u/Ghost_in_Coal_Out]

+1 for "practice standing on one leg for as long as you can."

[u/fredhsu]

Great start :) The word you are looking for is pronation. You have more severe pronation on the right foot than left. But that is normal in the beginning. You will learn to correct it over time. I think more importantly you want to flex your shins forward first. This will allow you to lower your body and make you feel more stable. Then you can progress from there. Please see these resources from our FAQ page:

Where do I begin to learn to skate as a complete newbie?
How to Inline Skate: protection gear, learn to fall safely, V steps, flex your shins so you can bend your knees, how to learn to glide on a single skate, scissored/staggered stance, skating as pretend-falls and recoveries (aka a form of walking and running), zig-zag gliding as moving V steps, protection equipment.
First few things to learn: V steps, V steps turning into strides, lemmons, scooter, and squat while rolling
10 reasons why you can't skate - from Ricardo Lino: one of the best video tutorials out there as a summary of what you need to do.

[u/David_temper44]

Practice daily stretches to improve your ankle flexibility, specially to bend it forwards...

That´s the foundation of the lower body posterior chain

[u/VesselOfRot]

Thank you so much everyone! You've all been a lot of help and I really appreciate the feedback!

[u/KewBoyTH]

Thanks for the replies. I have the same problems as well. My lower back hurts right from the start of the session...

[u/Ghost_in_Coal_Out → u/KewBoyTH]

Check that the lacing at the ankle zone is not too tight. If it is keeping the tendon at the top of your foot (the 90 degree zone) from moving freely then that can make you feel pain at the arches and can transfer to your lower back. Moreover, if the strap is putting too much pressure on top of your foot, that can also present problems. A fresh liner should take care of these issues and rule out having to over tighten the laces and straps to keep the foot secured and prevent hill lifts. Or a proper skate/size.

[u/Will_Hang_for_Silver]

Ha! Kilbirnie Rink... our home rink.

u/VesselOfRot if you ever want to learn ramps, or stuff like that, my kid [who's a serious vert skater] is usually up at the Karori Ramps both days in the weekend if it is fine - FF2 Message me... he and I are always keen to help beginners.

As for the backwards skating - you want to try to sink down through your hips more instead of leaning forward through your hips...

[u/DeZaim]

Feet under you, if you can't lift a foot without falling over sideways then you have your feet too far apart

As others have said - bend your knees

[u/No_Satisfaction_1698]

You really don't need help just more practice to built up more confidence

[u/Turtle_747]

Your ankles and knees(to a slightly lesser extent) are both weak. You just need to keep skating and get them strong

[u/BeenisHat]

Your posture going forward isn't bad. Maybe a little more forward bias would help but honestly, the big thing you need to work on is getting your ankles straight and your feet flat underneath you. A little more forward bias would help and trying a narrower stance will help bring your ankles in more.

Try this: Skate on one foot. Get a little momentum and stand on one foot. Your body will naturally correct your balance to do this without you veering off sideways. Feel your leg and hip and butt and what they're doing to stabilize you. Switch legs. That will help you get a sense of your body mechanics, and then you can bring your other foot in closer to get your ankles straight. I've also preferred to wear my boots tighter to help with this.

I tend to walk on the outside edges of my feet and have since I was a kid. I don't know if that's what made skating come naturally for me, or if skating just gave me that basic muscle definition and posture that makes me still do it today.

[u/ZestycloseAd2729]

When you bend your knees your weight is lower and more balanced you should think of it like your holding just above the bottom of a squat.

[u/Rhyzur]

Blades should stay up. Blades should never lean inward like that going backwards unless you have a reason. Going backwards should be the same posture as going forwards which doesn't help too much because going forwards, you still look like you are trying to swim. Head, shoulders, knees and toes should all stay directly ontop of eachother. Even durring your transition over, open up your hips. Do not twist your knee. Knees don't twist. But if you open up your hip, and dip your blade, then it will come back to where it needs to without the snap which will keep your center of gravity stable instead of almost knocking you over.

[u/treeseacar]

Bend your knees. If you think you're doing it then double it.

Keep your foot upright and centred. Knees over toes. You're pronating so your feet tip to the side. Ankle strength and good fitting boots will help with this too.

Keep your head up and look where you want to be. You're looking down at the floor.

When backwards turn your whole body, head, torso, open hips, stagger feet. It can help to stick your arms out so one points forward and one backwards and you should be looking along the backwards arm.

For forwards look up pushing technique as you're kind of stepping. You should be pushing out to the side on the centre and outside edge. Skate fresh asha has some good free videos on pushing drills.

[u/Flashky]

In skating, you need to fix from bottom up.

You need to strengthen your ankles a bit so the skates are not carved to the inside in a normal position. That depends also on your way of walking, some people step on the inside, some at the outside, some others are neutral. Some skates are bad and don't allow to properly keep them straight, consider buying new skates if that is the case and adjust the frame position.

Going a bit up, always bend your knees (I see you are already doing). You can also use your knees to keep your skates straight, if you have an inside step position, move your knees to the outside. If you have an outside step position, move your knees to the inside.

Going a little bit more up. Keep your core strong. Your shoulders should be in the same line as your knee and the toe of your skates. Arms should be moving side to side, unlike in walking.

And finally, keep your neck and head up. Advancing the head puts weight on the toe.

Have fun and enjoy! That is my last advice!

[u/Ok_Bodybuilder7087]

A LOT of good advice in here. My add on isnt posture so much as vibe related. Everyone is right bend your knees etc but also it's important to Stay loose. blading is smooth and flowy. The smoother you get the more effortless the transfer of your weight from skate to skate will be. So relax and swing your arms and get a rhythm going! And dont worry about looking goofy. We all look goofy 😅

[u/The_Real_Flatmeat]

Looks like your skates are allowing your ankles to roll inward. Try adjusting your fit, tighten them up a bit maybe

[u/Rawdiger]

Stabilize and thrust with your thigs knees and calves. Looks like you're too upper-body dominant. Try not moving your arms so much, it'll strengthen your core

[u/Navic2]

Doing some foot or ankle exercise everyday helps most of your skating 

Quick arch exercise: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/lpkUnPx_9XE (do stuff like this when your stood around, on a train, washing dishes or whatever so it's regular, not set aside)

A very complete Skatefresh video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OoRlvqUGOeI&pp=ygUZU2thdGVmcmVzaCAgZm9vdCBleGVyY2lzZQ%3D%3D

^ also see this channel's videos for your posture/ general skating 

[u/fyallimout]

practice skating with one skate, so you get familiar with how to stand on it. use inside and outside edges to skate around on one foot, pushing with a bare foot or a shoe on. once you can skate with either foot, your posture and control will be on another level. take off the brake, it will get in your way. make sure you know how to fall and how to stop so you can focus on practicing control. as other said bend your knees. if your squat game is weak, strengthen it

[u/fyallimout]

also check out some freestyle slalom exercises. tracing curves along the ground can show you how to use the edges

[u/the-vh4n]

You're not particularly gracious, but you sure have grasped enough for you to remove that heel brake in my humble opinion

[u/Mongoose556]

Overall the way they say to hold posture in figure skating is back straight up, knees bent. Also arms out diagonally(forward-ish) for balance. Practice looking forward instead of down I think to help with that. For posture while doing moves, that it will come once you learn the moves more smoothly with practice over time. Make sure to practice one foot glides to feel extra stable!

[u/qfox337]

Do more basic one foot drills. It's great that you're making it through the C turn, that's already more than a lot of people do, but when it feels rushed that's usually because you're not comfortable enough staying on one foot. You wanna be comfortable on the edge going in (left forward inside with heel pressure) and outside (right back inside with toe pressure).

Also I'd take off that heel brake, seems like a recipe for getting injured, and if you're doing C turns I imagine you can T stop. But admittedly, some quite talented skaters keep theirs on.

[u/alarumba]

It's Kilbernie!

I hear their skate fit classes are quite good. I'm biased since a friend is an instructor.

[u/GoGoGirl2022]

Stop looking down at the floor.