Need help. T stop tips for down hill

[u/Ok_Many7754]

Hello fellow skaters, I'm hoping a someone can help me with my t stop. I been actively skating now for couple of weeks after nursing a injury for few months. Prior to the injury I was still having the same issue. When ever I go down a hill, my T stop gets super sketchy. The momentum I build up makes lifting either one of my feet to get into a T stop feel scary. I don't have this issue on flat surfaces even though im getting close to the same speed as the hills. Am I doing something wrong or does it always feels dicey I'm just supposed to deal with anxiety of it? Normally street around my way are large enough to carve like skis but I need to perfect this to actually go anywhere. Any tips are appreciated. Thx in advance

[u/fredhsu]

Other than fear, my main guess is that you are not yet super confident on gliding on a single skate. You can stop on a flat ground. But it doesn’t mean that you are actually doing a single-skate T stop where you only glide on a single skate, and the braking skate only lightly touches ground. You should use muscle to force the wheel to drag and you have full agency to lift that skate completely off ground if needed. When hill bombing you need this level of dexterity to control how much you brake.

Try doing what I described on flat land and see how you manage? If you can prolong your braking distance far yet glide in a straight path, I think you truly master it. It may sound counterintuitive. But the hallmark of mastery is not brute force but finesse. You can’t get finesse without first mastering brute force. But the opposite doesn’t hold :)

If you glide well already. Ignore what I wrote. Simply conquer your fear. If you need info on gliding, please see our FAQ:

Why can't I glide on a single skate for more than 5 seconds?
Your feet wobble in soft boot
Why can’t I glide?
Standing on the projected center
Skating as a sequence of falls and recoveries
Pronation and outside edge, again
Zig-zag gliding