skateinstructor.com

Beginners starting and stopping drop in session

2008-10-28T13:50:00Z

Almost everyone feels nervous and apprehensive when they first put on a pair of Rollerblade's.We specialise in putting you at ease and getting you skating quickly as well as having loads of fun at the same time!

If you are a beginner and can't stand up on your skates yet, if you can't stop, or if you are a more advanced skater and want to learn some cool stuff, you have come to the right place to learn.

Beginner starting and stopping group Rollerblade skate lessons are great way to give you the kick start and confidence you need in the beginning.

The sessions take place at The Royal Albert Memorial each Sunday at 1pm and cost just £15 per person.

Private Rollerblade skate lessons prices and discount packages

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No need to book, just come along. As long as the ground is dry it will be taking place.

You can also attend a follow on lesson to this lesson each Sunday at 2.30pm which covers turning and how to get on and off kerbs safely for also just £15 person.

You will, as with all of our lessons and courses need to make sure that you have knee, wrist and elbow pads as well as a helmet to attend this class. If you don't have all of these you can buy or rent them from The Club Blue Room skate shop at Marble Arch.

Please feel free to call Mark on 07753-489669 or email if you have any questions.

Related links.

Rollerblade Bootcamp

Book a private Rollerblade Skate lesson

Health benefits of inline skating

Why take Rollerblade Skate lessons

Our instructors

Safty policy

Rollerblade Beginner Bootcamp

2008-10-16T14:31:38Z

If you've never skated before or if you're a bit rusty this is a perfect skate course for you!

Almost everyone feels nervous and apprehensive when they first put on a pair of Rollerblade's. Mark specialises in putting you at ease and getting you skating quickly as well as having loads of fun at the same time! This workshop has been designed and run by one of the UK's finest, Mark Davies who is one of only two qualified ICP Level 3 Master Instructors currently in the UK.

Inline skating (Rollerblading) is a great exercise, it works your major muscle groups, and helps improve your balance. Plus, you can burn up to 6000 calories per hour

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Your never too old to learn: Rollerblade Beginner Bootcamp is inexpensive and allows most new skaters to learn to skate quickly.

The course covers:

Safety and equipment
How to fall over correctly
Beginner starting (Stride 1). Watch the Video...
Beginner stopping (Heel brake stopping). Watch the Video...
Beginner turning (A-frame turns). Watch the Video...
Advanced beginner movement (Stage 2 and swizzle) Watch the Video...
Advanced beginner stopping (Spin stops) Watch the Video...
Advanced beginner turning (Parallel turns) Watch the Video...

(Please note that the video clips are approx 1.5Mb each and may take a few seconds to load)

The sessions take place at The Royal Albert Memorial and starts at 10.30 on Saturday 15th November 2008 and finishes 15.30 with an hour for lunch. The cost is £50 per person and you get a £10 discount if you bring a friend.

BOOK NOW, call Mark on 07753 489669 or email Mark: mark@skateinstructor.com

As with all our lessons and courses you will need to make sure that you have knee pads, elbow pads, wrist pads and a helmet. Don't have skates and pads? No problem, just give us a call and we will be happy to hire them to you for the course.

Marks says: "I've been running this course for the last five years and it's always been a great success as well as a whole load of fun and it's a great way to get you skating with confidence"

Take a look at the health benefits of inline skating

Our safety policy

Video footage and editing by Dave White.

Photography by Nicolas Sergent.

How To Stop on Inline Skates!!!

2008-09-04T15:30:00Z

Being able to stop is an essential part of skating and it can be really scary when you don't know how.

The Heel Brake Stop has to be without doubt one of the most effective ways to stop and one of the easiest stops for a beginner to learn, it's also an awesome way to stop for any skater no matter what thier skill level and when combine with a more advanced stop call the T Stop it's pure stopping power on skates!

There are many other ways to stop and often really effective when you can combine more than one way to stop into one move. However, for the purpose of this article and your safety we are just going to be looking at the heel brake stop.
]]> So how do you make it work?

Roll at a slow to moderate speed in a ready position which is feet side by side about six inches apart and pointing in a straight line.
Roll into a scissor by moving about 70% of your body weight to your supporting leg (the one without the heel brake) and roll you braking foot out in front of you until the heel of the braking foot is inline with the toe of the support foot.
Push your braking foot further out in front of you until the heel brake touches the floor.
Bend your support leg even more and as you do pull you braking leg down into the back of your braking skate.

This is the best and most powerful way for any beginner to learn how to skate.

Watch the and another Video...

Rollerblade Skate Bootcamp...

Learn this skill by having a private lesson with Mark. Call 07753-489669 or Email us

Skate and Lose Weight

2008-08-19T12:28:39Z

A plan that really works!

How to Skate Off One Pound
For each pound of weight you want to lose, you will need to burn off approximately 3500 calories. A 150 pound person skating 11 miles per hour burns about 10 calories per minute. This means a 150 pound person skating 11 miles per hour would have to skate 6 hours to lose 1 pound (3500 calories / 10 calories = 350 minutes. 350 minutes / 60 minutes per hour = 6 hours of skating)

]]> How to Skate Off 20 Pounds
If you skate enough to burn off an extra 800 calories per day, you will lose 20 pounds in approximately 3 months. If you give yourself 6 months to lose 20 pounds, you only need to burn off an extra 400 calories per day. The amount of skating required to burn off 800 and 400 calories will vary widely from person to person, because it depends on your personal body weight and skating speed.

How Those Calorie Levels Were Determined
In order to lose 20 pounds, you will need to burn off a total of 70,000 extra calories during your weight loss period (3500 calories * 20 pounds). A typical 3 month period will have 13 weeks. 70,000 calories divided by 13 weeks = approximately 5400 calories per week. Divide that by 7 days in a week, and you can see that you would need to burn off 800 extra calories per day to lose 20 pounds in 3 months without altering your eating habits.

Calories Burned by Skating
The blue numbers in the following table are the number of calories a skater will burn at different skating speeds. I have listed calorie burn rates for skaters weighing 120 and 200 pounds. Skaters who don't weigh 120 or 200 pounds can use these numbers to estimate their own calorie burn rates..

Calories Burned Per Hour of Skating
Your Weight	8 mph	10 mph	12 mph	14 mph	16 mph
120 lbs	250	440	630	820	1000
200 lbs	470	670	850	1000	1200
Blue = calories burned per hour mph = miles per hour (skating speed)

3 Month Plan to Lose 20 Pounds
The blue numbers in the following table are the number of hours you will need to skate every day to lose 20 pounds in 3 months without altering your eating habits. You can see that a 120 pound skater who can only skate 8 miles per hour will have to skate 3 hours a day or (more likely) combine skating with cutting back on the number of calories they consume. But if that same skater can kick up the speed to 14 miles per hour, they can lose 20 pounds in 3 months by skating 1 hour a day, with no change at all in their eating habits.

Your Weight	8 mph	10 mph	12 mph	14 mph	16 mph
120 lbs	3.2	1.8	1.3	1.0	0.8
200 lbs	1.7	1.2	1.0	0.8	0.7
Blue = number of hours to skate per day to lose 20 pounds in 3 months mph = miles per hour (skating speed)

6 Month Plan to Lose 20 Pounds
Losing 20 pounds in six months is a piece of cake for a skater! The blue numbers in the following table are the number of hours you will need to skate every day to lose 20 pounds in 6 months without altering your eating habits. If a skater can skate for 30 minutes every day, and maintain a speed of 12 miles per hour, they will lose 20 pounds in 6 months, even if they don't change their eating habits at all.

Your Weight	8 mph	10 mph	12 mph	14 mph	16 mph
120 lbs	1.6	0.9	0.6	0.5	0.4
200 lbs	0.9	0.6	0.5	0.4	0.3
Blue = number of hours to skate per day to lose 20 pounds in 6 months mph = miles per hour (skating speed)

Other health benefits of inline skating

Beginner starting and stopping

Safety policy

Meet The Instructor: Mark

2008-05-20T11:27:20Z

We've decided to run a regular column where we will get to meet an ICP qualified instructor, some of whom will be regular faces in and around Hyde Park and on the London skate scene.

First up we interview our very own Mark Davies, founder and director of skateinstructor.com, and one of only three level 3 ICP qualified instructors in the UK.

]]> How long have you been skating?

About 14 years but seriously for about the last nine.

Why did you start skating?

As an ex-long distance runner I was looking for something that would be less impact on my knees and then, on my first trip to Paris, I was having coffee on the first morning on the Champs Elysees when a load of skaters went flying past me and I thought "That's the thing for me". Came back to London, bought a pair of skates, met Naomi (Grigg) the next day in the park and it all took off from there.

Do you remember your first day on skates?

Yes: it was about 14 years ago on Durban beach, South Africa, on a boiling hot February Sunday afternoon. A friend of mine had a pair and I thought they looked like a whole load of fun and borrowed them to try. I think I was still on them hours later and I also remember getting very sun burnt on that afternoon.

What skates do you own and what style of skating do you do?

I own 2 pairs of Salomon FSKs, even though they are in bits right now; a pair of K2 speed skates; a pair of Rollerblade Twisters, which had the frames from one of my FSKs on them; and a pair of Seba FR1s.

As a professional recreational skate instructor I'm obviously into recreation skating but I do have a passion for street skating. It's a great way to clear my head.

Any skaters you particularly admire?

There are many skaters I admire, from students that put on skates for the first time, to amazingly skilled skaters that do some awesome things on skates.

Why did you decide to become an instructor?

This is an easy one to answer: I love to teach! My students success is my success and that gives me the biggest kick!

What's the worst thing about being a skate instructor?

Bad weather! Freezing cold and rain! It's just nasty and puts everybody off!

Would you recommend becoming an instructor?

I would, and do, totally recommend becoming an instructor. It has to be one of the most amazing jobs there is and a whole load of fun at the same time.

What's your favourite skill to teach?

That's a more difficult question to answer but I would have to say that when I get complete beginners to skate backwards for the first time: the look on their faces is amazing!

Best advice for anyone struggling with their skating?

Easy: take lessons with an ICP qualified instructor and practice.

How To ... Deal with wet weather

2008-05-15T12:45:51Z

We have had a wonderful run of hot & sunny weather recently but occasionally, like today, we get hit with rain. Skating in wet conditions can be hazardous and cause damage to your bearings, but it can also help your technique.

Whilst we do not encourage people to skate in the wet there are situations where it becomes a necessity, like when you're already skating and get caught in the rain. Here is some simple advice on how to deal with rain:

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Try to keep the blades of your skates as upright as possible, on center edges. You have considerably more grip if they are in this position than if they are lent onto an edge.

Make short and even pushes when skating. If you are aggressive or make long pushes your skates will slide.

Avoid wet, or even damp, leaves as these can be extremely slippery.

Learn a good wet weather stopping technique. Heel braking is good, T-stopping is a lot worse. If you can, try to learn the Forward T-stop / Soul Slide as it is highly effectively.

Turning in the wet can be the most dangerous thing you will do: a parallel turn requires you to lean your skates onto corresponding edges and this, in turn, makes them open for sliding. If you can, reduce your speed considerably and try to make more gradual turns.

If your wheels are brand new and still have the shine on them, do not skate. Take your skates off and walk. The shiny surface on new wheels makes them extremely slippery in the wet and you're much much more likely to end up hurting yourself.

We'll be talking a bit about how to clean your bearings in a later article but, for now, one of the best things you can do when you get out of the wet is to remove your wheels from the frames and wipe the outside of the bearings with a dry cloth or tissue paper. It's likely that your bearings won't spin as well after being used in the wet, sometimes even getting a little "crunchy", but if you skate on them they should start to loosen up.

And, on the positive side of skating in the wet: it is easier to start learning some slides than if it was dry. For example, learning the Forward T-Stop / Soul Slide is much easier as the friction between your wheels and the ground is considerably reduced. However, be careful for exactly the same reason: you are going to slide, and you are likely to fall over. Wear safety gear to protect yourself as much as possible.

Links: Street Skates

2008-05-14T12:50:38Z

The London Friday Night Skate & Sunday Stroll: The London skater community created these regular street skates several years ago. They are marshalled, where very good skaters block the traffic to provide a safe environment, and are absolutely free. The Sunday Stroll is a good street skate for beginners whereas the London Friday Night Skate is much, much faster! Run throughout the year these are a prime example of the community working together.
The Wednesday Night Skate: Run throughout the summer, the Wednesday Night Skate lies somewhere between the Sunday Stroll and London Friday Night Skate. With a relaxed and often loud environment, it's something to aim for as a beginner. Again, this skate is absolutely free.
The Santa Skate: If there is one skate to attend each year, this is it. Imagine 500 skaters, all dressed as Santa Claus, skating through the streets of London. Do a search on YouTube you'll see not only the skaters smiling and laughing, but the Christmas shoppers too.
Pari-Roller: Venture to Paris and take part in their regular Friday night street skate and you're likely to be one of 15,000 skaters! The streets of Paris are smooth, unlike those in London, and the pace can be quicker than the London skates, but the pauses are usually longer. Look out for the police on skates!

Links: Videos & Photographs

2008-05-14T12:48:36Z

Tag!: skateinstructor.com instructor, and Club Blue Room manager, David Whitehead gets chased around London by bike messengers. If you can, or want to, skate like this then you should consider doing some of David's courses.
Naomi Does London: Naomi Grigg, recently rated one of the top 3 slalom skaters in the world, shows some of her skills at various locations around London.
Kompakombo.com: If you're looking to learn some of the slaloming moves then you could do worse than take a look at this site.
skatephoto.net: Mike has put together a fantastic skate photo site with loads of pictures of us. Thank you Mike!

Where am I legally allowed to skate?

2008-05-12T12:36:14Z

There was a good question raised on our Facebook group about being shouted at by cyclists for using cycle paths and whether skaters are allowed in them around Hyde Park. The short answer is that in the park you should skate on cycle paths rather than the pedestrian bits: the general rule of thumb is skate on black tarmac not on the orange/red pebbled bits.

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But, because of the slightly negative perception of skating outside of the community, we highly recommend some use of commonsense:

If you're skating on the pavement keep to the speed of the pedestrians around you.
Only skate in the road if you are confident and can keep a up with the pace of a cyclist (one of those on those fold-up bikes, not bike messengers!)
And, most of all: if you don't feel safe get off the road immediately.

Lots of us use the road to get around London on our skates but even the most experienced of us will shy away from doing something that could endanger ourselves or other people. Be sensible and safe at all times.

We'll write some more on using your skates as a form of transport at some point in the future.

April 2008 Newsletter

2008-04-23T12:00:00Z

In this issue

New! New! New!
Safety Policy Change
Paris skate - May 2008
Private Lessons
Course changes
Club Blue Room Skates
Sk8School Information
Lessons coming up in May 2008

]]> New! New! New!

We've been working hard over the winter period to prepare ourselves for the new summer season. New lessons; a new look, both for the skateinstructor.com web site and our instructors in the park; and we've added online booking of group lessons, an Atom feed, and a Facebook Group.

We've recruited a few new instructors:

David Whitehead, of Club Blue Room, joins us to take on our more advanced courses.
Matthew Denner teaches our weekday afternoon and group sessions, and takes over the skateinstructor.com website.

We hope that all of these changes will help you enjoy both your skating experience and make it easier for you to interact with us. We think the skateinstructor.com website is pretty cool: do you like it? You can always provide feedback by contacting us.

Safety Policy Change

Inline skating is an extreme sport and injuries can occur. Normally these are minor falls and usually involve more of a bruised ego! However, there is a chance that serious injury can occur and we strongly recommend that you do everything possible to protect yourself. Thousands of students have passed through our courses and injuries have, thankfully, been extremely rare but that does not negate the chance of it happening.

With this in mind, and a desire to make our teaching environment as safe as possible, we have decided to change our safety policy. The key change to our policy is that we now require all students to wear knee, wrist and elbow pads and a helmet. You should familiarise yourself with our safety policy, especially if you are a new student.

We have, in the past, had students attempt to debate our safety policy. We hope that you understand that we are doing this for your safety and so the topic is not open for negotiation.

If you have any questions regarding this policy change you are more than welcome to contact us.

Paris skate - May 2008

Following three years of successful skate trips to Paris, 2008 will see Skatefresh and skateinstructor.com, two of the UK's highest qualified ICP skate schools, going to Paris to skate the famous Friday night Pari-Roller street skate and enjoy a weekend of skating in one of the world's most skateable cities.

We're going to skate the famous Friday night Pari-Roller street skate, which can have over 15,000 skaters participating each week, see the city on skates on Saturday, and then complete another street skate on Sunday. Most of all, it will be lots of good skating fun!!!

Click here for more details

Private Lessons

We have begun offering week day private lessons, for you individually or a group of your friends. For those of you who are more advanced skaters, David Whitehead is available to teach more specialised skating skills (like slides, jumps or stair riding). These lessons are available on request.

If you wish to arrange a private lesson for yourself, or a group of your friends, please use the contact us form on our website or call Mark on 07753 489669. At some point in the near future we will be offering the ability to book, and pay for, private lessons directly using our online booking system. Prices for private lessons can be found on the private lessons page.

Course changes

After getting some feedback on how people want to learn to skate we've decided to do a big change in our courses. Obviously we cannot please all of the people all of the time, but we hope that most of you will find these new courses far more interesting and useful to yourselves.

The first change is that we've decided to extend the Sunday Drop-In Session into a more complete course for people wanting to learn to skate, and so it now becomes the Sunday Beginners. The complete course covers everything you will need to get started in skating (going, turning, stopping and dealing with pavements) and costs £20.00.

If you've bought your skates from Club Blue Room and bring along the receipt, the first hour is FREE and you'll learn to skate forwards and stop. You don't have to choose to continue with the rest of the course but, if you do, it will only cost you £20.00.

From the first Sunday in May (4th), we'll be moving the time of this course from 13:00 to 12:00. This is being done to make room for some more courses we're planning to run on Sunday afternoons.

We were a little surprised by the feedback we received but it seems that after you've got past these skills you then like to learn specific areas of skating. So, we've brought in a couple of courses that focus on individual parts of skating:

Our 4 ways to stop in 2 hours covers stopping without using a heel brake, and 3 ways to turn in 2 hours introduces different types of turns.

And when you're comfortable going forwards, why not try out our 2 hours of backwards course, where you'll learn to transition to backwards, skate a bit, and turn corners. From there you could go on and try 2 ways to stop backwards.

We are working on putting together a course that will take you from beginner to street skater, so you can get out on the Sunday Stroll and we'll, hopefully, be announcing something extra special about that course in the near future.

Club Blue Room Skates

Like us, our friends over at Club Blue Room are getting ready for the 2008 summer skating season. They've got in new ranges of skates, from beginners all the way through to speed skates, and they've rearranged their skate display to make it easier to find stuff.

These are the beginner level skates from Rollerblade, currently priced at around £100 in Club Blue Room. They come with a heel brake, necessary for beginners to learn to stop safely, and have a aluminium frame.

K2 have beginner skates at a similar price to the Rollerblade ones. The frames on the K2 skates aren't aluminimum but they still come with a heel brake. K2 skates tend to fit a slightly narrower foot.

The womens version of these skates, on the right in the picture, wear the pink ribbon of Breast Cancer Awareness, a charity that K2 donates to.

A lot of people ask "What are the best skates to get?" This is a bit of a tough question for us to answer as it depends upon what your skill level, what you want to do, foot shape, body weight, and personal opinion. Our advice is to try on lots of different styles of skate and find the ones that feel the most comfortable for you. Listen to the advice of the sales staff who, in Club Blue Room, have had an amazingly small returns rate, because of ill-fitting skates, over the last few years.

To help answer this question we'll be running a mid-May newsletter that will be dedicated to not only reviewing some of the skates available, but also working through choosing the right skates for you. We're looking for some help with this so if you have a friend who wants to take up inline skating and doesn't have skates yet please contact us. We'll come with your friend to Club Blue Room, spend time with them choosing the right skates, and then each of you will get a FREE private lesson.

Sk8School Information

Our colleagues down in Eastbourne, Sk8school, have some great courses coming up for those of you wanting to skate by the sea.

They are complementing their usual weekly lessons this month with the Sk8 Streetwise, a half day intensive course that will enable you to use your skates as transport! Additionally they have news on Sk8 2 Ski, some interesting news links, and a challenge on their blog! Look forward to hearing from you soon!

Find out more by visiting their London Newsletter page.