What is the best way to stop on inline skates?

I have a rubber stop on my right skate, but had a hard time stopping-something I must learn.





Please help!

What is the best way to stop on inline skates?
Almost always, when a person tells me that they don't stop very well with a heel brake, they are not scissoring their feet far enough.





You want the braking foot to be COMPLETELY ahead of the gliding foot. If they are beside each other, your ankle limits the angle that you can lift your toe so that the brake is almost useless.





Bend your knees. This is good for your skating in general but very important for stopping well. Bending the knee of the gliding foot will allow you to scissor your legs better. You can practice this while just gliding forward. Try it with each leg forward. Most people prefer their right leg forward but some do better with the left forward. You want the brake on the foot that is more comfortable forward.





Then tilt your foot up and start applying pressure to that heel. You DON'T want to lean forward, push through your leg. Leaning forward like JazzyJes suggests is asking for a face plant.


As you progress, you can put more pressure on the lead skate and stop faster (I have a friend that can pick up the gliding foot and strike a pose while adjusting how fast he stops on one foot).





There is an animation on the RollerBlade web site, www.rollerblade.com


There are vert good tutorials at www.skatepatrol.org/tutorial.html and www.londonskaters.com/how_to_heelbrake_s...





The t-stop is good for slowing you down gently but more skill is required to do it than using a heel brake. It also eats your wheels as you do it and they cost more than a brake block.


It is a very good thing to learn after you have mastered the heel brake.


It is always good to have a few skills ready for when they are needed.





I also recommend knowing the grass stop.


You start in the same scissored position as the heel brake but without lifting the toe. Put more weight on the back of each foot than the toes and more on the back skate than the front.


Then just glide off onto the grass. Pick some reasonably solid and smooth grass for the first attempts.


With some practice, you can cross rougher grass and even gravel roads this way.


This is more useful when not intending to stop all the way but you need to cross a problem area like bricks, debris, gravel, train tracks, etc.


It is also a lot of fun (once you are good at it) to glide down mild hills. It impresses the heck out of people who don't know how easy it is.
Reply:fall on your A$$, thats How I do it at least!!
Reply:You have a couple of options here.


1st - If you have a rubber stopper on the back of one of your skates you can lift the toe of that skate up which will cause the stopper to make contact with the ground. This will slow you down until you eventually stop. Note: if both your left and right skate have rubber stoppers don't try and stop on both at the same time... bad idea.





2nd - You can try doing a 'T-Stop' This can be done with or without the rubber stopper on the back. To do a T-Stop glide on one leg and drag the other skate behind you until you come to a stop. When done correctly the skate being dragged should be perpendicular to the other skate with the middle of the boot touching the heel of the front skate. (See picture for an idea http://web.skatefaq.com:81/tutorials/t-s... )





3rd - Hockey stop - This should really only be done if you are skating indoors and on indoor wheels. It basically involves doing a 90 degree turn to your left or right and coming to a sliding stop. This takes a lot of practice and is hard to teach through words. To give you an idea though to stop facing the left you should place most of your weight on your right foot and start rotating your right shoulder to the left. This should cause your hips to turn as well and you will end up sideways. This takes a lot of practice and you will not get it done right the first time you do it so don't get discouraged. If you are interested in learning a hockey stop correctly I suggest finding someone who knows how to do it and having them teach you in person.
Reply:Lean forward on the stoppers if you don't like that at first practice holding onto something and 'stopping' (leaning forwards onto the stoppers)


Good Luck!



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