My Favorite Roller Skater - Aaliyah Warren - Splits & Toe Spins

I'm gonna interview today, you know, like a real interviewer person. I got this teeny tiny little the Fountain Valley Skating Center today to introduce you to one of my most favorite skaters. Today's video is brought to you by Pigeon Skates where you can find anything you need for skating from plates to wheels to boots to all sorts of accessories. They're located here in Long Beach, California and online at pigeonskates.com. Now, the skater I want to introduce to you today is so amazing. She has been on BET. She's been in Teen Vogue. She was 2018's Best Skater, 2019's Best Slider and she's a homegrown girl here from Fountain Valley, California. I would like to introduce you to the lovely and talented Miss Aaliyah Warren. Okay, so here's the deal. Aaliyah and I have a history, do we? Yes, we do. We have a history. We both grew up here as children at the Fountain Valley Skating Center, did we not? We did. Not at the same time though because Aaliyah's 19, 20, 21. How old are you? I'm 19. And I'm not. So anyway, when I was growing up here as a teenager and actually as a little kid, she was not yet in existence. My family opened up the Fountain Valley Skating Center in 1976 and then your mom and your grandma started coming down here like when? Years ago. I know. See, you know you're young when you cannot fathom time. When you're like, I don't know. Like two years ago was just like years ago. Her grandma has been the manager here forever. Forever. She's like legendary. Okay, so and the other thing we have in common is we both grew up doing what? Admit it. Artistic roller skating. We were mostly figure skaters though. That means jumps and spins, right? And then my uncle, who's like the winningest dance coach ever, tried to get Aaliyah to do what? Dance skate. Now when we say dance skate, we don't mean it like, we don't mean it like, we don't mean it like dance skate. We mean like, run, run, run, cha-cha, slide. Yeah, so artistic dance skating is where you take ballroom dance skating, like real ballroom, like waltz, cha-cha, tango, and you do it on skates more than likely with a partner. I think you might agree with me on this, is if you are taught figure skating or artistic skating as a child, do you not develop good habits and good skills? Oh yeah, I've, all my skills are perfected and like are good from artistic skating. Oh, the other thing we have in common is we're both full-on rink rats. Oh yes. Okay, for those of you who do not know what a rink rat is, a rink rat is just a person who's always at the rink all the time, never wants to do anything else. Am I right? I was here every day. Yeah. All the time. Right. I had a bed in the back. Hey, I've never had a bed here. I didn't know that was possible. They made me go home. I had a bed. She had a bed here. We're here to actually see Aliyah skate. Aliyah's gonna do two different skills today and then we're gonna try to break them down for normal folk to see if we can't, you know, get me to do it, get you guys to do it. I think it's gonna be really fun. So today we're gonna do, okay, we're gonna start off with splits. The splits. Splits. Splits. And then we're gonna do some sort of spin. Two-toed spin. Two-toed spin, like on your toes, okay? So stick around, watch the entire video, people, if you want to learn from the great and talented Aliyah Warren. All right, skaters, so the very first thing Aliyah's gonna show you how to do is how to skate into a split. And here she comes. Keep your eyes locked and loaded. Here we go. All right, that's it. Okay, bye. That's how you do it. You just come in and you just do that. Okay, now let's break it down a little bit. So I'm gonna have you, Miss Aliyah, come in and do it nice and slow. I'm gonna point out some of the obvious stuff. Okay, so we're turning. Nice. So one of the major things she is doing, you're so adorable. Okay, you gotta have your transitions down pat, people. If you are going, are you mocking me? She's like, if you're gonna do, if you're gonna turn around and split, you better know how to turn around. Like, you gotta know how to turn around with some semblance of confidence. So you have to have really strong transitions because the way that Aliyah gets into this, and I really like it, is she does a cross behind, then she pops up her toes, so she's riding on her heel, and then turns. So some of you could do this with a simple transition, right? But I think there's something about the cross behind, and then the toe lifting up. Because I've said a million times, it's easier to do something if you're already doing something, right? So there's a sense of rhythm that goes into it because it's like, cross behind, the weight's here, you flip up the toe, you turn around, then you drop into it. It's a lot easier than just skate, turn, split, right? Okay, so let's, here, let me do it with you. Stand by, ambulance, stand by. You're going cross behind with the right foot, toe up, turn, split. Okay, I have a whole video, you guys, on cross behinds because that cross behind that she's doing at the beginning is key. That tells her, I think, I mean, it's key. I'm not just making stuff up here. It's key because she knows in her mind, her mind's like, I'm gonna do the splits. And guess what? Not one person's gonna be watching, like everyone's gonna be watching, right? And I gotta get my split down. So that cross behind tells her whole body, like, it's time to go. You guys, when you want to get to ride on your heel, all you have to do is pop your big toe up to the top of your boot. That gets it up just enough, okay? Just big toe, boing, top of the boot. A boing. Yes, just a little boing, and it pops it up. And then she's ready to turn. So I see this as this cross behind, big toe up, you look over your shoulder, turn. What she's doing with her arm right there, very artistic. It's so beautiful. She's literally spotting. It's just like this. Here, toe comes up and she's like, you, like, very dramatic. Like when you point at someone and you go, watch this, okay? It's cool too because she's pushing out her front foot and there's just something that happens that doesn't happen for me anymore. But there's this sense of comfort and relaxation that allows your feet to go. Okay, let's see it again. Young tendons. These are young tendons. So it's a cross behind, heel up, swing back. Look at that. Okay, so another thing to watch. Get down those splits again. This foot going sideways is super, super important because essentially what she's doing here, this is her break. With her foot sideways, she's got it on an inside edge, which is pushing out. It allows her to slide, but it's telling her to stop at the same time, right? You put pressure on that big toe and you're pushing down. You're catching that inside edge hard and when she looks forward, all of her body is in a complete line because when you do a split, you don't want to all of a sudden change positions. It's like, it seems really, to me, it seems very linear. Like we're gonna stay like this, right? When you do your splits. Yeah. But style-wise, I like the pointing in the hole. Remember this. Words of wisdom from 19 year olds, okay? Look at me. Look at me. I love it. Okay, so tell me this. If someone were just starting to do this, they were like, yes. Do you think they should already know how to do the splits off skates? You should already know how to do the splits. Work at it at home. Work on it at home. Yeah. Try to get the motion down because I'm 19 and my hamstrings still hurt. She has no idea what her future's like. Your hamstrings may hurt. That might be the least of your hurts later. So, you know, listen. If you're not super flexible, work on that, right? Stretch. Yeah, you better do some stretching. Stretch. Drink a little water. Seriously, know how to do splits before you try it on skates. What I don't want to have to happen is you getting the splits on skates and then all of a sudden you're like, I'm permanently in the splits position. I'm stuck. I've gotten stuck. Someone call 9-1-1. It could happen. All right, so let's move on to the next thing that's, you know, relatively less dangerous. Spinning on your toes, okay? Let's go. A lot of you are like, Dirty, how do we spin on your toes? I see a lot of you trying it when I'm skating outside. A lot of people trying to skate on their toes. It's like a thing. You like it. It's fun, right? So, Miss Aaliyah, let's have you show. Why don't you just demonstrate skating and spinning on your toes? All right. Nice. Okay, so it looks easy, right? I mean, it looks easy in that hard way, like where you know it's hard, but you're like, but she makes it look so easy. It just looks so easy. When you want to skate on your toes, do you think it's imperative, very important, and whatnot that people can already spin? Yes, yes. You've got to know how to, the movement. You've got to know how to spin a little bit. Do you think that sometimes people see stuff like this and be like, I just want to skate on my toes. I just want to do it, even though that they may not have their spins quite down? Yes, you know, it takes a lot of practice. A lot of practice. So, what we're trying to, what we're trying to give you here today are breakdowns of difficult skills, so that you can have something to look forward to, something to train toward. Because if you're going to do this, you should have already spent a lot of time doing this, right? You should be so comfortable. Then you should be comfortable doing this, right? Then you should be comfortable doing this, okay? If you have already put in the work, people, we can get you on your toes, okay? So, let's focus. I don't want to, we can't spend the whole time teaching you how to spin. I got videos on that, but let's talk about what specifically happens to get on your toes. So, do it for me again. Okay, what's really, really cool is she's got this really fun way of getting into it. That I love because it's like, oh, here it comes. Here it comes. Here it comes. You don't know what's coming. You don't know what's coming. And then all of a sudden, but when we get into the real meat of it, because realistically, if you just wanted to go like this and come up on your toes, you can do that without the big windup. The only reason I caution against the big windup is if you're not already a strong spinner, when you're giving it all that, you will, you'll take off. You see, I see people in the air like this. You're going to have a hard time with it. But I think the real crucial component is, is when you go to get onto your toes. So tell me, for me, it's like, you're down a little bit. Like I call this my snack area and this is my fun zone. It's down. And then all of a sudden I reach, it's like, suck it up, suck it up, suck it up. You're doing a bit of a lift up, lift up through the whole body to get on the toes. You don't have to be totally forward, right? It's that sweet spot. Yep. So notice that she's down. She gets on her toes, but to sustain the spin, she's up. Okay. Let's try it again. So I'm going to ask you to exaggerate it so that they can see you're down first. Yeah. Well, I don't need you sit on the ground or anything, but you know what I'm saying? Like there is a down component and then an up and the up is where everything you can tell that she's tightening up everything on her body and it's coming in nice and tight. That's how you can stay spinny. That's probably the most important part about it is that down and up. Otherwise you can't get on your toes, right? So she's going to exaggerate a little bit. So down, up, up, up, up, there we go. Okay. I want to point out one other thing too. When I did my, my cheap imitation of spinning on my toes, I want you to know that I'm wearing toe stops. People all the time say, if you've got toe stops on, you can't do it. Listen, toe stops are a tool in your arsenal to do all sorts of things, right? There's so many fun things you can do with toe stops. If you dial your toe stops up towards the top of your boot, you can certainly spin on your wheels. Okay. It doesn't mean that you have to take them off completely. It's just that if you take them off completely, you're definitely have access to some skills that can be done more deeply, but then also without toe stops, you absolutely can't do certain things. Am I right? Yes. It's a lot harder, right? So we like toe stops, you know, people hating on toe stops, but again, so if I'm just spinning like this and I down, right, and then I'm up, I've got toe stops on people. I have toe stops on. It can be done. So anyway, it's toe stops, toe stops. Yeah. So I think that this needs to be practiced a ton. Am I right? A ton. A ton, a ton, a ton. Keep, oh, I'm going to look through. Let's, let's go over Aaliyah's upper body while she does this. So we don't forget the important parts of the upper body. Okay. What I love, you cannot even, you don't even know what it means to me to see proper and beautiful technique. Her shoulders are straight across. And then she's like, excuse me, like so proper. These arms are super strong, right? Like you're holding them like she's not like all loose. The thing is you got to hold it. You can see her chest is like back is tight snacks. She got no snacks. She got like, she got, she a little tiny. So cute. Anyway, this is all tight. This is all tight. Everything's got to be tight from your waist to the top of your head. And later on, listen, you could throw all that out the window and do crazy stuff when you're real good. But particularly when you're learning all of this chin up shoulders, straight across snack area, tight arms are out, or they're in position with some meaning to it. When you're teaching people, realistically, when you're teaching people how to skate, do you see them throwing their upper body all over? That is the worst thing you can do. You will lose your balance so fast. Try to keep your back straight, your arms tight, and you should be good with the balance part. See, it's not just me. It's not just me. Aaliyah thinks so too. Upper body is so important. You guys, I hope you enjoyed meeting the lovely and talented Miss Aaliyah Warren. She's such an incredible skater. And you guys, one of the reasons why she's one of my most favorite skaters is dude, when she gets skating, like really skating and we're in session and she's moving, you can tell that she is very connected to her inner self. Like she's skating from what I call the inside out. Skating to me is a discovery of self through movement and skating. When you're moving around, you're not only discovering who you are, but you're expressing who you are to other people. And that is why we love watching you skate because I'm like happiness, joy, joy. Oh my God. Just keep going. Just keep going. You make my life better by being a better skater. I love watching you. Like that's why people feel so connected to her because her skating is honest and it's raw and it's beautiful. So if you too, and I ain't joking girl, you know this, I love you. So that's it. It's just, this is the beauty of skating. You can really, really discover who you are as a person through skating. So I don't want you to try these things and try it once and be like, well, I tried to do the splits the other day and that didn't really work out. So I'm quitting skating. You know, you're going to discover for yourself all the different ways that you can skate. And I want you to practice, you know, I want you to practice and always know that it's a lifelong journey because even when you're 19 or not 19, you can still be skating. Okay. It's a lifelong journey people. Alrighty. Thank you guys. And, uh, I'm going to tell you, you tell them to go practice. You guys better go practice.