How to Roller Skate Downhill

Hey skaters, I'm Dirty Deborah Harry with the Dirty School of Skate and I'm here in my hometown of Long Beach, California to talk to you today about the easiest, best and safest way to descend a hill. This is it. Today we're going to talk about going backwards down a hill. Skaters, I know you might think this is crazy and you're already thinking I'm going to abandon this video. There's no way I'm ever going to skate backwards down a hill. But trust me when I tell you that this is the safest way to do it. So I need you to stick in with me. Okay. Now, I don't know if you know this, but this is a companion video for a video that I did over on Planet Roller Skate. I did a companion video on them about how to go uphill. This is the second part on how to go downhill. So if you haven't seen the uphill version, you want to see that bounce on over to their channel and you'll see it there. This is the downhill version. If you are new to my channel, welcome. If you find this video worthy, please like, share and subscribe. As always, I really, really appreciate it. Also comment. Let me know what you want to see on this channel and I will do my best to get it to you. Okay. But without further ado, let's get started on how to skate backwards downhill. When we talk about skating outdoors, downhill, backwards, I know that it sounds insane. But let's think about it this way. When you were at the top of a ladder and you want to come down each rung of the ladder, do you turn around, chest out and step forward down the ladder? You would never do that. When you descend a ladder, you are facing the ladder with your arms on the sides of the ladder and you are descending downward. I want you to think of a hill as the same exact concept. Here's the hill. I want us to lean a bit forward over the top of the hill and slide our way backwards. You do not even have to know how to skate backwards in order to descend a hill properly while skating backwards. Now, the reason why I didn't do this video on a massive hill is I wanted to see if I could find a space that might be similar to what you have where you live and skate. So let's say maybe where you're at, the hill isn't even this big, right? Let's just take a part of it. So we're going to take this little decline area. If I skate it forward, I have I'm just going to go faster and faster and faster and faster and faster. And then I have to make decisions, right? Oftentimes, when we're starting out skating, we're not that good at making quick decisions when we start to panic. The panic usually starts on a downhill at the top of the hill when you observe just how steep it is and you think, oh, my God, this can't end well, right? Well, imagine if we turn around and now we're looking at the hill coming down towards us, we can look over our shoulder. Scope out the direction we want. Once we see that, we see that it's clear. I want you to think very linearly. Literally, why do I always have problems with that word? You know what I mean? I want you to think in a line. I want you to think that you're in a very, very, very tight hallway. I want you to drop your body weight down and I want one foot in front and one foot behind. I want you to take your knees and especially the knee in the back foot, and I want you to turn it in towards the back of the knee on your primary foot. The reason why I want you to take the knee and the back foot and turn it into the back of the knee of the front foot is I want to have it be supportive. They don't have to touch, but what I'm trying to do is get the feet into a line. Again, I want this to be in a straight line. I want everything to come in. I want it to be very tight, very direct, very compact with the body weight down. So I get into my stance. I've got my toe stop in the ground here, all wheels on the ground with the foot in the front. You may be more comfortable with your left foot in front. I am more comfortable with my right foot in front. I got my toe stop down. I drop my body weight. When I drop my body weight, my chest area is over the top of the front skate. I let the gas off the toe stop in the back. Guys, how did I just gain speed? All I did was lift up on the toe stop of my back foot. My wheels are still rolling on the ground. Let me show to you this way. Literally, my foot's like this and I'm going toe stop, toe stop. My heel is off the ground. So I'm looking straight ahead. Make sure that my knee is turned in so it's being more supportive of the back of the knee on the other foot. Drop my body weight down, chest over the toes and my front foot, arms out. And I let off the gas here to get some speed. Keep this foot behind you. Now I look. If you are familiar with any of my videos, you know that I like to talk about how the upper half of your body supports the bottom half. The bottom half of my body is going to be in a staggered stance, right? So my upper body is going to be cyclists. I think they're all cool. How my upper body supports is my first down, then rotate your shoulders over the foot that is in the back. So if I have my left foot in the back, my shoulders are going to rotate so that my left foot is back here and that my shoulders are over my left foot as opposed to this. Obviously, doesn't this look strange? That is not going to work, but this works. Why does it work? Got my weight primarily over this front foot, arms are out. I look, I am now in a direct straight line and I can see exactly where I'm going. So let's try it. We're down, arms out, look over your shoulder. Hold this position. If you hold that position, you will stay in a straight line. Here comes the fire department. We're just seeing everyone out here today in Long Beach. Let's give them a little wave. Hi. So kind of the theme to all this is everything is very narrow. Everything is very linear. That's the word, linear. Everything's very linear. Everything's tight. Everything's in a controlled position. Literally, I don't want to go backwards downhill like all crazy, right? When I have my arms extended, now this is key. Keep your hand, for me it's my left, straight in the direction that I want to go. If I move this hand, I'm going to go in that direction. Let me show you what happens when I move my left hand. Down here. If I move my left hand here, if I move my left hand here with my back arm, whatever direction that I move that arm, and I'm saying hand, realistically, I mean my arm. And then even more realistically, it's the shoulder. If you've seen my other videos, it's the shoulder that dictates the direction of the turn and how long the turn will last when you keep it in an open position. Let's look at it again. My body weight is down. I let off the gas a little, straighten my back leg, straighten my arms, look over. Again, if I want to turn, see how that works. I want you to be extremely mindful of your arm that is in the back. It is the rudder of your little boat, and it is going to take you in the direction that you want to go. Why is this important? Because there's stuff out in the street. Okay. There is stuff you're definitely gonna want to avoid. If we don't have an actual skill to use, when we want to avoid something, we resort to panic and that doesn't help. Like, Oh God, you know, there's something in the road. There's a car, there's a person, there's a bicycle. So you can imagine it might be kind of funny if you just point and you're just literally like, I think the challenge that most people are going to have is the idea that you can be gaining speed going downhill. You can stay in the same exact position and get down safely. It's hard because you're going to panic. That's natural. Your natural instinct is, what's happening? I get that. So let's talk about how we can give in to the fear just a little bit. We're going to use our toe stop as a break. Just break, break, break. All we have to do is take our toes, push them over our front truck to activate our toe stop. So when we're going down, I can be like too fast. Nope. Okay. Uncomfortable, uncomfortable, down, down, down. Okay. All I have to do is push that toe stop into the ground a little bit. And when I say push it in a little bit, I mean a little bit, don't be forcing things. You can't force, you've got to just let it glide. You'll know it's gliding by the sound that the toe stop makes as it's sliding on the asphalt. You don't want to grab the toe stop and come to a violent stop. Unless of course you want to grab your toe stop and come to a violent stop because that's just it and what you got to do. Okay. We're going to go over it one more time. We are going to be down. Toe stop in the ground, weight on one foot, all wheels. I don't want to see this. This is like scary wheels on the ground. If I lean forward again, the analogy of I'm on a ladder and I'm going to descend the ladder again, here's the ladder. I'm not going to turn around on it. I'm going to lean forward on it. Okay. We're down on it right now. No more ladder. Cause we're letting go of our arms. Let off the gas a little bit. Turn and look over my back foot. Depressed down on the toe stop and straighten my legs. If I want to stop going so fast, turn my back arm. Where it is. I want to end up. All right, skaters. I'm going to go back up to the top of the hill and I am going to come ripping down this hill as fast as I can. I am not doing this to impress you because trust me, this is literally so easy. And I'm not even saying that to be like, Oh, it's so easy. I can totally do it. I'm saying it's simplicity is so beautiful that it makes it easy. If you just follow these techniques, you can go down any incline. You just got to practice. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to come ripping down the hill super fast. I'm just going to stick this stance and ride it all the way out. And we'll see what I have to say after that. Okay. All right, let's get to the top of the hill. All right, skaters. Let's get down this hill. Okay. I'm in my stance. I got my arm out. Alrighty skaters. So that's what I have for you today on how to descend a hill backwards. I know that you can do it. And I absolutely vouch for the fact that this is the safest way to go downhill. Also, it looks really cool and it's super fun. If you just take it step by step, do exactly what I said. I promise you, you will get this. It's going to take some time. As always, it takes practice like all good things do. But if you have questions, comments, concerns, et cetera, put them down in the comment section and I will address them each and every one of them. It is my thing. I do it every day. I read all of your comments. I know you may not believe this. I read every single comment because I want to make sure that I'm giving you the right info. All right, skaters. So that's it for today. I'll sign off from here in beautiful Long Beach, California. We'll see you next time.