Roller Dance - Cross Over / Rock Step

Hey skaters! I'm dizzy! I'm Dirty Debra Harry with the Dirty School of Skate and Sugar Roller Skates. I'm here at the Fountain Valley Skating Center tonight to talk to you about dance skating again. All right skaters, but before we get started with tonight's lesson, I want you to be aware that if you need anything for skating, from boots to plates to wheels to toe stops, etc., I need you to go on over to planetrollerskate.shop so those gals can help you get everything you need. All right, let's get into it. Tonight we're going to do a little bit more about dance skating, but this one's going to be super simple in that I'm going to say it's simple, but I don't want to downgrade it because then people are going to try and be like that was not simple at all. So this is simple in that it's just a few basic steps and if you can master these few basic steps you can do this little number with your friends. Now I don't know what this is called, but I call it a rock step or crossover with a rock step. So here we go. When you can do this just standing still or we can do it moving. We can do it moving forward, we can do it moving backward. I think it's more fun to do it backwards. Basically what we're going to do is cross one foot over the other and rock step crossover rock step. Now you hear me all the time say rock rock rock rock. Rock is just another term for shift or shifting your body weight. You know if you've been watching this channel for any amount of time that shifting your body weight is absolutely the number one thing that you need to understand in order to be a better skater. Skating is all about shifting of your body weight generally from side to side in order to move forward or to move backward. When we shift our body weight and put a lot of body weight or pressure or force on one skate it gets the pressure and force off the other in order for that foot to move. So when we do this basic crossover rock step I need to shift my body weight to my left. Once I shift my body weight over I can lift this foot. When I lift this foot key lift with your hip. I lift my hip up I can drop it down. Once I drop it in front I place the weight of my body over this front skate and then I lift the back. I rock it to the out and back. Now my weight is on my right foot. I lift with my hip. I place my foot over. Weight goes on the front foot and I rock to the outside back to the inside cross rock step cross rock step cross rock step cross rock step. So let's break it down even to further detail so that you understand a little bit more about how to execute this. Skating, body posture, chin up, shoulders straight across your snack area or what some of you call your core because you got discipline. It's tight. This your magical area that controls all of your skating needs to be down. If you lower your hips your knees will naturally bend. That is key. Think about your hips to bend your knees because if you don't oftentimes the mistake is people go to bend their knees and then they bend over. If you don't want to bend over don't do that. Just think about dropping your hips. So again chin up, shoulders straight across, snack area tight, drop your hips. When I drop my hips now I'm looking ahead. Later on when you're really cool and you're good and you can look down and act like nothing else is happening. Initially though I need you to cast your gaze far, far away, far away optimistically into your future somewhere far down the rink so that you don't get captured in having this weird discussion with your feet. Oftentimes when we're trying something new because we're on skates we look at our feet and we think why are you not doing what I want you to do. Sometimes it's even positive hey that was pretty good but listen your feet are not used to you having a conversation. They're just used to doing their own thing. Remember they have walked your ass all over since the time you were born. They don't need to be looked at and highly supervised. Everything in skating that you do with your feet starts with other parts of your body and it's just the body weight being pressed down on them that makes things happen. Okay a whole lot about body posture. You know I'm into it though. Chin up, shoulders straight across, snacks tight, arms out, drop your magical area here. Now my knees are bent. I'm in a comfortable position in order to shift my body weight from side to side. So if I'm just shifting, shifting, shifting, shifting, I shift, lift with this hip, drop my foot down. When I drop my foot down it comes at an angle so that I have clearance from the foot that is on the ground. I do not want to lift and then kick my other foot out. Lift with the hip, my body weight's down, my body weight comes up and I set my foot down. The second I set it down my weight is now over the top of this skate so I can control it and then I rock to the out. See this what's going on here? When I rock to the outside this means all my body weight is over here now. My center line of balance is now over here. It's over this knee. This knee is pressed over on the outside of my boot and then something magical has happened. This foot, I don't know if you can just scoot around here, you will see that this foot now is lifted. I did not specifically lift this foot. This happened as an effect of me pushing my body weight over here. That's important to know because it will keep you from doing this. Unless you've got some crazy style you can do and pull it off. I want you to rock your body weight so weight's here, shifting it to this side, lift with the hip, set it down. Now my weight's on my front foot. I rock my body weight so far over here that this foot comes up just a bit and then I rock it back. Once I rock it back, now my weight's on this foot. Look, magic has happened. This foot's already ready to go based on the fact that the weight is already over here. I just lift my hip, set it down and rock back. So you can start doing it and moving backward. You can do this real slow. Hopefully you've got some friends. You and your friends are going to do it together but just think cross, rock, step, cross, rock, step, cross, rock, step, cross, rock, step, cross, rock, step, cross, rock, step, cross, rock, step, cross, rock, step. Okay, you can do this at a complete stand still. It looks a lot like we talked about before which is the original but the difference is this rock, step, rock, step. I can do it stationary or I can just let those feet glide and now I'm moving backwards nice and easy. This is key. Weight transfer here so I can send it back there. Weight transfer's here so I can send it back there. All right, skaters? So I'm going to need you to practice this and I'm going to need you, for God's sake, somebody send me a video of you doing this. I've gotten some videos but I feel like you guys are being shot. I feel like you're like, well, I don't do it that great so I don't want to send her a video. Put it on Instagram and tag me. I'm on Instagram and Facebook under Dirty Deborah Harry. Please tag me so that I can see you. I love nothing better than to see your progress. It makes me so happy especially when I can follow. There's a few of you who are consistent about it and I see your progress and it makes me so happy. So you guys, grab some friends or go to the rink and do it by yourself and show me your best cross and rock step. All right, skaters? As always, you only get better at this if you practice. So go practice. See you next time.