What to Practice for Skating When You Barely Have Time

Guys, I hear this all the time. I only had 10 minutes to practice, so I didn't bother skating. And honestly, if you're waiting for the perfect hour to practice, you'll be waiting a while. But 10 minutes, that's something that most of us can actually find. This isn't about trying to squeeze in everything into that 10 minutes. It's about knowing what deserves your attention when your time is short. Hey guys, if you're new here, I'm Tracy. I'm a roller skating coach and former competitive artistic skater. And these days, I mostly teach adults who are fitting skating in and around their busy lives. Work, kids, busy schedules, all of it, especially inside my online beginner course. So when you've only got 10 minutes, the goal isn't to do everything. It's to focus on a few things that give you the biggest return. And this applies whether you're a beginner, intermediate or advanced skater. The way you think about practice stays exactly the same, even though the skills you work on might change slightly. I'm going to teach you the three simple buckets that you can pull from to figure out what to do when you've only got 10 minutes to practice. Bucket number one, balance. This is where I'd spend most of your 10 minutes. I don't want you to think about balance as just standing still. It's about how well you can control your weight when you're moving. If balance feels shaky, everything else feels harder when you're skating. Pushing, gliding, turning, even stopping. So no matter what your level is, this bucket stays exactly the same. What changes is how you work on it. For beginner skaters, it could be something as simple as a push and glide. It could be a knee up balance position. For more experienced skaters, it could be more about edge control with balance incorporated, or it could be about balance, going backwards with edge control. So as you can see, they are all different skills, but they all have the same focus, which is balancing. The second bucket, edges. Once your balance is sorted, edges are what give you control. They're what stops skating from feeling stiff or unpredictable, and you need it to be able to get around corners comfortably. If you don't use your edges, you end up skating very straight. So edges are super important. It's a foundational skill of what skating is made up of. For beginner skaters, this might be something as simple as bubbles, because we're using our inside edges when we do bubbles. It could be just pushing on an outside edge, doing that little scooter push. We're holding an outside edge here with the forward skate. So this is a simple edge. Could also be an inside edge. Inside edges are a little bit harder, but for beginner skaters, we definitely need to learn our inside edges and outside edges. For more experienced skaters, it could be crossovers, where we're connecting both of our edges forward. It could be backward crossovers. Again, we're connecting our edges from outside to inside, outside, inside. It could also be working on tighter edge work. So instead of making large circles like we just were, we're starting to hold that edge and starting to make smaller, smaller, smaller circles. Deeper edge work can also look like this. We're making more of a tighter S shape by pressing deeper into that edge. The next is all about learning to trust your skates and how they move underneath you. Bucket number three is one control skill. When I say a control skill, I'm talking about anything that helps you manage your speed, direction, or stability. Not tricks, not flashy stuff. Control is what makes you feel safe and in charge of your skates. This matters because when you work on control, everything else improves faster. Your balance feels better, your edges feel more reliable, and your confidence grows without you having to force it. Everyone wants to be in control of their skates the whole time when you're skating. So a control skill is anything that generates speed. When you're generating speed, you're in control of how fast you're going. So a control skill for a beginner skater could look like forward skating. I'm generating speed as I skate forward. It could look like simple bubbles. Bubbles push you forward. You can go quicker or you can go slower. So bubbles also generate speed. It could be crossing over around corners because when we cross over, we're generating speed. I can also push and go a lot faster here if I want to, or I can slow it down. So I'm in control of my speed here. Or for a beginner, it could be something as simple as practicing your stopping skills, which if you're a beginner, I highly recommend that you practice stopping skills every time you practice. It's one skill that is always forgotten. So as a beginner, there's so many different ways. You can stop. You've got a toe stop. You've got a plow stop. And then you've also got a T-stop, which is a little bit harder, but there are three stopping skills that you can practice as one of your control skills. For more intermediate skaters, it could still be that you are controlling your stop, but in a fancier way. So maybe it's a 180 jump to a toe stop. It could also be about controlling your speed while you're doing footwork. So lots of footwork happening, knowing how to slow down, continue the footwork, but being able to control your speed in whatever footwork you might be doing. We need to be able to gauge where we are and how much speed we have to be able to stay in a space and not hit any walls. So it's really important to know how to slow down and control that speed at any level. So if you've only got 10 minutes, control skills help you finish off your session, feeling calm and capable, not rushed or flustered. Repetition always beats variety when your time is short. So 10 minutes is plenty of time to make progress. Just keep it simple. Focus on balance, edges, and one control skill. And that is enough for 10 minutes, if that is all you've got. If you want the how for specific skills, I've got a beginner playlist here on YouTube that breaks everything down step-by-step. And if you're new and trying to understand what actually matters as a beginner, because it's very overwhelming, I've got a free workshop that gives you the bigger picture, which is linked down below. We don't usually find more time. We always choose what we make time for. So if this video gives you permission to put on your skates only just for 10 minutes, then that is enough. If you found this video helpful, don't forget to like and subscribe. It really helps my channel grow. Thanks guys, and I'll see you in the next video.