Crossovers | Rollerskating Lessons

And if you have executed that perfectively, perfectively, you know what I mean. What's up everyone? Welcome back to Skate with Tess. Today I'm going to teach you the fundamentals of crossovers. You should, by the end of this episode, you will have officially graduated from crossover school and now you just got to get out there and practice your skills. You are going to need two skills and able to do crossovers. One is derby stride, and it'll always be derby stride. I'll say, I'll stop saying it after a while, but you should have derby stride very much down for everything, but especially this. And you should also have one knee glide. So you're able to balance on one foot on your skate pretty well, fairly well. Definitely practice that. I have videos up for both of those skills and I will link them below in the description. So make sure that you check them out. And now without further ado, we're going to start on crossovers. But first we're going to work on some footwork warmups that are very important. I am going to do a footwork, everything footwork on wheels episode. But for today, we're just going to stick with two. You haven't learned them yet officially, but you will today. The first warmup footwork exercise is called the shuffle. Start out slow, especially if you're a beginner, just do this. Get used to this. What you're doing by doing this is you're picking up your wheels off of the ground, getting used to that. All right. Distributing weight, getting your balance. I think that if you're a beginner, you should do this over and over and over before every single practice. Footwork is so important when it comes to skating. You're going to have to lift up your feet a lot, especially if you're out in the world doing roller skating stuff. You are going to need some cool footwork skills to get over holes in the ground or cracks in the ground. So if you're comfortable with that, pick up the pace a little bit and make sure that you're bending your knees. Your chest is up. Make sure you're not looking at the ground when you're shuffling and you're just going to pick up your pace just a little bit. See, you know, push yourself. See how much you can do. See how fast you can go. Be very careful because this could result in rolling ankles. So just go slow and pick it up when you're ready. And the next footwork skill is called the grapevine. We've all done it in elementary school PE class. So if you're going to your right, you're going to stick your right foot out, put your left foot over, right foot out, left behind. I'm on a hill, so I'm kind of rolling a little bit. It's not the most elegant looking thing for anybody, even experienced skaters. It's not the prettiest thing, unless you've got some speed. Maybe it's a little prettier after that. I don't know. Do we need to be beautiful? So now you can pick up the pace. All right. I'm on a hill, so having to hold on a little bit tighter and, you know, just go at your own pace. This is really good for balance and getting ready for those quick footwork skills. Okay. Now we've got, we know what skills we need. We know what footwork we need to warm up with. Now we're going to go into the crossover itself. I have broken up this skills practice into four parts, calling it phase one, two, three, and four. So this here, this chalk line, I hope you can see it. It's the apex. So it's the apex of a derby track. All right. I tried my best for memory, muscle memory. I was like, when am I instinctually turning? And I tried to measure it. I think I got it just about right. It'll serve for today's practice anyway. So phase one is coasting and pumping through the turn. Do not lift up your wheels for this. Make sure your knees are bent and your chest is up. Okay, here we go. And your eyes are up too. Eyes up. Maybe a smile. Maybe. You don't have to. So I'm coming around this apex here and I'm pumping. I'm just pumping around the turn. Okay. You can just do this in a circle as well. You're just pumping around the turn, pumping with your right foot, going to the left, just pumping. None of your wheels are leaving the ground. Okay. So for phase two, we're going to get used to picking up our right foot while coming around the apex. Okay. This is where you're going to find your balance. Ease into it, people. Ease into it. So your knees are bent, your chest is up, your eyes are up, and you're just going to try to go around the turn as best you can, lifting up that right leg, putting all your weight on your left side. Okay. You're just going to stay bent and stay upward. Okay. As much as you can. If you want, you can push off to get some speed to go around the apex. That's fine. All I'm doing, this is all I'm doing. I'm just lifting up that right leg. Knees bent, eyes up, chest up. Okay. Stay balanced. Stay here. All your weight is here. Okay. So phase three is training the muscles in your legs, gaining that muscle in your leg, I guess I should say, and it's preparing you for the motion of crossing over. So what we're going to do is we're going to cross over without lifting up our wheels off the ground. Okay. So you're just going to make the crossover motion like this, going around the apex. Your left foot stays pretty much like a tree trunk in the ground, and your right foot is pushing you around. Okay. Here we go. Knees bent, chest up, eyes up. This is just staying a little tree trunk there. Okay. Okay. All right. So hopefully you've done all of those phases a couple times on the, in the parking lot, wherever you're skating to get used to it, to get warmed up for it. And now we're going to do the crossover. Let me just say, do not be frustrated with crossovers, just like wheels on your feet. Crossovers are weird. Know what I'm saying? This foot pretty much acts as a tree trunk. It doesn't really lift up that much. I think the only one that really lifts up is your right foot. Okay. Here we go. So the left foot is kind of lifting up when you come back around like this. So you're just lifting that right foot up and crossing over. You just got to do this so many times to where it's muscle memory, and you just get it. So if you want to, if you're, if you're wondering where you start your crossover, it's about right when you get to the, enter the apex. And when you exit the apex, so like two times. So first it's when you enter here, you want to do that right there. And then when you exit, it's about right here. Okay. That's two times start there. So what's happening with my body when I'm doing a crossover that I'm not saying you got to like, just watch somebody do it. And then you also have to just practice it a hundred times. Cause what's going to happen is you're going to be at the roller rink or you're going to be at the parking lot and you want to go in a circle and you want to do some crossovers and it's going to feel really stiff. It's going to feel weird. You're probably up here. Maybe you need to bend your knees a little bit. Crossovers take practice. You can get it in a week. You can get it in a month. It doesn't matter. You have to practice this one in order to get it. So just keep doing it. And then one day you're going to be like, damn, I got it. And that's that let's do it again. Okay. So once when you enter and then once when you exit, okay. Do it again. Once when you enter and once when you exit, if you want to do like a phase four and a half, we can go around the apex and keep this one crossed over and lift up that back foot just for fun. Let's try it. Crossover once and lift up that back foot. Why not? You got to have fun with it. Okay. And if you want, you do have the option to just do constant crossovers in the circle. So you're practicing a lot. So it looks something like this. Just find a giant circle and just cross over around it. You just got to practice. This is one of those things you just got to keep doing. Get used to it. Get used to when you need to coast and you need to coast around or if you want to cross over around. Remember crossing over helps you get around the turn faster. That's the whole point of it, right? Otherwise we just be coasting through. Okay. Well that about wraps up this episode of skate with Tess. If you like what you're seeing and you had a good time, go ahead and like subscribe and follow me on Instagram. Leave a comment. Let me know where you are in your skating journey. I always want to know those who are new here. Hello and welcome to those who are returning. Thank you. I'm so grateful. All right, everyone. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the ride. I'll see you next time. Bye.