First let me define what I mean with “teaching kids skating in 1 hour”: the techniques that I applied in my classes served for almost every kid in a way that they can get up by themselves, walk without falling and build confidence to continue skating. I will describe you the 4 anchor points of the one hour class.
I filmed everything by myself so you will see me walking to the camera or a hand, I’m not a good director/actor yet…
For all techniques you should use a carpet with artificial grass as described in the article “Tips on teaching kids” , you can also use some surface where the wheels don’t roll. Kids build confidence if they learn how to walk on the skates first, this is allot easier on the carpet, then later when they repeat everything on concrete they will pick it up faster. The carpet which you can see in the video is very small, I have wider ones but couldn’t bring them since I don’t have my car back yet( crashed it).
1) Stand up
If you start with teaching them to get up they will get confidence from the fact that they can do something on skates. If from the beginning you try to teach them how to skate and they keep losing balance or fall then they will get frustrated and lose interest in learning more. Teaching them to get up shouldn’t be that hard, I have never had a kid who couldn’t stand up by themselves after 1 hour.
2) V-stand!!!
This is the most important step that you should maintain throughout the first lessons of teaching. Tell them to walk with skates in V-stand, the kids like it if you tell them to walk like a duck or penguins. This is an absolute must to succeed in teaching them to skate!
V-stand ( Duck or penguin)
Video V-stand
Basic skating position is not good to start with if kids can barely control the skates!
Video: This is what happens if you teach them in the basic skating position. They won’t find any sort of grip to make steps, neither will they have proper balance from one foot to another.
3) Balance
Once they know how to get up and walk around then you should proceed with balance, skating is all about balance from left to right. Since kids are used to walking forward they will not understand the concept of moving forward on skates where the legs should move to the left or right. You should involve lots of exercises/games that involve moving the body from left to right and right to left.
There are a lot of variations that you can probably think off, these are some that I use in my classes. Feel free to mail me other examples, either on video or pictures, I would be more then happy if you let me publish it so we can all share ideas. Once the kids get more comfortable on skates you can do these exercises in races of 2 teams that compete against each other.
4) Bending knees
In order to get more control all the time you should teach them to always bend the knees. Standing up very tall with straight legs will have them lose balance from the front to the back, when bending knees they will feel more stable and connected to the ground.
This is a little game that kids can do individual or against each other. By themselves you can take times to see if they become faster and if they play against each other you can see who collects the most cones.
I really would appreciate it if you comment on the post, feedback!!! Good or bad, doesn’t matter! We can all learn from each other and I would love to hear what you think about my approach.
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I like the approach. It’s important to give the Kids some “Games” to learn. Keep every step as simple as possible so they can adapt quickly. Main Problem i had, teaching Kids is that a lot of them ar blocked by their to stiff Skates, so they couldn’t really start bending their Knees by bending the Ankles too. So most of them bended Knees by pushing the Butt back (danger of losing Balance). Got any Tipps to correct that?
Rollermaniac
Hey Rollermaniac, I agree with keeping every step as simple as possible. Mainly being able to explain it as simple as possible in kids language! Stiff skates indeed can be a problem, I make sure they are tight at the bottom and the upper strap is more lose (recreational skate). Also it depends allot on the cuff, on some skates it doesn’t move allot.