I’ve mastered the front cross with right foot forward, and I’m working on it with left foot now. I can do a solid run on the 80cm setup maybe 3/5 times left foot forward.

So for those keeping track, here’s my trick list :

Complete:
Forward fish, Forward snake left foot forward, forward snake right foot forward, forward cross right foot forward.

In progress :
Forward cross left foot forward, forward shift right foot forward

So far so good, right? So today I looked online for the next few tricks up the ladder, so I can practice that. Looks like skating backwards and eagle-style are next. Hm.

I got out and attempted to practice both and it was nothing but disheartening fail. I can’t skate backwards at all, and I can’t bend the proper way to do eagle. I’m on a slight hill, too, so skating backwards is a little bit of a pain (I’m either out of control or going against gravity). The wind also picked up something fierce, so it was a frustrating day in all.

I’ll get back out there tomorrow and start going backwards, but I doubt I’ll attempt the eagle-style stuff again for awhile. Seems like it could mess up my knees pretty bad.

Forward cross going well. Some tips for any other noobs that might follow in my wake :

- Lean back, knees bent. These two things apply to all three tricks I’ve learned thus far (fish, snake, cross). Leaning back makes you more mobile with your front wheels, which will be your “steering” wheels, like a car. Keeping your knees bent makes up for your ankles being nearly stiff, and lets you move around your legs a bit better.

- When doing the cross, don’t rely on momentum and wheel positioning to move your skates for you. Really muscle them around the cones. The muscles on your shins will strengthen up, and you will get better at it over time.

- I find myself kind of naturally facing in the opposite direction of my forward foot, almost as if I’m slaloming through the cones sideways. I’m goofy-footed (right foot forward dominant), so I face left a little bit.

I bought wheels the other day, thanks to suggestions in this thread at USFSA. I wound up with 4 of these and 4 of these for a rockered setup. We’ll see how it goes. It’s 82a, not as hard as some people were suggesting I buy, but I couldn’t really find anything else on my budget.

I also found another relatively new slalomer keeping up a blog like mine, only better. She’s better than I am (she used to be a quad skater), she’s actually taking video, and she’s got a page of good resources and videos for beginner slalomers. Check it out! www.gotslalom.com

With the heel brake off I could practice snaking with each foot in the front. I can do it just fine, but I don’t look super smooth doing it. I’m having to twist my upper body a lot to get myself to turn with 8 wheels on the ground. I suspect that when I rocker my wheels, I’ll turn easier.

Actually, I suspect that when I rocker my wheels I’ll fall on my face a lot, then I’ll turn easier.

I also made a bit of progress doing the forward cross. It feels pretty natural, but I’m still running over my tape (“cones”) every 4th one or so. Overall I’m just getting more and more comfortable with the motions required for freestyle slalom. It’s a pretty cool feeling.

I also discovered that, like Derek Zoolander, I’m not an ambiturner. However, unlike Zoolander, I can’t turn right. For some reason I’m just not comfortable with it. I suspect it’s because I’m not comfortable on my left foot yet, so T-stopping with my right foot is a bit awkard.

Rachel (my wife) got some video of me before the 2 hour run Saturday. She also has, on video, my first fall. It’s not so graceful. However, after that first fall, I felt more comfortable falling, so I was more gutsy overall. I fell about 5 more times in that one hour. I landed hard on my already bad knee, so it’s all bruised now. Awesome! Mad street cred coming my way.

I only set up 5 “cones” but I got to the point where I can forward fish them all without hitting a “cone” about 80% of the time at a reasonable pace. Not bad. I also spent a good amount of time practicing the forward snake. I’ll try and post crappy, low quality digital camera videos tomorrow to mark my progress. I think I’m doing fairly well for 2 days!

So after doing one slalom run I turned around and pushed off with my right leg, and my knee went ‘pop’. I think skating is causing me to rotate my knee sideways (that is, when I push off, my right foot is almost perpendicular to my left foot) and over time that weakens the knee. This one push caused my foot to push nearly past 90º and ‘pop’ it went. It’s not really all that painful, but definitely uncomfortable.

However, I’m an idiot and decided to skate to work today. “Hurf durf”, I said to myself, “I’m awesome enough to skate to work”.

Well that was probably a mistake. The sidewalk around the Waterfront area is (surprise!) still too textured to skate on. I would push off to skate and immediately stop because of all the friction. The ride is rough enough to shake a filling loose… add this to the fact that there’s a fairly steep grade hill and it just felt like I was sprinting to work.

Now my knee is more sore than ever.

On the up side, I found an awesome forum for freestyle skaters. It’s actually relatively active, and everyone is super helpful so far. Rock on.

Today I got my skates in the mail. I bought a set of Rollerblade Twister II Pros on eBay for $91 shipped. Not bad at all. I’ll take some pictures tomorrow.

I just got back from skating around, getting a feel for the skates (I haven’t really done inline skates before… I skate on them a few times my freshman year of college, but never again). I’m also kind of surveying the terrain around me, what’s skate-able and what’s not.

For instance, the area of Portland around the Waterfront is hardly skatable at all because it’s so rough. There’s a slight hill grade, too, making it fairly dangerous when there’s a crowd there (which there usually is). We’ll see how I fare once I get better.

My skates came with a heel brake attached. I know I’m supposed to remove it eventually, but I really need to keep it on until I’m more comfortable with a T-Stop, lest I go barreling into an unhappy person, tree, car, what have you.

I practiced the forward fish a bit, then moved onto the forward snake. I’ll do a small tutorial on that in upcoming posts, but bear in mind I’m far fome qualified to provide a tutorial. I can barely do them, let alone do them around cones.

Speaking of which, I don’t even have cones yet. Like I said, it’s my first time out, so I’m just trying to get comfortable. Cones will be a pain when I’m starting out anyway, since I’m terrible and will spend most of my time knocking them around. I might just chalk the supposed location of the cones and skate around that. If I put it in a discrete enough place, no one will notice and that can just be my practice area.