Jeremy, my husband, is a talented and graceful skater; in contrast, I am dull on skates. Why hadn’t I seized this great resource and learned to glide gracefully? Perhaps I will end up managing to do triple toe loop? Sigh… Inline skating is one of the many sports I am confident that I will not be good at. I am too afraid to fall on hard surfaces; my nerves will be on edge way before my skates are on their edges.

I decided to join Jeremy for one of his practice sessions last week after all. So that next time when he hangs out with his friends he will have an answer to “does your wife skate?” And maybe I can shorten my waiting time to get something to respond to my outdoor buddies’ question: “does your husband hike?”

I couldn’t do cones right away and had to start with learning basics, because I am not like him – I am not an Italian, not Crazy and not Special (It seems that all the names of freestyle skating moves are tailored to him. It is so not fair). I spent probably a couple of hours repeating toe turns, 180 hop turns, front crossovers, t-brakes and finally I did a few runs of regular slalom with cones which are 80 centimeters apart from one another.

Toe turns are a good way to turn because it is stable even when your skates are traveling in high speed; besides, they let you turn when the space is tight. To do a toe turn, you keep one foot forward one foot backward (just like a telemark stance except for that the rear foot is flat on the ground), knees bent and both arms in front of you. While traveling forward, initiate the turn by lifting both toes, then turn your hip to spin the skates 180 degrees and drop both heels flat on the ground at the same time. Look, inline skating and skiing share many concepts; I think I like it a bit more now.

180 hop turns are a bit advanced, but the concept is the same. You travel forward, maintaining the stance as described above. Imagine your body as a spring and try to simulate its bouncing motion and hop upward, use your hip to rotate 180 degrees, and land on the ground on both feet, flat.

Crossovers change your travel direction and at the same time increase your speed. It’s a fundamental move for figure skaters; in addition, if you are a city skater, it gives you more flexibility to maneuver through traffic.

I practiced t-brakes because I want to be comfortable removing the brake which came with my skates. Therefore the length of my skates will be equivalent, which enables me to do crossovers in both directions.

Clicking on the image shows a video clip of my practice. At the beginning I was doing regular slalom runs, in which I traveled with my skates next to the other and used my hips to make the turns happen. I did better than I expected; last time (which was probably months ago) when I tried regular slalom with cones farther apart, I kicked them off the route all over. I contribute my performance to kayaking because kayaking trains my hips a great deal.

The second weekend of October, Jeremy will be in London participating in his first freestyle slalom competition; and I’ll be in California joining the 1st Annual Outdoor Blogger Ho Down. It seems like the old routine: he skates and I hike. So does my husband hike? He is probably skating right now.