When asked “What do you do?” the most common reaction to my answer of “rollerblading instructor” is, “Wow, what a cool job”. I do feel very fortunate to have a job that involves spending time with people who are in their free time and enjoying themselves, being outdoors and getting exercise while being ‘at work’. There are some down sides of course like any job (such as a dip in weekend socialising activities and croaky voice) but the balance remains in my favour.

It is with this attitude that I enjoy initiating good skaters to the instructor process in my role as ICP (Inline Certification Programme) UK Director and Examiner. I also enjoy dispelling some of the assumptions about being a skate instructor (mainly that its ‘easy’, involves nothing more than heel braking a lot and is a doddle to pass).

The next ICP Level 1 course will be taking place in London from 20^th-22^nd April with candidates coming from Pakistan, Spain and Portugal to join a host of UK based inline skaters. The group dynamics on a course are always interesting as much work is done in small groups of 2-4 people and candidates learn by teaching each other. This leads to quickly forming friendships and a huge sense of fun within the stress of getting it right and learning properly.

Many different kinds of skaters decide they want to give rollerblading lessons. Have you been teaching your mates for years on an ad hoc basis? Do you want to earn money doing what you love? Do you think this might look god on your CV? Some want to get back to basics to help them progress with their own skating.

Regardless of their motives, all ICP Level 1 candidates share a love of inline skating and a desire to get more people involved. No one is sure what to expect which is why the preparation session a month before was devised, where candidates are shown the required skating skills and the specific level of execution needed to pass the course.

Becoming an ICP certified instructor involves a 2.5 day course plus a 2 hour skating skills session a month beforehand. Most skaters who have been through the process will admit to it being an intensive and demanding challenge, but ultimately a rewarding process.

The course focuses on giving candidates a thorough understanding of the teaching model which allows for lesson planning and a coverage of all essential learning aspects, such as accurate demonstration of skills, breaking up of skills into 3 easy parts, sequencing for easier progressions, monitoring and adjusting students mistakes and providing a summary at the end.

The examination process involves 3 parts, a written theory paper of short answer questions, a skating skills test and a 15 minute taught inline skate lesson.

Many good skaters are surprised at the difficulty they encounter in trying to skate the ‘easy’ beginner skills to ICP specification. This is because ICP believes that a good demo of a skill provides a new learner with a lot of useful information, while a sloppy demo doesn’t help someone learn. This can cause problems when skills are expected to be perfectly demoed on each side (or on each leg) where appropriate. Here, even advanced and experienced skaters come to see their ‘bad side’ as a real weakness and an area of focus. It is surprising how many candidates have trouble with their Stride 2 and Spin stops due to unequal proficiency on different legs. Even instructors have a weak side, but it shouldn’t be visible in a demo!

I look forward to reporting on the progress of this years candidates and welcoming more skaters into my world of being an inline skating instructor, and earning money doing what you love.

Asha Kirkby
ICP Level 3
Skatefresh Manager
ICP UK Director

When Mike and Alison met in a Skatefresh group class, they had no idea how inline skating was about to transform every aspect of their lives. They had not only learned to skate that day, but met their future spouse.

Their love of inline skating grew as they fell in love with each other and they became Serpentine Road regulars, setting up their own slalom cups (in the days when there was only one set this was quite radical and the start of a spreading trend).

When they finally got engaged, they planned a summer wedding with skates featuring heavily in the proceedings. This YouTube link shows you the fairytale scene of them skating from the church in their first ‘glides’ as husband and wife.

YouTube Video

”People need to know how wonderful inline skating is and how it can change your life - literally!” Mike Rivers

So, what are you waiting for? If you are single, are looking for a way to keep fit and enjoy life more, start inline skating today and join a Skatefresh beginner half day class or 3 week course, and wait to see who you get paired up with for your scooting exercise….

Can you believe it?!! This has to be my perfect holiday! Doing what I love most, in a fabulous location. Exploring and being taught to go faster by a world class skater.

A little apprehensive of my level at first, I was a SpeedCamp virgin. Other participants were well initiated in the world of racing on skates. I was relieved though to find that skaters were at varying levels.

The skating in Mallorca in 2006 was unbeatable. Smooth tarmac and quiet roads. We went on some lovely skates - mainly through fields and open grassland, sometimes coming out by the sea.

Residence was in the friendly Ivory Playa in Porte d’Alcudia which is right on the beach and has a bar and pool to chill out by too. This is important if you’ve been taking your skating seriously. But how serious you are is up to you. I deliberately tested myself by trying to keep up with some of the faster guys (phew).

The itinerary was mostly drills and instruction in speed technique in the mornings. If you’d not done much speed work before, then recovery, D-shapes, pulling, pushing, double pushing, gliding, set down, falling…..the wealth of jargon and schools of thought attached to ‘Technique’ becomes your own language very quickly. Barry who is an expert in sports science and has a way of explaining the bio mechanics of it all in a digestible format according to your level.

The afternoons we’d go off on a leisure skate or do some filming for video analysis later on. Watching ourselves in a video review proved an extremely useful tool for learning. Barry encouraged us to pick out and analyse aspects of both our own and each others skating so that we become more aware of how we skate and what we can improve.

Since SpeedCamp Mallorca (link), I have vastly improved my speed. This is not fitness related but due to learning the how to get the most out of my stride. I am constantly aware of what my body is doing when I skate (and I also watch others closely to see what they can improve on too).

A month later I pulled off my very best inline marathon time and held my teams’ best average lap times at the Le Mans 24 hours race (link).

Many people have returned year on year as this kind of lifestyle holiday can be highly addictive.

Further info:
Linda@skatefresh.com
Tel: 07906 449 437
Website:
http://www.speedcamp.ca/mallorca_2007.shtml
Or email Barry direct on:
Barry@breakawayskate.com mentioning the skatefresh website.

You may have been following the adventures of British skate boarder Dave Cornthwait who recently completed his record breaking skate across Australia. Its taken him 5 months to skateboard from Perth to Brisbane (via Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney).

Some of us know Dave personally as he’s part of the slalom skateboard crew who use the Beach end of Serpentine Road. Now that he has returned to UK that he is going to have an inline skate lesson to see how 8 wheels feel compared to 4 and a plank of wood. Watch this space for that report.

He only changed wheels 5 times during the 5 months but wore out 14 pairs of shoes! Like rollerblading, skateboarding uphill can be very tiring and Dave said these were some of his low points during the skate. But the constant support throughout the trip by local inline skaters, boarders, cyclists and pedestrians were his constant highlights.

Dave was interviewed by Richard and Judy on Friday 16th February (5pm) in his first TV interview since returning to the UK. Please help support Dave’s tremendous efforts and donate what you can to his chosen charities. We at Skatefresh look forward to welcoming him back to Serpentine Road and into some inline skate classes. You’ll know who he is, he’s the guy with one calf bigger than the other!

Check out Dave’s website for TV reports, personal blogs and diaries and fantastic footage from his epic journey. What are you going to do when you are tired of your job? Board Free

From the streets to the skate park – the first instalment of Louise’s skate park diary

Back when I was at uni, I took my inline skates and headed to a small skate park in Hyde Park, Leeds. Two of the local youths taught me a couple of basic manoeuvres and I loved it. But then, after a nasty fall that destroyed my trousers and my pride but not much else, I never got around to going back. In July 2005, with the arrival of Debs from a skate school in Australia, I finally had an excuse to get back in there and give it another go.

As a skatefresh instructor I am obviously a fairly advanced skater so it was a bit strange to be a beginner again. However, with Debs’ watchful eye it didn’t take me long to get my courage. Pretty soon I found myself standing over the edge of the 4ft mini ramp on the coping (the metal rail) trying to get the courage to ‘drop in’. This involves rolling over the edge, into the half pipe, then going up the other side. I couldn’t believe it but I made it, and without falling too.

After a bit of practice I got the hand of rolling out the other side, like all the cool kids do, instead of scrambling out in a very uncool fashion. Unfortunately, now I’m hooked. The adrenaline you feel from riding in the skate park is just brilliant. You push yourself just out of your comfort zone every time but you get amazing rewards for it. I’ve been watching Debs in the park and she drops into the 12ft vert ramp with ease. That’s what I’ve decided to aim for. One day that will be m

Graduating from the mini to midi

I’ve been going to the skate park (Bay 66) for a couple of months now and I’ve even started dropping into the midi ramp (6ft). The principle is the same as the mini ramp but it starts to get scarier as you get higher.

Recently, I’ve been skating in the street course area of the park a little more. I’ve even managed to get enough speed to clear the funbox in one jump. This is a ramp up, a flat bit across and then a ramp down and I can jump on the way up and clear the middle flat bit. It looks pretty cool if I can manage a grab in the middle too.

The great thing is that we’ve started a trend. There were always a few inline skaters there but it is mainly skate boarders. However, the other night we had loads of us down there, about 15 of the regulars from Hyde Park. I even helped the beginners with a few tips on how to pump in the ramps (building up speed going backwards and forwards in the half pipe).

My latest trick is learning to stall. This is going up to the coping and then instead of coming out of the ramp you stall on the coping and drop back in again. It’s the first stage before you can learn to grind something.

I sat on the edge of the big vert today and looked down over the edge. It is SO scary. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to drop into it. It just goes straight down. Maybe one day…

Be brave and just go for it

Wooooohooooo! I did it! Today I stood up on the edge of the vert (12ft) and I dropped into it. It was an amazing feeling. I soared up the other side, turned round and came back down and had a massive grin on my face. Of course, I climbed straight back up and did it again.

I’ve come to the conclusion that when you ride the park there are two voices in your head. One says “don’t do it, don’t be stupid, you know it will hurt”. The other says “go on, just go for it”. If you stand on the edge looking at the drop the first voice starts to get louder and louder and eventually, it wins. If you want to skate that ramp and become an aggressive inline skater you need to listen to the second voice and just go for it.

Before I stood up and dropped into the vert, I had to do it from a sitting position. This took me ages. Weeks in fact. I just couldn’t get up the courage. But then, one week, with everyone willing me on, I just thought “it’s now or never” and went for it. OK, so I crashed and burned in the bottom but I knew I’d had my knees too straight and it hadn’t hurt so I got back up and tried again and this time it worked. I was so happy and it took me much less time to get the courage to stand up and drop in.

So now I have a new goal. I want to get good enough to teach people how to skate people in the skate park. I need to learn some new tricks but one day I’ll be good enough to help Debs with the lessons.

One more thing I should say, a lot of people think aggressive skating is really dangerous. There are risks involved but if you wear a helmet and aggressive padding (great big pads including elbow pads) you can really cut down the risk of serious injury. I’ve had my share of bumps and bruises and so have my friends but aggressive skating doesn’t seem to be much more risky than the average street skate.

Hope you can join me and Debs in the skate park soon.

Saturday 16th December 2006. Central London. 350+ Skating Santas.

Did you see us go by? Were you lucky enough to be part of the best Xmas spirit event London had to offer? This was the finale to a fantastic year of street skates run by London’s dedicated teams of marshals and skaters, providing safe skating for hundreds of skaters on London’s street skates. London has more official street skates than any other city in the world. The Wednesday night skate www.Londonskate.com, the London Friday night skate and the Sunday Stroll (both at www.lfns.co.uk).

The Santa skate was a fun, fundraiser for the LondonSkate as for years the Wednesday night skate has run as a free event, with costs coming out of organizers pockets. The £10 entry fee to the Santa Skate (which gave us our Santa suits, hats and beards) will help provide walkie talkies, batteries, fluoro vests and of course updating the brilliant mobile music bikes (and music backpacks). A huge thanks to Anya and Pope for their massive input as well as of course all the marshals from all skates whose efforts, skills and fitness are appreciated by all.

‘What is it you are doing?’ is a common question from spectators of the street skates. We are using the city in a way to promote skating as a viable health and fitness option for adults of all ages and walks of life. The police are informed of our routes and our marshals are well trained and experienced at guiding the skate safely through the streets of London causing as little disruption as possible. Skating in London’s parks is severely restricted, so street skating is a way of getting lots of miles under your wheels, as well as being a great way to see the city.

As Manager of Skatefresh skateschool I am not a regular street skater as I am usually running our popular ‘Intro to street skating’ course and am always teaching during weekends. However, this means that when I do go on a street skate I am overwhelmed by the positive attitude of all skaters, the friendliness and sense of community we all share and the sense of wonder we impart to non-skaters watching from the pavements. The Santa Skate was indeed a spectacle to behold. At the front Rudolph (aka Roger) led the sexi reindeers where Skatefresh’s very own Linda was to be seen dancing and prancing. Behind the reindeer Santa’s sleigh (aka the music bike) was decked out with pressies and followed by the mass Santas. The lack of Santa’s traditional big belly is testament to how good skating is for you!

All along the central London route, Saturday shoppers were aghast at the sight. I have never seen so many cameras taking pictures in all my life! Why does skating bring out such astonished reactions? Is it the sense of innocence that we associate with skating and then the contradiction that this skating group are obviously not kids! Who knows. What I do know is that a lot of happiness was spread, and hopefully more people will consider rollerblading as something they could do in the future. If you don’t believe us, why not try our 5 week Beginner to Street skater course which promises to take you on a street skate by the 5th week. Now there’s a challenge for a new year’s resolution!

June 2006 - six skaters achieved their ICP 1 inline skate instructor qualification under the guidance of Asha – Nina Madden, Andy Morgan, Faris Al-Sawaf, Pam Glinski, Roger Howorth and Pete Cowan. Six months on, Skatefresh caught up with Pete to find out what skate stuff he’s been up to since then.

Pete – I live in the small town of Montrose about 100 miles north of Edinburgh on the north east coast of Scotland. Although there has always been a healthy community of young skaters in the town, skating isn’t (or wasn’t) really viewed as something that adults should be seen doing round here (that sounded like a bit of a challenge to me!!).

I went on the ICP Instructors course mainly to improve my own skating ability. Very naively, I hadn’t thought much about giving instructions or lessons afterwards.

When I got back from the course I was raving about it with friends and family. I discovered that a number of adults in the town owned blades and had tried skating once, but hadn’t usually got on too well and they were simply too shy to persevere on their own. Their blades were just gathering dust. With a little encouragement and an article in ‘The Montrose Review’ I started to have regular customers for lessons. Key to the success of these was finding a secluded and traffic free stretch of tarmac which had been laid for a new industrial estate [but the factories had never arrived]. This secluded location (and of course some excellent instruction!) helped the nervous adult skaters overcome their lack of confidence in the knowledge that there were never any spectators. After sweeping it clear of chuckies this area became the perfect summer school location. It’s where-abouts are still a closely guarded secret!

Individual and group lessons continued from summer until late autumn when the dark nights and poor weather closed in (one disadvantage of living this far north). By that stage around 15-20 adults had participated with most returning regularly. Group lessons proved a great way for adult skaters to have a right laugh with others of similar ability. By late summer a good number had developed their ability and (more importantly) their confidence and so we organised a Sunday Rollerstroll. We used the smooth tarmac cyclepath which runs almost the entire length of the town with a detour on the return leg along the promenade by the beach for an ice cream stop. The sun shone, the tarmac was dry and we had such a laugh together that day. Although only a few skaters were able to be on the stroll, it was a turning point for adult skating in the town and was positively reported in ‘The Montrose Review’.

I’ve also been liaising with Don Morton the only other ICP instructor working in Scotland. Don instructs mainly in the Glasgow area. We are in regular contact and are collaborating on various initiatives to ‘GET SCOTLAND ROLLING!’ which we hope to develop in 2007.

Being so far North, the roads are seldom skate-able during the late autumn and winter and the days are very short. I approached Angus Council Leisure Services Department about finding an indoor venue and they were really helpful. An adult skate club has now been formed and meets twice a month from October to March in the Town Hall. It has a large hardwood floor which is perfect. I organise and run the sessions with a mixture of free skating, coaching and other activities. So far the club has around 15 members and is growing steadily. The last session before Christmas was a Christmas party skate with all skaters in fancy dress, seasonal skating games and a surprise visit by Santa with gifts for everyone! The skater-conga was just such a hoot!

So with so much having happened this past year, 2007 looks really exciting. I hope to see the group of adult skaters in the area expand and more frequent lessons and rollerstrolls – occasionally joining up with the Glasgow skaters too. And I’d love to bring a small group to London to skate with Skatefresh chums and to join in with a London streetskate too. Look out for us and say hi!!

Pete can be contacted on www.SkateWithPete.com

January 2007.

I’m supposed to write about my skating week-or a typical week in skating. It’s 19th of Dec and people are buying presents for Xmas for each other. Lucky for Skatefresh, one loved up couple, my friends Cindy and Ian bought themselves a package of skating lessons for Xmas (Skatefresh’s special offer of buy 4 lessons get one free). Not only the latest Nintendo games or I-pod make people happy. Keeping fit in life is very popular too. Good thing is that skating is funky too-as I have to admit to myself, that`s one of the reasons why I keep on skating.

Since I passed my ICP (Inline Certification Programme) exams to become an inline skating instructor, I learned how to brake after 14 years on skates (also 13 years after becoming an active skier, and as it helps your balance, I’m now an even more confident skier. So I’m looking forward to teaching Cindy and Ian how to keep safe and be confident on skates. After 5 lessons they should end up on the Sunday stroll, a street skate with several hundred skaters in London. It is a good, fun and healthy thing to do on Sunday afternoon.

Is very rewarding for a skating instructor to see students progressing quickly! Skatefresh’s “learn how to streetskate in 5 weeks” course is designed exactly for that. From a shakey skater creature you will become a confident, gliding (maybe elegant) person on rollerblades who’ll know how to stop and turn even on fairly steep hills. So I hope my friends will be successfully streetskating by the end of February. I`m going on month long holiday-starting 22nd Dec (Yipee). Will hopefully be able to ski in Slovakia-hoping for some snowfall at home. White x-mas. That would be nice.

Saturday 16th Dec, was in every skaters diary highlited as a speciall event, the Santa skate. Starting from Hyde park corner at 5pm last Saturday. I got ready by cleaning my bearings beforehand so I can enjoy it more-don’t have to do so much hard work pushing the stride-it was worth it. Asha-our manager bought all skatefresh instructors tickets as a thank you for nice team work in 2006. Thank you Asha once more.

We picked up our Santa outfits from The Vic pub (Londons only skate friendly pub). We got changed into –one size fits every proper skater-L/XL-Santa outfits, ncluding scary white beard. I used it for covering my neck-chest area-it was nice and warm and my fairy lights were shining nicely through and created special atmospheric Xmasy glow.

At the front of the skate there were 8 fast-sexy looking reindeers. Behind them our specially decorated music bike. Another speciall reindeer decorated scooter with speakers was ensuring that Xmas hits filled streets through which santa skate was passing with festive atmosphere of all popular Xmas songs. The skate took off at 5pm from Hyde park corner, then went through central London- Skating down Knightsbridge, Chelsea to Trafalgar square-where we had short brake for refreshment and chance to chat to non skating public wondering which one is The Real Santa… I wonder. Then after short show of by the most talented streetskaters who performed jumps and slalom we skated up to Piccadily circus, around Soho, down Oxford street and finished in front of good old VIC. We wished everywhere happy Christmas. Skatefresh instructors used this opportunity to make skatefresh more visible by handing out flyers-Skatefresh Santa-Asha-the manager +helpers-Me, Louise, Nina, Jonathan, Jason. Andy was marshalling the skate, and we were very proud of Skatefresh Linda as reindeer-she was skating really fast.

The weather on Saturday was ideal, felt finally a bit more wintery. Chosen route for this skate was very smooth and to me it seemed mostly downhill, so I could skate one more after we finished. Very succesfull evening indeed, I’m already looking forward to do next streetskate. Imagine 300 skating santas-you should try to join next year. Most skaters cought up on recent events and wished each other happy Xmas festive period in Vic after the skate. I didn’t buy last years DVD- Santa skate-the movie, but going to watch it now despite that. As I luckily saved it for my skate mate- also co skatefresh instructor Andy, who left it in The Vic.

So happy Xmas everyone and don’t forget to try something adventurous next year! Maybe you could take up skating, if you haven’t done so already.

Maja

Skate Instructor Diary - Andy

My Busman’s Holiday! This time of year, having a full time job severely limits the amount of time available for teaching inline skate lessons. Realistically this is limited to weekends. With this in mind in was great to learn that my application to work at the Ice Rink at the Natural History Museum had been successful. So last Wednesday, I joined several other wannabe Ice Marshals and Customer Service assistants at the ice rink for an afternoon of training before the grand VIP opening later that evening. It wasn’t long before all of the information gathering and familiarisation to the new surroundings was over and the evening session began. The first thing that stood out was just how different the ice was to that that I am used to at Guildford Spectrum Ice Rink. After a relatively modest spell for this time of year, it was proving difficult to actually get the ice frozen, resulting in a fairly wet surface during the afternoon. Partly to do with that, as there simply wasn’t a great thickness of ice, it was not possible to use the Zamboni (that’s the ice tractor that scrapes the surface of the ice to rid it of debris) this meant that the surface was really quite rough. Add to this the fact that the rink sits beneath several large trees all intent on shedding their leaves tied with a breeze and it was a certainty that most of the first night would be spent leaf gathering!

As it turned out I had a really fun evening, getting used to my role and responsibilities, meeting my new colleagues and getting my ice skating legs back! Although I have been devoting most of my time recently to inline skating, in truth I have always been an ice skater at heart. But unlike inline skating, I have no formal qualification to teach skating on ice. My new employers assured me this would not be a problem as by far the majority of potential new customers would be absolute beginners to ice and would be looking to a confident skater to give them a helping hand rather than a formal teaching lesson. We would soon find out – I was booked for my first private lesson on Saturday morning! As it turned out my apprehension was unfounded. My student was a very nervous French mother of two, whose children were quite good ice skaters and had persuaded her to bring them along. In fact she was more nervous than me! In no time at all mum was free skating around the rink with the children shouting mildly amusing words of encourage…in French so it might have been at my expense!

Basic teaching methods for inline skating seemed to work just fine on the ice; balance is a little harder to grasp as not only does the ice offer less friction, and therefore the skates move more freely, but the blades are quite heavily rockered which (unlike inline skates which are flat) means there is a tendency at first to fall forward or back ‘off’ the skate With my confidence growing by the hour, I was beginning to really look forward to Sunday, and more successful lessons. And so it proved when my first of the day saw two really fun young ladies Amanda and Merci relatively dancing around the rink by the end Alas, we all have to come down to earth with a bang, and so it proved when an over confident me was approached by my boss to say there had been a hiccup with the bookings and as a result I was to take a class of 8 nine year olds followed by a further group of 12 celebrating an eleventh birthday, horror!!! Its not so easy finding a quiet place in a 20 x 50m ice rink with 250+ skaters just to assess your new charges!

In the end with a (massive) hand from my colleague Tara we managed to pull it off and send all 20 of the children home very happy and feeling they had all achieved new goals on the ice! I really did enjoy last week and am hoping the rest of my winter season goes as well. But you know, underneath it all, I can’t wait for Spring, the sunshine, and me getting back to teaching on my roller blades……its better for my weak old heart! Now when is my next shift…And one other thing, many many thanks to Nina who has volunteered to take all of my Skatefresh private lessons whilst I am away on my busmans holiday!