Tom Gellie compares two inline skaters to show how Peter drops his center of mass into turns using gravity, creating quicker arcs, while James stays upright and braced. The key is feeling a controlled fall and letting your legs feed through the turn, a sensation that transfers directly to skiing technique.
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I've got a comparison here of two inline bladers, both practicing those movements for skiing. And since coronavirus has hit, people have really taken up rollerblading or inline skating with a vengeance. It's a really popular thing to do, so if you're out there practicing, perhaps this video might help you have some new goals or things to try and work on that'll translate to your skiing. So I've chosen these two. My friend on the left here in the singlet, James, and the guy in the yellow, Peter. And just look at the way these two transition. And the most simple way I could put it is the guy in the yellow is working with gravity to allow him to, like, topple and take a more direct center of mass path into the inside of this next turn. So he wants to be kind of in here to work this turn. James ends up not really getting inside of the turn much. He sort of is almost like in here, and so therefore he can't really do too much with that arc. And there's a real sensation of you have to be comfortable with falling or dropping. Now just look at the two postures here, even between the two, like the intention— there it is, right, these frames with the yellow guy. See how there's a downward drop. Through this part as the feet feed away. Now if we go back, now watch James in the singlet. Can you see there's not as much of a drop? It's much slower and it's later. So try and keep your eyes on the two. Now there's a yellow guy dropping centre of mass because he's trying to get across the line of his feet. He needs to kind of almost like getting over a hump. He needs to like pull his feet up a little bit or lighten his feet and drop in this direction. Sideways and a little bit just down the hill. Now, the resulting position between the two is very different, and you'll see like the recent video I did on how to practice like an efficient edging with the legs using a sensation of dropping and a band. Very different. So you'll see James is more kind of braced in between this position, whereas this guy has just allowed his legs to drop in between the force and his center of mass. They've just kind of like collected nicely in there to keep him balanced. And then he does the same movement again. So you might go, oh, he's going up there. Well, yeah, there's a little bit of up, but look at the timing. Now he's dropping in. We come a little bit further down. This is a really nice turn transition with the yellow. Because it's a shorter turn, he has to make the movements quicker. Legs feed through and drop. And there he is in this next turn. So if you're out there practicing your inline skiing, on blades, see if you can work on the same movement patterns and use gravity as your friend. You're not just pushing your feet sort of out and around through a turn. You're trying to drop yourself in and like almost, you really encourage yourself to fall. So your feet go out here, trust that you're going to catch yourself. Because the last thing your body wants to do is fall over. So you have to kind of really encourage and train that falling sensation, toppling sensation, to use gravity as your engine.
