What to Practice This Month
December 2024
All of these videos are available within the Roll With Me membership at ThatNicoleFiore.com or my YouTube channel.
If you are seeing this before 12/2 at 11:59PM PT, you can still get the site Membership for 99¢
This month is all about fun! We have all holiday choreography! Before you tell me you are not a dancer or you hate the holidays, let me explain! Choreography is the best way to practice. It gets us out of our own way and doesn't allow us to spend too much time concentrating on tiny little techniques. It doesn't matter what skill level you're at or if you know the skills within the choreography yet, you can do it! If you do not celebrate Christmas or if you simply don't like Christmas music, we have alternatives to every Christmas song that we are using!
Drills, skills, choreography, and so much more!! This membership contains over 200 Tutorials with more added regularly. Drills are created to strengthen specific muscles for skating and skills are labeled by level to make learning accessible for all levels. Choreography is available in Beginner/ Intermediate as well as Advanced and can be done on or off skates!
1: All I Want for Christmas Is You
We obviously have to start with the one and only Mariah Carey. We have Beginner/ Intermediate as well as Advanced choreography and we use a lot of different skills, but nothing too difficult in this one. For any skill that I mention within any choreography, we have a skills class for it. So, if you are ever confused on a skill and you want to spend some more time focusing on it, you definitely can. With the site membership you can find it on the Skills Page. With the YouTube membership you can find it in the Skills Playlist.
Beginner/ Intermediate video length: 23 minutes, 18 seconds [Link: Website, YouTube]
Advanced video length: 16 minutes, 36 seconds [Link: Website, YouTube]
2: Last Christmas
Our second piece of choreography is Last Christmas by Wham! In this choreography we have a strut walk and crosses. In our Advanced choreography we have some one-foot turns to make things a little more challenging. Any skill that you're not ready for quite yet you can do an alternative skill. For example, if I do a one-foot turn, you can simply put your other foot down and make it a sort of rolling pivot. There's a skills class for that one too!
Beginner/ Intermediate video length: 22 minutes, 4 seconds [Link: Website, YouTube]
Advanced video length: 20 minutes, 57 seconds [Link: Website, YouTube]
3: Jingle Bell Rock
Our third song is Jingle Bell Rock. I think we all know this choreography from Mean Girls. We are going to take the Mean Girls choreography and make it skatable and family-friendly. We have a toe stop strut (if you don't want to do a toe stop strut, you can strut on your wheels) and toe pivots (that we will be practicing). I love any reason to dress up and skating is a super good reason!! Dress up! Wear something festive that feels like too much for “regular life”. It doesn't need to be a special occasion. It could be a Tuesday! If you have roller skates on your feet and you want to wear sequins, wear sequins. No one is going to think that's strange and if they do, that's their problem.
Beginner/ Intermediate video length: 18 minutes, 30 seconds [Link: Website, YouTube]
Advanced video length: 12 minutes, 27 seconds [Link: Website, YouTube]
4: Santa Tell Me
Our fourth piece of choreography is Santa Tell Me by Ariana Grande. I promised alternative songs and there happens to be an Ariana Grande song, "Breathin", that has the same beats per minute as Santa Tell Me. We get a little more wild with this one. We have crazy legs and dips with easier ways of doing everything in the Beginner/ Intermediate and more difficult ways of doing everything in the Advanced.
Beginner/ Intermediate video length: 21 minutes, 19 seconds [Link: Website, YouTube]
Advanced video length: 22 minutes, 12 seconds [Link: Website, YouTube]
Practice:
Toe Pivots
Speaking of skills, I have one skill and one drill for you to work on this month. The one skill is toe pivots. We use toe pivots in a lot of our choreography! You can do toe pivots in place of a toe stop spin or a heel-toe spin, etc. You can do toe pivots forward in both directions or backward in both directions. You can make them little or huge. If you have a toe stop in it is much easier and safer. If you wear toe plugs/ dance plugs or no toe stops at all, that's totally fine too! It's just a bit more difficult. Pay attention to where your knee is. Make sure your knee is over your toes. Make sure you're tightening your core and rotating it with the rest of your body. Don't leave anything behind.
Video length: 14 minutes, 10 seconds [Link: Website, YouTube]
Toe Stop Balance Drill
Toe stops are so very useful, especially for balance. We will be using our toe stops to anchor us down on one leg while we roll our other leg into a solid inside edge, a lunge, and up into a tabletop position. I highly recommend going through drills a few times a week. The new progress bar on the site will help you keep track of your progress over time.
Video length: 17 minutes, 15 seconds [Link: Website, YouTube]
Progress:
Make sure you send your progress to me throughout the month. This is by far my favorite thing that has come out of this membership. I have students who have been with me for over 10 years and I have students who have been with me through this membership for almost five years now! The progress from the very beginning to now is beyond amazing to see! I know recording yourself and watching yourself can be a little scary. We are all so very critical of ourselves, but try not to be too hard on yourself. As an instructor I get to appreciate that progress a lot quicker than you do, but I promise you that when you look back at your videos six months, a year, five years later, you are going to be amazed at how far you've come. All of the small little things that you do every single day to progress add up.
If you would like to submit your progress for our Community Progress Video, submit your vertical video here. Submissions are due on the last day of each month.
If you are practicing on Instagram, please tag me and #quadsociety! I love to see and share your progress! Lastly, don’t forget about the wonderful community on Discord. Everything is better with friends!
Please don’t hesitate to reach out and let me know if you would like further guidance. You can book in-person private lessons or online private lessons here! And if you would like a more structured course to focus on all of your foundational skills, check out my Foundations Course.
