January 2024 Practice Schedule
Wow. 2024. How did we even get here?
When the Jonas Brothers sang, "We've been to the year 3000"…that sounded impossible. That's like not that far away!!!
I guess it kind of is.
Anyway, I am so happy you're here! I am going on about 14 years of teaching now and about four years of teaching online, which is absolutely insane that it has now been that long. It's truly been an incredible experience and I really could not do this without you. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you for watching this video. If you are a member, thank you so much. I truly, truly appreciate you. I'm so grateful. And if you would like a membership...
Memberships are available on ThatNicoleFiore.com and on YouTube. The Roller Skating Foundations Course, which is like my little baby that I am so very proud of, is also available on ThatNicoleFiore.com. No matter what level of skater you are, you can do the memberships as well as the course. The course goes through everything I think every skater should know. It's for beginners as well as more advanced skaters. I highly recommend it for everyone. Please check it out ♥️
I am also SO excited to offer my first in-person workshop of 2024. Let’s start the year right! We will be working on our edges, body position, posture, and connecting moves (stationary and rolling). All levels and ages welcome! Sign up here!
And now let's get into what I recommend practicing this month.
Below is my recommended practice schedule for January 2024 and you can find links to each video at the bottom of each section. Everything that I suggest practicing is lined up with the skills we are working on. Weave those into your regular practice throughout the month.
To gain access to all of these videos and so much more, check out my Memberships here or on YouTube!
Please don’t hesitate to reach out and let me know if you would like further guidance. You can book private lessons right here!
Week 1:
Drills 9 (transferring weight)
Inner Forward 3 Turn
PRACTICE:
Inner Forward Edge
3-Turn
Drills 11 (static turns off-skates)
Drills 9 & Inner Forward 3 Turn: We will be doing Drills 9, which works on transferring weight as well as the inner forward three turn. When we think of skating, we start with just our two feet on the ground. But once you start advancing and learning new things, you may quickly realize you need to know how to balance on one foot and then the other. Transferring your weight from one foot to the other on wheels is a little bit more difficult than it is on feet. So, we have to really practice it. Almost all of the drills that are available can be done on skates as well as off skates. I highly recommend going through skills, drills, and choreography off skates as well as on. Whenever I create something or really dive into learning something, I prefer to do it on feet and then put my skates on so that I can really feel where the weight is transferring within my actual foot. That can kind of get muddled once your foot is in a skate because it's a little bit harder to feel exactly where you are putting weight in your skate. So, play with doing things on skates as well as off.
The inner forward 3 turn. This is one of my favorite three turns. A 3-turn is called a 3-turn because you're literally drawing a three on the ground with your edges. The inner forward 3 turn goes into the turn on an inner forward edge and you come out of the turn on an outer back edge. It will practice your forward and your backward skating. Now, just a reminder with turns, you can either slide the turn or you can hop the turn. Hopping happens a lot when you're first learning a turn. A "hop" is not a literal jump. It is lifting of wheels. So, it makes a little clunky sound. I know that sound well because I do hop my turns every once in a while! Hehe! When you are hopping the turn from forward to back, you will be lifting your heel wheels. This is so very quick how this happens. So, f you hear the thud sound when you are turning the inner forward 3 turn, make sure it's your heel wheels that are lifting. When you slide the turn, your heel wheels don't fully lift off the ground, but your weight is still more toward the toe. This allows your heel wheels to slide across the surface. Whether you're hopping or sliding, it's great to know how to do it both ways. The goal is to slide the turn, not to have a thud when you turn. But! If you're hopping right now, you are on your way to sliding because you're developing that method of transferring your weight forward, so all is well! I do recommend practicing this on both feet. I, myself, love my right inner forward 3 turn and I absolutely hate my left inner forward 3 turn. There's something about that turn that has just always bothered me which means I need to practice it more than I do 🙃
Inner Forward Edge, 3-Turn, Drills 11: Alright, for our practice this week, we have inner forward edges, three turns, and our drills 11, which is static turns.
Static turns can be done on skates or off. I highly recommend starting off skates and then trying it on skates. Static turns are something that my dad used to make me do. We would be working on a figure, working on a turn. He would have me stop, stand stationary, and do the turn over and over again until I could gain speed from the turn. The goal out of stationary turns is to be able to gain speed and power from the turn, alone. That is something that kind of goes unnoticed when learning three turns, and all turns in general. You will actually gain speed, if done correctly, from a standstill. You will be able to roll out of the turn from a stationary position. So that's what drills 11 is on.
But let's back it up to our inner forward edges. Since we are doing the inner forward 3 turn, I want you to practice your inner forward edges. Your inner forward edges don't need to be super, super deep, but I do want them to be really secure. I want you to be able to hold an inner forward edge for a slightly extended period of time, really focusing on your curve. It doesn't need to be super, super deep - just a constant curve.
Since we are doing the inner forward 3 turn this month, I want you to brush up on your regular 3 turns as well. So, I want you to practice your outer forward three turn. You can also practice other turns beyond that, but I do want you to focus on your 3 turns.
Where to find these videos:
Drills 9: Drills & Workouts page [Link: Website, YouTube]
Inner Forward 3 Turn: Skills page (turns section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
Inner Forward Edge: Skills page (edges section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
3-Turn: Skills page (turns section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
Drills 11: Drills & Workouts page [Link: Website, YouTube]
Week 2:
Beginner/Intermediate Choreography — I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston
PRACTICE:
Heel to Heel Transition
Toe Pivot
Two Foot Spin
Beginner/Intermediate Choreography: I'm very excited about this! We are doing our "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" Choreography. That's a really long name!
Okay, our Beginner/ Intermediate choreography. This song is so much fun! It makes you literally want to move. So, that's exactly what we are going to do. If you are first learning choreography or if it's your first time learning choreography on skates, I highly recommend learning it on a rug or on grass, somewhere where your wheels won't move out from under you too quickly. Then move to a solid surface where you can actually roll with it.
This choreography is super, super fun and I want you to play with your body movement. Really allow yourself to move and dance as if you were on feet.
We will be using a lot of skills within our choreography. We use a heel-to-heel transition, a 3-turn, and a pivot. Because it's beginner/ intermediate, everything can be worked up to. You don't need to do all of these skills full out. You can kind of step through them. And that's the beautiful thing about choreography! This song is fairly fast, but it's a good groove, so it doesn't necessarily feel rushed. Take your time with it. The beginner/ intermediate is meant for beginners and intermediate skaters, so you can make it a little more challenging once you grow into it.
Heel to Heel Transition, Toe Pivot, Two Foot Spin: To practice and help us in our choreography, we have a few things to learn and to practice. I want you to practice the heel-to-heel transition, toe pivots, and the two-foot spin. We do the heel-to-heel transition within the choreography to turn from one direction to the other. A heel-to-heel transition can be done stationary or rolling. I've been getting a lot of requests lately in private lessons that people want to learn how to transition cleanly and quickly when they're at a skating rink or skating outside. So, this is a really big one that I want people to practice. You don't need to get your transitions super tight with your heels touching, but I do want a nice clean turn from one direction to the other. We can't roll sideways, so we really have to make sure we are starting in one direction, turning, and facing the other direction when we finish. When doing a heel-to-heel transition, you open up the hip. My hips don't love that, so I have to really use my edges to help me out. That's kind of a cheat code. If you have good edges, you can press them to make the transition even easier.
Toe pivots...we are going to be doing the back-crossed pivot coming up, so I want you to get used to using your toe. You can do a pivot on your toe stop or on your toe wheels, so there are a few different ways to do your toe pivots. We can do it forward in both directions or we can do it backward in both directions. Play with those! I want you to get comfortable with one foot being planted on the toe stop or the toe wheels and the other one out a little bit on an inner edge. Remember that the foot that has the toe stop or toe wheels on the ground needs to be super solid. That's your anchor.
And finally...the trusty two-foot spin. The two-foot spin is done on inner edges. Always going back to our edges! I spin to my left, so my left skate does an inner back edge and my right skate does an inner forward edge. The more power you put down into the ground, the more rotations you're going to get. But we have to make sure we're distributing our weight evenly. If you start to put more weight into one foot over the other, that's when the spin gets a little wobbly. You want to make sure the weight is evenly distributed and you're doing solid inner edges to make the spin happen.
Where to find these videos:
I Wanna Dance With Somebody Choreography (Beginner/Intermediate) - Choreography page [Link: Website, YouTube]
Heel to Heel Transition: Skills page (transition section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
Toe Pivot: Skills page (toe stops section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
Two Foot Spin: Skills page (spins section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
Week 3:
Drills 4 (toe stop balance)
Back Crossed Pivot
PRACTICE:
Dips
Outer Back Upright
Inner Forward 3 Turn
Drills 4 & Back Crossed Pivot: Making our way through the month! We will be doing Drills 4, which is on toe-stop balance and our back-crossed pivot. The back crossed pivot is when you are on one foot and you swing your other foot around, planting it in back, and pivoting around it. A lot of balance makes this possible. You don't need to do it super big, but it's fun to do it super big and really extend your free leg around to cross it behind. That transfer of weight that we worked on in the Drills 9 from the first week really comes in handy because when you're moving a free leg around and then planting it, you have to know how to transfer it from one foot to the other. After you plant it, lighten up the weight in the first foot to allow it to roll into a pivot. There's a lot happening in this skill. It's not necessarily a difficult skill though! It just takes some previous knowledge. The toe pivots, the two foot spin, the drills...everything comes into play when you are learning this. It will all make a lot more sense once you have a few more things under your belt.
For example, drills to work on toe stop balance! This one is very near and dear to my heart. I love my toe stops. Knowing how to use them to help you balance and help you move is super important. They're not just for stopping. You can use them in so many skills.
Dips, Outer Back Upright, Inner Forward 3 Turn : Okay, now for our practice! We have a few fun ones. I recommend practicing your dips. Now, you might be thinking - how does that actually come into play with any of this? But I promise it does! Dips use your outer back edges and you really learn how to guide yourself leading kind of with your tailbone to really help you get around. Dips look super, super cool and they're very fun to do. There's a lot you can do with dips and I'm sure you've seen a lot of different variations of them. Have fun with it and figure out where you can transfer your weight to be comfortable on that outer back edge.
The outer back upright is also using the outer back edge. Take that one slowly if you haven't worked on it yet. The outer back upright is my favorite spin to do. And it is the one spin that I trusted enough to have in all of my routines when I was competing. The outer back upright is a very special one to me. It takes a lot of control with that outer back edge!
Now lastly for practice this week I want you to do the inner forward three turns. I want you to figure out how to transition the three turn into your back-crossed pivot. So play with that little combo. It is very fun! Keep your core nice and tight throughout.
Where to find these videos:
Drills 4: Drills & Workouts page [Link: Website, YouTube]
Back Crossed Pivot: Skills page (toe stops section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
Dips: Skills page (edges section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
Outer Back Upright: Skills page (spins section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
Inner Forward 3 Turn: Skills page (turns section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
Week 4:
Advanced Choreography — I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston
PRACTICE:
Heel-Toe Manual
High Kick
Toe Stop Spin
Advanced Choreography: Lastly, week four! We have our advanced choreography! This song is the right vibe all the time. Our advanced choreography is...advanced. It's quick and it uses a lot of different skills. Like any piece of choreography, take things out if you need to add things in. If you want to, you have the ability to make it a new version every time. Play with the skills, learn them on their own, and try to implement them into choreography. The reason that I love choreography so much and the reason that it is such a huge part of the membership is not only because it's fun, but it's a great way to learn your skills. You may surprise yourself!
I said we use a lot of skills in this advanced choreography and we do. We have a two-foot spin to open it up. We do a sort of kick (we have a high kick video if you want to check that out). And we do a heel-toe manual, a toe-stop spin, a body roll, and kind of a bracket turn. We have skills classes on every single one of those things. So, if you want to practice all of them separately, you totally can. Or you can do it in the choreography! It's in the skills tab or the skills playlist.
Heel-Toe Manual, High Kick, Toe Stop Spin: For our practice this week, we're going to do a few of those skills mentioned above. I want you to practice your heel-toe manual, your high kick, and your toe stop spin.
Please allow me to address the elephant in the room first. A high kick...you don't need to be super flexible in order to do this. The high kick is more about the stability of your post leg, the stability of the leg you are standing on. So, think more about that and less on the actual kick, less on the flexibility. Within the choreography, I don't actually kick my leg up, I do a high knee. It is truly about that leg that you are standing on, making sure you are stable enough to hold yourself up.
Let's bring it back to the heel-toe manual. We do this very quickly in the advanced choreography. I want you to work on your balance, holding the heel-toe position. Because we are doing a two-foot spin within the choreography and in our practice, that will also help you with your heel-toe spin if you want to work on that.
And the toe-stop spin to finish off our practice! In the choreography, we do a toe stop spin for maybe one time around. It's a very quick one. Like I said earlier, toe stops are not just for stopping. You can do a lot of creative things with them. The toe stop spin is one of my favorites! It is, I think, one of the most beautiful moves you can do on skates. And it's strange because you're not even rolling. You're not even using the wheels of the roller skate! However, the way you can extend your body and reach up while rotating on a toe stop spin is just simply beautiful. I love it!
Where to find these videos:
I Wanna Dance With Somebody Choreography (Advanced): Choreography page [Link: Website, YouTube]
Heel-Toe Manual: Skills page (heel-toe section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
High Kick: Skills page (flexibility section) [Link: Website, YouTube]
Toe Stop Spin: Skills page (toe stops section) [Link: Website, YouTube
Alright, that’s it for this month! I hope you check it all out. All of the skating skills I talk about are included in the Roll With Me (On-Demand) Membership. We also have the mind | body | soul membership and the podcast exclusives. With the Roll With Me (On-Demand) Membership you get it all!
The Roller Skating Foundations Course is also available and differs from the memberships. I highly recommend using the course as well as the memberships. Some insight on that: the course is fully its own thing. It’s a guided course (all new videos) that starts with the very beginning of tying skates all the way through everything that I think a skater should know. It also includes a workbook! The course is literally everything, your solid foundation, to do whatever you want to do on skates. And then the membership has everything else. SO many drills, skills, and choreography videos and growing all the time. Please check it out and let me know if you have any questions.
At the end of each month, I want you to take a moment to look back and see how far you’ve come. Did you learn something new? Did you progress? Did you surprise yourself? Do you have new goals for next month? Take a moment, breathe, roll your shoulders back, lift your head high, and tell yourself you’re doing a great job. Because you are.
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.
Keep in touch about how you’re feeling. Know that I am right here, practicing all of these things alongside you. It doesn’t matter how new or experienced you are in skating, it is very important for all of us to stay consistent with our drills and practice. I am here to help with technique, movement, and most importantly with motivation.
What was your favorite part of this month? What was the hardest for you? What kept you going? Leave a comment! 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 the Discord. Everything is better with friends!
Thank you so much for allowing me to share my love and joy with you. I truly appreciate it. Nothing makes me happier than that!
Thank you for being here. Please let me know if you have any questions about any of this. I am here and happy to help.
