A five year old can learn but he is not going to pass you up for a while.
At the Northshore Inline Marathon (www.NorthShoreInline.com, the largest
inline skating event in the US) they have a kids sprint the night before the
marathon. One of their classes is for 5 and under.
www.northshoreinline.com/apply/pdf/2008KidsSprints.pdf
The most difficult thing for young children is getting skates that are small
enough and not "toys".
Both Rollerblade and K2 make skates that are adjustable through three or
four shoe sizes.
When you are looking for skates for yourself, pay a lot of attention to the
size. The skates should fit snug all around your feet but not crush your
toes. You want the skates to become part of your feet.
For your children, you may have to pad their feet with socks at some points
since their feet won't be staying at a given size for all that long.
If their feet do not fill the skates vertically (ie, at the top of the
arch), you can add an extra insole until their feet grown into them.
Get helmets. They literally can save your life. I know a person (but
fortunately wasn't there when it happened) that was skating at a very save
venue but somehow got turned around and fell over backwards. Hitting the
back of the head is really bad and he died. I have known others that
managed to get concussions before they started wearing helmets.
A bicycle helmet is good enough but young boys might like the appearance of
the multisport helmets.
Wrist guards are very important, your hands are likely to hit the ground in
a fall.
Knee pads are nest in importance, depending on the people's aversion to
scraping up their knees.
Elbow pads are the least necessary, you shouldn't be falling in a way that
would scrape them up.
You can get packs with the wrist, elbow, and knee pads and use the ones your
skill suggests.
It would help if you learn first from someone who can show you the basics so
that you can help your children or bring them along for a family lesson.
I would recommend doing an online search for inline skate clubs in your
area. Most inline skaters like people and will help you get going but you
will also need to find one that can also teach. Some of the very good
skaters that I know, just don't know how to explain what they are doing.
Even if you are going to take a lesson, it helps if you can learn how to
stand and move forward on your own. That means that more of the lesson time
will be to improve your movement, teaching you to stop, and to turn.
It might be useful to go to a roller rink and start the children on quad
(the "older" style of skates with two pairs of wheels) skates. They are a
bit easier to stand up on.
The easiest way to start is on carpet (or grass if you don't have that white
stuff covering it up). It stops you from rolling too easily.
The "ready" position is the one that most sports use when they want the best
balance and to be ready to move in any direction.
Knees bent slightly, waist bent slightly, arms up with hands slightly in
front of you. If you look down, your knees should be inline with your toes.
You always want to be slightly forward instead of standing straight up.
Straight up puts your weight over the back of the skates and makes you more
likely to fall over backwards.
The "safe T" position is good for standing still. Place the back of one
skate against the middle of the other with your feet turned outwards. This
locks your skates together to keep them from rolling. If you need to stand
on non-level surface, face directly up hill. That helps hold your skates
together.
Now that you can stand, you can learn to move.
With your feet a little closer than your shoulders and with the toes
pointing apart by 45-60 degrees. Walk forward (this is much easier on a
carpet) with a waddling movement.
Stage two is to let each foot slide forward a little as you step onto it.
If you are on a surface that lets you roll, you are now skating.
As you get better, the toes no longer point out much and you push your foot
out to the side instead of stepping forward. At that point, it will feel
natural to push backwards with the toe. You will actually skate better if
you do the pushing outwards through the leg and heel.
Hope you start having fun.
I have been skating for about 13 years now and have met many friends.
I tried to get into running and bicycling as exercise and they became
drudgery.
I typically skate 2 or 3 times a week in summer and 1 or 2 in the winter.
I go to several big events like the Northshore or the Great EsSkate
(www.TheGreatEsSkate.com) and a number of special skates (progressive
dinner, longer tours that are 20-40 miles) that our local club puts on.
--
Bill Fuhrmann
<childfam> wrote...
Post by c***@gmail.comI have an 8-year old and a 5 1/2-year old boys that we are thinking
about getting rollerblades for. The 8-year old I am pretty confident
can learn to rollerblade, but his 5 1/2-year old brother is more of a
concern? Does anyone have any experience helping young kids to learn
to rollerblade? I have personally never rollerbladed, but think it
would be fun and would like to try it with my kids.
Thanks,
childetx