Can You Rollerskate?

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Poor sense of balance and coordination so useless at skating in all its forms.

Also, could never hit any ball coming towards me except by luck, tended to break bones when doing gymnastics -- that sort of thing !

Heh, I've never been able to rollerskate either. Maybe it's cause you have to like, keep your balance and move straight at the same time, might as well ask me to diffuse a bomb.

I just love how a question about rollerskating has created such a large response. In my case, I'm a great roller skater but can't rollerblade to save my life.

I actually did trick rollerskating in the circus for three years. Yeah, I'm that good. LOL

I loved to rollerskate when living in Venezuela. I knew some tricks to. My coordination is horrible, but I liked the challenge.
I remember how great it felt. There really is no place to skate where i live now.

I can rollerskate. It took me about four years to learn how to do it backwards, but other than that, I didn't have too much trouble with it. I do it in my own way though, so it may not count as "complete".

That's really cool.

I can roll a little bit, then tend to fall over. Balance isn't my strongpoint. Like stilts, or bicycles , I need something a bit more reliable than something I can fall off of. Yet I can stand on one foot, because I know I'm not moving forward. Can't do climbing either. Someone made me ride a motorbike once, and didn't tell me how to stop it. I had to keep going...

Do I ever! If you need some help with it, I'd be willing to help. I'll admit I'm clumsy and suck at sports, but here's something I don't suck at. I'm not pro either, but I don't fall a lot. I think it helped that I did ice skating when I was very young, but stopped after we moved, but my friends seem to think that's how I keep my sense of balance. I actually tried it before when I was younger, but couldn't get used to the bumpiness of the road, so I stopped doing it. Later, I watched some people rollerblading, and then realized in terms of physics how it worked--my cousin's friend was trying to learn to rollerskate, but couldn't do it because he was trying to rollerskate by "walking", so he ended up sliding his skates back and forth not getting anywhere. Then I watched some other people glide along smoothly--so how is it that this one guy is sliding his skates back and forth and not getting anywhere, while everyone else is gliding along and having some fun? I realized it was because of rolling friction. Sliding a skate along the road just succeeds in getting one foot ahead, like in walking, but when you try to move your other skate, rolling friction works again, and you slide back. So how do you deal with that? Everyone else I watched had their skate PERPENDICULAR to the other skate, and used the other type of friction to prevent themselves from moving backwards! Then all you do is push yourself in the direction of the other skate, and glide! Then just alternate and repeat! The guy who was tryiing to rollerskate eventually gave up, so I asked my cousin if she would let me try the skates for awhile, and she let me. My theory worked! I was so overjoyed. I think it also helped that the road we were practicing on was particularly smooth. Getting used to rougher roads takes awhile, but going over them faster helps, as it does on rainier days (not recommended though) because there's less friction.

Stopping and slowing down takes some time to learn. You could just use the brakes built into your skate, but I prefer to use the friction from one perpendicular skate to do that because I'm more used to it. The worst problem with rollerblading is falling over backwards. It's very awkward and hard to maintain your balance with.

I don't rollerskate for tricks, though I occasionaly jump curbs, depending on how many cars are on the streets. I mostly rollerskate for speed.

I'm still trying to figure out why it's harder to do ice skating than rollerblading. It seems my skates wobble on the ice.

technically, yes I can do it. But can I do it well is the big question, and that's a huge no. Any time I've ever gone roller skating with class or anything like that, I just put on the skates and sit at a table, lol.

i cant rollerskate, but i can fall quite well...

Same here. Then cue the teasing by the other kids. I remember it taking me ages just to figure out how to lace the damn things! Coordination just wasn't my strong point in any form. The friends that I had in grade school would always have skate parties for their b-days. I'd have one for mine, too, because I guess it was kinda expected since everyone else did it. I never did figure out how to stop without running into something.

I cannot roller skate, roller blade, or ice skate. It's atrocious. I tried so hard at it too

No!

and now I'm not even going to try

Nope - now I know why huh? :) no endline or rollerskating, prefer to watch pretty girls do that, but none in my local area network

Always had a hard time with baseball also - soccer, basketball football okay or very good but softball & hard baseball, poor performance.