How To Stop Properly

  If it's your first time, practice on the driveway, if you think your good, practice at higher speeds.

 Methods of Stopping:

1. To stop at slower speeds, your body can be in just about any position. For higher speeds though, your braking leg should be extended almost fully and straight ahead of you. Your other leg should be bent at the knee. This helps you to put more pressure on the brakes, by using your body weight and your legs more efficiently.
2. The easiest, most preferred and most well used method of stopping quickly is hitting the turf. If you can aim for grass, you can blade comfortably to a stop (pic #1). Just lean back a little bit when you first hit the grass. Don't be nervous, because it doesn't matter what speed you're going, it still works. (We've skated down large hills on the grass going extremely fast). Just make sure to practice at slower speeds first.
3. Spinning in a circle is another good way to stop when there isn't any grass around. This takes a bit of practice, but is well worth it. You can turn quickly with both feet facing forward, or in opposite directions. Just make sure that your turns are very quick, and you learn to do them at faster speeds. Just in case you need to stop when going fast.
4. Scraping one blades wheels along the ground is very popular among the tykes (pic #2), but is very destructive to a skates wheels. If you can't balance on one foot, try our Blading Technique Tutorial first. If you can balance on one foot, then it's as easy as slowly placing the airborne foot down and getting used to the pressure of the drag that you will be creating. Start slow and work up to it.
5. The Kamikaze move is a last resort, bail for life, leap of faith. If you can't stop any other way, and you're about to collide with certain destruction, the best thing to do is bail out. Drop to stop. Yep, it's skin suicide, but better than certain death. Do you ever want to have to do this? No, but you'd better practice just in case. The next time you're on the path going a good speed, head for the grass as fast as possible and when you reach it, bail onto the grass. Don't forget to roll your body when you hit the ground. It hurts allot less this way and hurts even less when you have to perform this maneuver on pavement in a real emergency.
6. The pinball method is a way to stop if you're not going too fast (pic #3). Basically, you grab hold of any light pole. fence, mailbox, or large person you can manage to get near. Two tips for this method though. Don't be going fast when you try this. We don't call it the pinball method for nothing. Plus, make sure you don't grab a car to stop. You may go for a longer ride than first anticipated.
7. The Hockey method is exactly like stopping on ice skates. This is for advanced skaters, but it can be done. Do yourself a favor and if you're going to try this, do it right in front of grass. If you mess it up, you will hit the ground very hard.