Eastbourne Skate Lessons - HDI Skate Streetwise - Review.
The half day intensive - Skate Streetwise course is the Eastbourne Skate Lesson, that gets you using your skates as transport! - Read this from Peter Maisey on the latest course he attended!
Quote :-
Peter Maisey
Last Saturday I went across to Eastbourne to take part in a Streetwise Skate course, run by Tim Wheals of Eastbourne Skate School. With the arrival of the warmer weather and my wanting to skate outside as much as possible in the run up to Goodwood, I decided a bit of safety advice wouldn’t go amiss. The course was based on Eastbourne seafront, all of which we managed to use and abuse in one way or another.
We began with simple heel braking on the flat, probably aimed at Tim being able to assess our capabilities. That was quickly followed by downhill braking on a fairly gentle slope into an empty car park with a big run out area in case we lost control.
My first “new ” experience was skating off kerbs. I have always taken the approach of stepping off sideways, parallel to the kerb, which Tim did cover. But with a couple of demonstrations, and some very clear instructions, I was happily skating perpendicularly off kerbs and enjoying it. I am a cautious skater by nature, so to me this was something quite adventurous.
We then moved off the tarmac onto the grass. Firstly the grass stop, making us all aware of the necessity of the scissor. Then attempting to skate on grass, an exercise intended to give us more ooomphh to our push. It was remarkably successful, and something that would become very useful when we got onto some of the rougher sections of the promenade.
Tim then gave us a brief demonstration on crossing roads safely.
Onto another slope, this one much steeper than the last. We were introduced to the lunge turn as a means of using the hill itself to check our speed. This was the point at which I realised how much weaker my turn to the right was than my turn to the left - something to work on.
For easier skating, although not necessarily quicker at the moment, Tim demonstrated some introductory exercise to Stride Three. Not easy, but I could see the benefits if I persevered.
With the number of pedestrians beginning to increase, we then turned to skating in a train, as much out of necessity to get through the crowds as making things easier. It was very noticeable how easy it was to skate at the back of a line of six skaters, and how it became more difficult as I moved forwards through the line.
By this time we’d been skating for about three hours, and had reached the far end of the promenade from our starting point. How fortunate (well planned I think) that we ended up at a café. Soup for me, something with chips for others, and salad for the more health conscious. A half hour sit down also gave us a chance to quiz Tim on skating generally.
Leaving the café we then headed back to our start point, into a strong head wind. Skating in line became a necessity. We also took the opportunity to go back over the Stride Three exercises and the lunge turn downhill.
By the end of the course I had much better appreciation of safety outdoors, and my skating weaknesses. So I got what I wanted out of the course, and a lot more besides. Tim Wheals is an excellent teacher, able to give clear explanations and demonstrations. I can recommend this course for anybody who wants to start enjoying skating in the great outdoors
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As usual we finish off with a little tea and Ice cream - dished out by Mr. “James Ice Cream”.
This entry was posted on 22/04/2009 at 11:20 am and is filed under Lessons and Courses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.