Difficulty: Expert. The hockey stop or parallel slide is one of the most difficult maneuvers to master on rollerblades. Rather than record my own video, I thought I’d leave it to the pros. I am still working on these myself (they require a lot of practice!) and I’m still not entirely convinced stopping this way will improve my game much. They sure look cool, though! The one piece of advice I would emphasize is: in order to execute these successfully, you really have to bend the ankle of your inside stopping foot. This will feel very unnatural at first, especially if you’re like me and have suffered ankle injuries in the past. The reason this is necessary is because it will position your wheels at a steep enough angle to get a decent slide. Good luck! Thumbnail image by Arlette
If you are new to stopping I recommend learning in this order:
Tags: stopping
Hey Keegan, love the new site look. Also like the interesting articles you’ve been posting!
One thing I’d like to mention with regards to this post is that stopping this way will put wear on your wheels. It’s a good way to stop, but I suggest alternating which side you stop on as much as you can so as to keep the wheels somewhat balanced. If you’re always stopping on the same side, your wheels tend to get one-sided, and you’ll have to change them a lot sooner.
I don’t know if any of you have had this problem…just sharing from personal experience, as I’m a righty and tend to always stop on my right side.
Cheers.
Hi there, nice video and comment. One thing I am missing is a hint regarding to the wheels you are using. which a-grade is in use? Most skates I have seen come standard with 84a/85a wheels. I would guess that harder wheels make it easier – so just for being curious, what wheels do you use?
Cheers
The wheels in that video are 82a, and you’re correct; harder wheels do make it easier.