One of the first inline skating skills you should learn on rollerblades is the scissor formation. Skating in this formation may feel a bit strange at first but it is an essential skill as it is needed to use the rubber brake, is the best way to skate off a curb or down a step and is used in Parallel Turns.

Skill: The Scissor Formation is where your skates are parallel with each other, but the back wheel of one skate is lined up with the front of the other skate. From above your skates will look something like this when doing it: . You should be able to roll along in this formation with either the right or left leg in front.

More of a fundamental skating skill than a trick, Parallel Turns can be used to do lots of things from turning sharply, to slowing down or stopping altogether... but most of all they just feel really great to do and look cool too!! This type of turn will always result in a reduction of speed; the more you lean into the turn the more you'll slow down. It is possible to really lean into it and come to a full stop near where you started the turn.

Skill: To do the turn you need to have your skates in the Scissor formation with the front foot being the direction you wish to turn. In other words if you are turning right then your right foot will be in the front and your left will be behind it. What makes this skill a little hard to learn at first is that both feet have to lean over at the same time. Normally when you skate your skates look like this (from behind) |  | or like this/  \ but when you do a Parallel Turn they need to look (again from behind) like this /  / when turning right and this \  \ when turning left.

This is a cool skating trick which can be used to come to a full stop, to turn in a wide arc or to switch from forward to backwards on your skates. It is useful to learn this trick leading with both the right and left leg, but for the purposes of this explanation I will be describing it done with the right leg leading.

Skill: In essence what you will be doing in this trick is skating with your feet heel to heel, open as wide as they can go, and the leading foot will be skating forward but the following foot will be skating backwards. This is sometimes referred to as a Spread Eagle.

Angle of Arc: You can vary the angle between your feet to change the look of the trick, however to perform this properly there needs to be at least 90 degrees between them or you will tend to want to fall over. The smaller the angle the quicker the arc will become a stop, a bigger angle and you will make a massive arc or even go in a straight line like a surfer. To perform this trick you push forward on your right leg as normal, then at the same time rotate your body 90 degrees from the direction of your right skate, and turn your following skate around so that it is heel to heel with your front leading skate.

Turning your Skate: There are a couple of ways to turn the following skate, you can either lift it completely off the ground and turn it, or pivot it around in the front wheel of the skate (this method can be easier as you keep contact with the ground and don't have to balance on one skate).

Weight: Finally by adjusting which foot you shift the majority of your weight to after starting the arc, you can control how the trick will end. If you keep most of the weight on the leading foot you will roll in the arc for a long time, equal weight distribution between your feet will tend to slow you down a bit, while transferring weight to the back foot will cause your momentum to make you want to turn and skate backwards. To make this turn to backwards just lean on the back foot and turn the front (leading) skate around (using either of the methods described above) and you will now be rolling backwards.

This is a skating trick that can be learnt really early on as it looks a lot more difficult that it is. The idea is to skate on the back wheel of one skate (heel) and the front wheel of another (toe).

Skill: The easiest way to do this skating trick is to build up some medium/slow rolling speed then move your feet into scissor formation. From here you can lift the front of the front skate off the ground so that only the back wheel is skating there. Get used to putting your weight into this single wheel on the front skate before trying to lift up the back skate. When you are comfortable, lift the back skate so that only the front wheel is touching the ground. You will now be rolling along on only 2 wheels.

Just like ice skaters spin on the spot, you can do a similar trick on your skates. This is a relatively difficult skating trick to master and you will probably find yourself on the ground with your legs wrapped around your head a couple of times, but it is definitely worth getting right as it looks awesome.

Skill: From a standing start with your skates parallel, your skates will be doing one thing while your arms/body does another. Assuming you will be doing the spin to the right, you left skate will move forward a couple of inches and lift so that only the back wheel is on the ground, the left foot will move back a bit and lift so that only the front wheel is on the ground (effectively you will be doing a mini Heel Toe). You arms/body must start twisted to the left with your arms wide open. As you start the spin, twist quickly to the right while pulling your arms into your chest.