ROLLER SKATES

roller skates

Artistic ROLLER SKATES has been a popular, but basically unknown, sport for several decades. Many elements from figure skating on ice can also be performed on roller skates. A number of roller rinks have their own artistic skating club. In the United States, the governing body for Artistic Roller Skating is the USA Roller Sports (USARS).

 Artistic Roller Skates competitions take place on a local, regional, national and world level. Each summer American skaters compete in their region’s championship for a shot at a National Title. Skaters can compete at Nationals in several age groups and skill levels. Both youth and adult skaters can compete at Nationals. When it comes to international competition skaters can compete in Junior World Class (ages 12-17) and World Class (age 12 and older) levels. These skaters go on to compete at the World Roller Figure Skating Championship. Artistic Roller Skates also competes in the Pan-American Games and the World Games. Although, this is not an Olympic Sport the National Governing Board has been working towards it being included.

Tips for Artistic Roller Skating:

If you would like to try Artistic Roller Skating the first thing would be to locate a club near you. Many rinks provide roller skates lessons that are taught by certified USARS coaches. New skaters are often encouraged to complete a training program through the rink before joining the club. These lessons will help you learn to roller skate and will incorporate many artistic roller skating elements like single jumps and simple spins into the lessons. You can find a club on the USARS website. Artistic Roller Skates compete in the following disciplines… figure skating, freeskating, solo dance, team dance, creative solo and group skating.

Figure Skating: Figure skaters trace circles on the floor using different edges and turns. Skaters are judges on how well they hold the required edges, how well they perform the turns, how well they stay on the line and their posture.

Freeskating: Freeskating is basically what you see in ice figure skating. These programs include jumps, spins and artistic impression to the music. Axels, loops, salchows and toe-loops (called Mapes in Artistic Roller Skates) are performed. Despite being on wheels roller skaters can also perform upright spins, sit spins and camel spins. Artistic Roller Skaters also perform spins not seen on ice like the broken ankle spin and heel spin.

Solo and Team Dace: Dance skaters perform common dances but on roller skates. They can tango, foxtrot and waltz on roller skates.

Creative Solo Dance: Skaters perform a creative routine to music with less emphasis on jumps and spins.

Group Skating: There are also chances for larger groups to perform in precision skating and show groups.