Roller Skates Safety Advice

By Jonathan Mayheart

Roller skates safety advices are for those people who can never be too careful.

Roller skating is never out of fashion. Kids, teens and even adults enjoy this type of sport. The good thing about roller skates is that no specific season is needed for these people to go out and practice some tricks. This is part of the fun that people are getting from this kind of sport.

But then, fun is not only what roller skates are known for. Roller skating is one dangerous sport. This is especially if you do not have the right expertise and the proper moves. Over the years, there have been a lot of accidents related to roller skates.

This is the reason why you will find a lot of roller skates advices and tips whether online and offline. There are also signs scattered where people will get to read about the hazards and the precautions that are needed when roller skating.

Below are some of the age-old safety advices that you should keep in mind before whisking off in your roller skates:

1. Skate with protection.

Roller skates come with protective gears. When initially buying these skates, you are given a choice of protective gears to buy. Some of these are knee pads and helmets.

When the store you bought your roller skates from start offering you this things, do not think that they are trying to make more sales out of you. They are only after your protection.

2. Skates that fit right.

Forget wearing roller skates that is too big or too small for you just because it is the latest thing and they do not have one that is your size. The essence behind roller skating is for you to stay put while enjoying your moves. How can you swing or jump when you have skates that will fall anytime you go airborne?

These are the things you need to consider when buying roller skates. Safety is still top priority over style or fashion. When the skate do not fit, thrash it. There is always one out there who will snugly fit you.

3. Going downhill with not enough expertise.

The trouble with skaters is that they want to try out something new and dangerous. That is why there are always on the lookout for more challenging. The ultimate challenge for them is to try skating downhill.

Roller skating is great fun, and is definitely not a thing of the past, during the last years rollers have been enjoying a huge comeback as well as many organized skating competitions and professional rollers skating experts that add much more to this hobby / sport, learn about Roller Skates and more at http://skates.zupatips.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jonathan_Mayheart

7 Easy Steps For Dying Your Own Skate Wheels

1. Get a package of rit dye in whatever color you want. (When in doubt, go lighter, colors like royal blue usually  come out really dark.
2. Fill a bucket, or something big you don’t mind getting dye on, with hot water.
3. Add half the pack of dye. don’t get it on anything you don’t want colored (it’s not coming off!) and stir it in until it’s totally dissolved.
4. Add your wheels and stir them around every minute or two.
5. While stirring them, look and see if the color is right.
6. When the color is right (sometime between 10 and 40 minutes), throw them in plain water and rinse them off.
7. Let them dry.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it.

So have fun dying your wheels and send us some pics of your custom colors.

“Whip It” Roller Derby Trainer Alex Cohen on Skating, Scrimmaging and Choosing the Best Derby Name

This article originated from Speakeasy of The Wall Street Journal

By Michelle Kung

By day, Alex Cohen hosts “All Things Considered” for station KPCC in Los Angeles. By night, however, the former NPR reporter tears around an angled track as a rock ‘em, sock ‘em roller derby girl. A long-time champion of the sport, which was invented in Depression-era America and revived in Austin, Texas in 2000, Cohen was tapped by the producers of the upcoming derby film “Whip It” to teach its leading ladies how to authentically scrimmage and take a fall. She recently spoke to the Journal about how she became involved with the sport, working with “Whip It” star Ellen Page, and how she picked her derby name “Axles of Evil.”

The Wall Street Journal: When did you first become interested in derby?

Alex Cohen: I first started getting interested in 2003. I was taking a trip to Austin and initially thought to myself, if I do a story while I’m out there, I can write it off as a business trip. But I ended up hanging out with the girls, interviewing them, seeing a couple games, and at the end of it, was really depressed that I couldn’t play in L.A. because it really called out to me. But sure enough, a couple of months after I got back to L.A., I was at a gallery in Silver Lake and my husband handed me a flier with the contact info for a new L.A. league. It was a lot of fate.

How did you become involved with the film “Whip It”?

The filmmakers knew they needed a trainer so they came to the Derby Dolls, and I was selected. So I trained with Ellen for a couple months, and then it kept evolving. Soon after, I was training Drew and all the other actresses as well, and they brought me out to Michigan [where they shot], and I ended up becoming a consultant as well. It was a very organic thing.

Ellen was first to start, in April of last year. It was a crash course, and because derby is team sport, after she got the basics down, we brought in some of the other Derby Dolls and she had practice scrimmaging, and learning to skate with people around her. In all, she trained about three months or so before we went to Michigan.

Of all the actresses on the film, who was the best skater?

They all learned remarkably well. Kristen Wiig, on one of the first days, said she remembered doing a certain move as a kid, and pulled out this maneuver called “shoot the duck,” where you’re basically in a low crouch and one leg is jutting forward. It was amazing, because there are girls who have been skating for years who can’t do that. Zoe Bell, who’s a stuntwoman, is ridiculously fit and talented. I remember her asking the training team how to do a 360 degree jump and we said no, because we physically couldn’t do it at our level [of skill]. But she fiddled around with it and figured it out on her own, and you can see her doing it in the movie.

Exactly how wide-spread is derby now?

Oh, it’s everywhere — there are more than 400 leagues throughout the world, from Stuttgart, Germany, to New Zealand, to Abu Dhabi, to this tiny little town in Sioux Falls. Some cities, like L.A. even have multiple leagues that operate and function. This current incarnation started in 2001, and there was a huge spike a couple years ago after A&E did the realty show “Roller Girls.”

Given how mainstream roller derby is getting, do you miss when the sport was more cult-y?

It’s a double-edged sword — I think that the sport has changed so much already, and there are those of us from the early days that miss when it was smaller. Now it’s more common, and there are practical complications to having so many more people around. Derby names, for example. There’s only so many funny, interesting names and there are already 16,500 names officially registered. Other growing pains of the sport getting bigger are that there are now girls who show up simply because they want to be on TV or they think it’s going to make them money. Those girls never last very long, but they still take up resources and time.

Tell me about your derby name, Axles of Evil. Why did you pick it?

“Axles of Evil” is like the trifecta of derby names — first, it’s play off my real name, so it’s easy for people to remember. It’s also inspired by my love of vintage cars, so my “Axle” is like a car axle, not a figure skater’s triple axel jump. Plus, at the time I picked it, we had this president who was always talking about the “axis of evil,” so as a news person, it was doubly appealing to me.