- All right.
- Oh, toe pick.
- Damn toe pick.
- You got it, you got it.
[dramatic string music]
- Hi, I'm De'Lorean.
Everyone calls me D.
I am a roller skater and I have been skating
in various parts of New York, New Jersey,
and at national skate parties in other states.
- So my name is Andre.
I've been roller skating
for seven years since I came back to it.
And my favorite trick is the sit, spin.
- Hi, my name is Lionel Laurent.
I've been roller skating for 10 years.
I've been teaching for eight years.
- Hey guys, my name is Ale,
and I'm a professional figure skater.
I started skating since I was eight.
I've been professional traveling the world for many years
and I've been a coach for 10 years.
- My name is Marni Halasa.
I've been teaching figure skating for over two decades,
and I'm really excited to be here
at Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers.
- Hi, my name's Justine.
I'm a figure skating coach and instructor
at Chelsea Piers Sky Rink.
I have 25 years of experience
in the sport of figure skating.
- Figure skating is a sport where you can glide on the ice.
So you have skates, which have blades underneath,
and you can jump, you can spin, you can get so creative.
It's super artistic and expressive.
- I'm very excited
about teaching roller skaters how to ice skate.
It's a very talented crew,
and I think we're gonna have great results.
- I'm feeling nervous about ice skating today.
Definitely.
It's different than roller skating.
Definitely different.
[lo-fi hip hop beat]
- Hello class.
- Hello. - Hi.
- Welcome to challenge one.
We're gonna be spinning.
Spinning is like number one in skating.
We have jumps, choreography, spinning.
You guys, I feel like could probably get a lot of momentum
from your circles and stuff as far as like spinning,
'cause you guys kind of do that in your roller skates.
But in art skating, blade figure skating world,
we have like a curved blade as opposed to,
- Wheels. - Wheels, right.
I was like, what are they called again?
So this is a two foot spin.
- Simple.
- Nervous about the balance,
it's a little shaky on ice.
- I'm just excited to try it.
I'm not really nervous.
I just want to, you know, see what I can do.
- Okay, Hi Lionel.
Do you have a preferred direction of rotation?
If I were to spin you around,
which way would you wanna get spun?
I'm gonna do it.
This way, or this way?
- I think, - This.
- That way, yeah.
Okay, so you're lefty, in our sport.
L position with your feet for this side, yeah.
Okay, and you're gonna put all your weight
into your right leg.
- Yeah. - And you're gonna
pump with your left, all right?
Yeah, but I'm gonna pump around.
You have your right leg bending,
and then you're gonna hug everything in,
and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
- Ooh. - Maybe not squeeze, but.
- Come around low.
- Uh huh, uh huh, yes,
hug your arms in, hug your arms in.
No, not behind you!
[both laughing]
So pump and then kind of come in like this.
But your weight's gonna be
on the ball of the foot of the standing leg.
- Pump. - Pump, bring it in.
All right, nice job, Lionel.
As the spin closes with the leg,
we're gonna hug our arms into our body.
- Okay.
- That's gonna like hug all our centrifugal force in.
- Okay. - All right,
so we're gonna go L position,
drop into the knee bend,
and hug it in, hug it in, hug it in.
Good. Woo.
And then we can put a little toe on the ice in the end.
Yes.
I think we should try a little bit of a one foot on you.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- You have that much confidence in me.
Yeah, just a little bit. - Heard you,
okay. - Yes, okay,
- We'll try. - so we're gonna go like this.
We're gonna go pump and this time as I come in,
I'm gonna go up the leg a little bit
to a passe.
- Let me watch you.
- Right here,
Okay, so we're gonna go down, around and up.
- Since you have the confidence,
I have it. - I have the
confidence in you.
- All right. - Ready?
You are gonna go down, around, and in and up,
wow!
- Woo.
- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
- That was,
yes, that was next-level gorgeous, oh my God.
I am so proud of you.
Ah, you make me feel like a
really good teacher. - Okay,
you are! - I know.
So you're ready to do more like one foot spins.
- Of course.
- Yeah, of course.
You can try anything.
Pump and bend.
Yeah,
- I'm not used to the pumping.
- Yeah, so with your weight into like
the center of your body,
versus like this weight shift back and forth.
Woo.
- I like the like,
ole arm.
Like I'm gonna try that, it's great.
- That just came out naturally.
- That was pretty, we should do it at the same time.
Ready?
- Of course. - 1, 2, 3, go.
Woo.
Boom.
- I think I would do pretty good.
I don't know what it's gonna look like on the camera.
However, incorporating what I know from skating,
trust your skate.
And that's what I did.
And I felt confident with spinning
from the confidence that I have with roller skating.
It is very surprising how
the front of the blade hooks into the ice.
With roller skating, our wheels are typically small.
With jam skating, you know, you're able to just move freely.
There's nothing really stopping you
except for your own weight.
- Something I realized is like,
no matter what,
like between ice skating and roller skating,
rentals suck.
- So I think that they did really well.
The difficulty would maybe be with their weight transfer
and their wheels being so different than ours,
but I still think they killed it.
[lo-fi hip hop beat]
- So we're gonna learn a launch,
it's one of the most basic and important tricks
in figure skating.
It's a graceful one, but it's also challenging,
and we have to stay in balance.
So that's what is really important.
And we gonna make it pretty.
- I'm nervous about the bending down
and standing up, cause it's not too stable.
- I'm excited to learn a new move.
I am nervous about the flexibility portion of the move.
- Andre, welcome.
I heard that you're a really good skater and a good athlete,
but let's try to challenge you to learn a launch,
which requires a lot of flexibility.
So let's give it a try.
We'll get started holding the cones.
We're gonna put one leg in front of the other,
whatever is, your right or your left,
whatever you feel more comfortable with.
And we're gonna push forward, hips forward, chest up,
chin up, looking forward,
and you just kind of glide a little bit,
and hold it right here.
Okay?
Okay. - So the challenging part
for you will be to keep your toes pointing towards the side.
So we wanna make sure that you're kind of leaning slightly,
- Forward? - Yeah, there you go.
your hips are forward.
There you go, that's a good one.
And your arms, you don't wanna have them behind.
Let's come up.
[both laughing]
All right.
Yeah, all right.
How about we start moving?
You wanna make sure
that you're completely on a straight line, all right?
The tendency is to go across or to the side,
you wanna keep it right behind you at all times.
Does that make sense? - Yes.
- You got this, Andre.
Yeah, there we go.
- Hey, that's not so bad. - All right, cool.
- Yes, woo!
That was a nice one.
- Okay.
- Yep, you see it, you see it.
- I felt it, I felt it,
I felt it. - I know, it's very normal.
Don't you worry.
So your boot is going on the ice,
but your blade is completely on the air.
Does that make sense? - Yes, it does.
- Yes, yes, okay!
You all right? - Uh huh.
- You're doing amazing. - Got a cushion.
- That's actually really good for the first one.
- Yes,
you trusted a little more.
Eventually you will get some speed.
- Okay. - I'll give you
a couple more hours,
and then you will have it right.
Chin up, chest up, and arms to the side.
Excellent, that's amazing.
That's already a good position right there.
That's your launch.
Yeah.
Now how are you gonna get this moving?
[both laughing]
Yes, Lionel, good.
Excellent.
Hold it, hold it.
Yeah, woo!
- I felt like I did it.
I'm gonna get better at it, but I enjoyed it.
It's kind of similar
to roller skating as we do a finisher move.
Almost as similar, but this one's more like elegant.
I like this one.
- Well, I fell,
which is okay, I think.
However, after I got the hang of
keeping my balance on the blade
and not sitting down too long and coming back up,
I felt like it got better each time I tried.
- So at the beginning it was actually very interesting
to see how they maneuver their upper body
and how they handle themselves.
Because normally in roller skating they're kind of grooving,
and like using movement and all the way like that.
And for us, we need to have stability and be so precise.
So we don't move that much.
We kind of stay stabilized.
So for them it was a challenge to actually keep it together
and keep compact.
So that was very fun for me to watch.
[lo-fi hip hop beat]
- Hey everyone, welcome to challenge three.
Challenge three is a waltz jump.
And the waltz jump is important,
because it's the first move where you get into the air,
and you feel like you're flying,
and you're gonna love it.
And you guys, here's a waltz jump.
- I'm nervous about
the switching of the feet in the jump.
When I do the jump,
I can land on the same foot,
but to switch it, especially on blades,
is gonna be kind of tricky.
- I felt way confident when my blades were touching the ice.
Now that they're coming into the air, I'm a little nervous.
So yeah.
We'll see what happens.
- First thing, what we're gonna do, so grab the wall.
The wall is your friend.
And what you're gonna do is,
you're going to use your toe picks.
- Okay. - And I know
in roller skating, there's no such thing as a toe pick,
but there is in ice skating.
And we use toe picks to jump.
- Okay.
- Left toe pick in the ice.
You're gonna bend your knees, grab the wall,
and just pick your back foot up.
You're gonna do a half turn.
Get on your right toe pick, yep.
And then just glide backwards.
You got it.
And when you land, so, you're here,
you're gonna bend,
your arms and your free leg
follow through together, and then,
Yes.
- Nope, nope, nope, nope.
- That's it.
I'll take it.
Here, just go here.
Just little, don't step so wide.
- Okay.
- Oh. - Uh uh.
- Yeah, you know your foot, - Yeah.
- Your foot came in front, yeah.
- It's very tricky for me. - Yeah.
[both laughing]
Wait, go back.
- Nah, I can't get this.
- Hey, listen, I think you did a great job,
because you actually landed backwards on one foot.
- Yeah. - I think that's amazing.
You transferred your weight.
- It's very challenging. - It's very challenging.
You got it.
That's it, that's it.
Now just extend your leg.
Jump.
Yes!
- Nice.
- That was exhilarating.
Actually, I have been working on 360 jumps on roller skates,
and switching the feet is something
that I have been finding a bit challenging,
and this helped me gain that confidence.
So I feel like now I can go back on my roller skates
and do my 360 jump with more vigor and confidence.
- From the skaters I've skated with,
we don't use any toe stops to do any sort of jumping.
So having to use the pick,
it's a little tricky to get used to, but it worked out.
- Huge success.
I'm gonna do my happy dance now,
because all the roller skaters
actually did the waltz jump.
With the waltz jump, you're jumping forward.
So there's an extra level of fear,
because it's kind of unnatural to just like
hurdle your body in the air, jumping forward.
[lo-fi hip hop beat]
- Here's our final challenge for you guys.
We are going to do all of the elements
we've worked on today,
in an official figure skating routine.
So we're gonna add your waltz jump,
your lunge that we did earlier,
and the one foot spin,
maybe a two foot, and maybe a sit spin.
We'll see, okay, challenge on.
You ready?
- Yes. - Yeah.
- Woo!
- My tip for you guys is to keep your technique
and do one thing at a time.
So focus on one element at a time,
that way you don't rush into the next one.
- Okay.
- Good luck.
[pop synth music]
- Uh huh.
[all laughing]
That's my reaction.
- I don't know if I can make it as pretty as hers.
Probably spice it up, I don't know.
[lo-fi beat]
- It's a sport, like any other sport,
and you gotta take it seriously.
So if you slip up and make a move,
you could hurt yourself,
and you know, I just got hurt.
It's okay though.
- Yay.
- Go D! - Go D, yes!
[all cheering]
- Okay, wow. - Get it, girl!
- [Coach] Oh, I got a whole routine.
[all cheering]
Ooh boy, look at him twizzle!
- [Coach 2] Watch him.
Spin. - This looks harder
than my routine.
- [Coach 2] Spin.
Wowzers.
Toe pick, toe pick.
- God, I can't pick up.
[all cheering]
[synth music]
- [Coach] Yes, a twizzle and a lunge!
[all cheering]
- Guys, it was great to work with you,
and you guys did an amazing job.
So it's really been an honor to work with you guys.
Also, yeah, we're just like so sad
that Lionel
you know, had his injury, but I just saw him.
It's not that bad.
He's gonna be back.
- Okay, well, you guys did amazing.
I mean, I'm actually a little upset
that Andre made my routine look a lot better than I did.
If I knew we were gonna add twizzles in,
I would've gone a little more all-out for you
with your like entry.
Like, I mean, wow.
Like I'm really impressed,
and I want to have you choreograph for me now,
so let's go.
- I'm very proud of you.
You guys did great.
It was nice not just to teach you
because you guys contained what we gave you,
and made it your own.
- In my final challenge, I was most proud of the waltz jump.
I think I was more intimidated just looking at it.
But when I finally got a chance to do it,
it was actually easier than I thought.
I would say the most thing I'm proud of
was making the routine my own,
adding a little bit of spice,
and then throwing in a bit of extra moves
that I realized I could do on the ice skates,
similar to what I do on the roller skates.
That really helped out.
- So I liked all three of the moves.
I can't really choose which one,
but I spin on roller skates,
so spinning would be closer to what I,
you know what I mean, I prefer.
The balance,
but the balance is just a little different.
But my balance stayed with the roller blade.
That's why in the spinning I can do that, no problem.
But all the other moves
like I don't usually skate with my hands out like this.
This is more pretty, I think.
- I thought that the change from wheels to a blade
was going to be a really difficult transition,
but they seemed to figure it out really well.
Of course they have a lot of body awareness,
and a lot of strength and flexibility.
So that helped.
But I thought they were gonna struggle a little bit more
especially on my challenge,
and they just figured out right away.
It was a really quick, fun challenge for them.
So I'm very impressed of how good they were.
- The roller skating and ice skating
are already very similar sports,
in the way that they both use momentum and physics
to get accomplished what they want to accomplish.
They really picked it up quite quickly
because it's a similar movement
and similar momentum that they're used to doing.
- What this day really taught me is
that if you want to do it, you will do it.
So these are very athletic people.
They're very naturally talented.
But also it's that determination and drive.
If they want to physically execute something,
you could just really tell,
they took it really, really seriously.
[upbeat music]