We needed some time to just regroup and recover from the toll of lockdown, but now we are back with a plan for March.
Without further ado:
Monday night kitchen choreography - 7.30pm - 8.30pm (1hour)
This online class will remain in a similar vibe to the January / February classes. Fundamental roller dance classes will not be broken down in great detail, it is expected that you have some knowledge about certain moves. This class is more about linking moves together and is choreographed with few repeating moves, so expect a brain and body workout!
NEW! Wednesday night Flash Mob Footwork - 7.30 - 8.15pm (45 mins)
This online class will introduce you to the back catalogue of roller dances that we have choreographed over the years. These have been designed to practise a series of different steps. Once you've learned the 3-4 steps of each dance, we just repeat them. Don't worry, we have lots of variations to keep your brain working too. We hope you will join us at this class, so when we meet in real life, we can dance together!
Friday night Fundamentals - 7pm - 7.30pm (30 mins)
We had such lovely feedback from this class, that we have decided to keep it as a small class, although it will now be capped at 10 people per session.
If you have never done roller dance before, this is the bite size session for you. Led by our passionate instructor team, they will break down just *one* movement per week in detail, and support you with where and how to put your weight to help you with technique.
We have even designed our schedule in March, so you can put this move into a little dance at the following week's Wednesday night Flash Mob Footwork session. Please see the class listings for the schedule of what we plan to teach at this class.
As before, if you sign up for the Fundamentals class, you will also receive the link for the Friday Night Social.
Friday Night Social - 7.45pm - 8.30pm (45 mins) FREE FOR MEMBERS!
We've left a little time gap between our Friday night sessions, so we have time for technical swapping over of accounts in between (bring back real life sessions), but this is our weekly wind-down.
We will play the songs we have danced to in sessions during the week, so you've got another opportunity to practise those dances, and you don't have to have your camera or even sound on if you don't want to.
We want to get to know (or at least recognise you) as many of our members as possible, so we've decided to make the FNS members-only and it's free!
Bring your skates, song suggestions and your drink of choice (Yorkshire Tea for the win) and we'll see you there!
It's a pretty full on week for us, so we have decided to take time at the weekends to properly relax, and there will be no classes.
What about other types of roller skating though?
We had a go at delivering roller skate fundamentals during November lockdown, and we found that many of the skills are not small space suitable. We need to wait for the end of lockdown or better weather in order to deliver these sessions more consistently.
To support skate fundamentals, we will deliver some content through our Tutorial Tuesday blog posts a little, and they will become more like a skate skills class, with ideas of how you can structure your skate time, if you like this style of learning. We will provide Tutorial Tuesday Skate Fundamentals practise sessions during March and then evaluate them.
We would love to deliver other types of roller skate skills, however we know that skate park fundamentals sessions require the specialised space of the skate park environment, so cannot deliver these sessions during lockdown.
A word about our terminology
We call some of our class 'Fundamentals' but please note that the skill level we are referring to may be different.
We (used to) teach roller skate fundamental skills first. The course we delivered covered what we consider to be fundamentally important skills in order for you to feel confident on your roller skates. These included falling, starting, stopping, turning, and skating backwards.
Once you have these skills, you may then want to specialise in a type of roller skating. Without these skills, any other type of roller skating will be much harder!
Roller dance, skate park, roller derby and the other skate disciplines all have their own set of fundamental skills, but you need to know how to skate and stop before you can fully access these (in our opinion).
Everybody defines improver / intermediate / advanced slightly differently, and we use these words only as a guide to the expected level of the class. If you have never tried roller dance before, you will find Monday night sessions that we deliver online really really challenging. You're more than welcome to sign up, just be prepared! If you have had roller skates for a couple of weeks and you haven't mastered all the roller skate fundamental skills, you may find the Friday night session challenging, however we will do our best to support new skaters as much as possible.
Life after Lockdown?
Following the government announcement about restrictions being lifted, we can start to allow ourselves to consider in-person classes from 17th May *at the earliest*. (Assuming Steps 1 and 2 go as planned).
We still don't have our own venue (anyone reading this who is Leeds based and can help, get in touch please) but actually, it allows us to use the community spaces across the city and bring roller skating to you as much as possible. Before the pandemic, many venues said no to roller skaters using their facility, thinking that skates will cause damage to their floors. Actually we need the smoothest floors!
We will need to reconnect with our venues and assess their availability. We will also need to consider any guidelines and will look to the British Roller Sports Federation and Sport England for guidance.
We are thrilled that there will be a return to classes in some form this year and want this to be sustainable. Please bear with us, as there is a lot to consider.
Roller Girl Gang are here to support you on your roller skate journey. You will likely need different things at different points along your journey. From advice to getting rolling, sourcing specific equipment to bespoke events, we are here to help. Our paths may cross only for a short time, or you may find that our direction is the same and we travel together for longer.
It doesn't matter if you have been roller skating for 20 minutes, 20 years or you are coming back to it after time away, you are part of our community.
Roller Skating is for Every Body.
These long-sleeved t-shirts are perfect for early Spring weather and layering.
Unisex sizes L - XXL in stock and perfect for cropping. (Mel is wearing 2XL and is 5'8")
Grab yours while stocks last and help us spread the message.
Thank you for your continued support of Roller Girl Gang. It really puts the soul in our roll.
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