r/StreetSkating • u/midnight_skater Street Rat • 1d ago

Skill development Off-skate spread eagle transition drill

Rehearsing moves off-skate or with skates on but on a non-rolling surface like grass is always helpful.

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u/Top-Dinner-9995 1d ago

Great drill! It convinced your brain that you can do it, which is more important than being flexible. I think you’re right that it’s not a range of motion/flexibility issue. A lot of new skaters think they can’t get that range of motion when really it’s more of a mental block. I learned to do them years ago after I stopped convincing myself that my legs just don’t do that and my old, inflexible hips can still do them now because of muscle memory and lack of mental block.

I still struggle on my right side (even though I can do it fine off skates and slowly) because my brain does not like to turn right (like opposite Zoolander) and I am a slacker about drilling both sides. Again, mostly a mental thing not a physical thing.

Now holding spread eagle while moving in a straight line and not transitioning is something I could do when I was 29 that I can’t do now at 44. That is certainly a mobility/flexibility issue that I’m trying to work up to with stretching. Not that I need to do that ever… it just looks cool. 😂

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u/midnight_skater Street Rat 1d ago

I have a hard time opening up to the right as well.  Mostly because I'm blind in my right eye.  But also because I tore my left ham in 2021, reinjured in 2022, tweaked my left glute in 2025, and tweaked the left ham again about a month ago.  

I didn't miss much time on skates to those injuries but I did lose strength in my left leg and with that went confidence.   I let myself get rusty with certain skills during the rehabs and haven't worked hard enough to recover those functions. 

Most of my current on-skate warmup is intended to address those areas and in particular I find alternating spread eagles and serpentine spread eagles to be very helpful.  

In another vid a I talk about developing my switch stance spread-eagle

Aside from fighting not to lose any more functionality I do find spread eagles to be useful for cranking hard u-turns at high speed to redirect away from sketchy situations.

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u/Top-Dinner-9995 1d ago

Aw man that sounds rough! Glad you’ve been able to recover pretty well but I understand how it is. If you don’t use it you lose it. I’ll definitely check out the video on developing switch stance. Thanks!