Get Rolling: The Beginner's Guide to In-Line Skating

Rating:
Summary: Solid book for skating course
Review: Like her previous book on skating routes in California, Liz Miller's Get Rolling is clearly written and helpful for raw beginner through intermediate skaters. It also follows pretty closely the curriculum offered here in Washington, D. C., by IISA-certified instructors. I am a beginner (moving on to intermediate now) skater, and I have taken private lessons, group instruction, and used Liz Miller's books to advantage. While I would NOT advocate trying to learn how to skate entirely from a book (you definitely need a live, skilled instructor to explain and demonstrate the moves and to spot what you are doing wrong), this book provides further clarification, serves as a reminder, and is useful as a reference during practice out in the parking lot. Better than any other book on in-line skating that I have used.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent beginners GUIDE to inline skating
Review: Liz Miller has written a great book for the beginner skater. It covers what you need, how to avoid injuries, maintenance of equipment and over a dozen of skills.

Now some people think you can learn to skate by just reading a book, and that is wishfull thinking and NOT what this book is about! If you want to learn inline skating, take a lesson from a certified instructor.( ...) When taking those lessons, you can read through this book and it will give you excellent insights on how and what.

This book makes great reading for both instructors as well as the general skater. This second edition (1998) is a very good improvement on the first edition (1992).

Rating:
Summary: Excellent textual description but not enough pictures
Review: They say, "A picture is worth a thousand words." In the case of rollerblading, this adage certainly holds true. As previous reviewers have stated, this book is sorely lacking in pictures. Sure, every few pages it has a black and white picture of a skating technique, but the quanitity of pictures is not enough. Another problem is that the book does not have STEP by STEP pictures. To illustrate a technique, the author only places one photograph from only one angle. A more helpful approach would have been to demonstrate a technique by showing the technique from start to finish with a series of freeze frame photographs. I'm guessing that placing more pictures would have driven up the cost of the book, but I for one would have shelled out more money for the extra photographs. However, despite this seemingly fatal flaw of not enough photographs, the book makes up for it with very clear prose. The author has an uncanny talent for describing skating techniques with the right words. Most of the time I had no trouble following the author's descriptions; however, the lack of step by step pictures made it very hard for me to know if I was doing the technique correctly despite the clear writing style. Originally, I was tempted to give this book three stars but the extraordinary writing of the author pushes the book up to four stars, but the lack of diagrams ultimately is too big of a stumbling block to merit the book five stars. However, to put the score in perspective, other roller blading books I have checked out also did not have step by step diagrams for each technique so this book, "Get Rolling," is the best among them until someone produces a book with step by step diagrams -- preferably colorful, glossy ones. Until then, I'm gonna continue looking -- and skating.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent textual description but not enough pictures
Review: They say, "A picture is worth a thousand words." In the case of rollerblading, this adage certainly holds true. As previous reviewers have stated, this book is sorely lacking in pictures. Sure, every few pages it has a black and white picture of a skating technique, but the quanitity of pictures is not enough. Another problem is that the book does not have STEP by STEP pictures. To illustrate a technique, the author only places one photograph from only one angle. A more helpful approach would have been to demonstrate a technique by showing the technique from start to finish with a series of freeze frame photographs. I'm guessing that placing more pictures would have driven up the cost of the book, but I for one would have shelled out more money for the extra photographs. However, despite this seemingly fatal flaw of not enough photographs, the book makes up for it with very clear prose. The author has an uncanny talent for describing skating techniques with the right words. Most of the time I had no trouble following the author's descriptions; however, the lack of step by step pictures made it very hard for me to know if I was doing the technique correctly despite the clear writing style. Originally, I was tempted to give this book three stars but the extraordinary writing of the author pushes the book up to four stars, but the lack of diagrams ultimately is too big of a stumbling block to merit the book five stars. However, to put the score in perspective, other roller blading books I have checked out also did not have step by step diagrams for each technique so this book, "Get Rolling," is the best among them until someone produces a book with step by step diagrams -- preferably colorful, glossy ones. Until then, I'm gonna continue looking -- and skating.

Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners. A cram book for experienced skaters
Review: This is NOT a book for the beginners. This book is sort of an exam cram book which is designed for the people who want to pass Inline Skate Exam, if such thing ever exists.

Probably most of the techniques in inline skating are described in this book - very succinctly, but to the point. You really have to sit down, and STUDY this book. I skate on ice (since when I was 10), and have been inline-skating for more than 5 years (well, on and off). And I wanted to get the proper techniques of inline skating. Because of my experience, I could study this book, and get the feeling of what it is talking about most of the time, but I wonder whether beginners would have any idea.

As noted by other reviewers, this book lacks pictures. Beginners NEED pictures. If this book was titled as "Inline Skate Exam Preparation Summary Book", I would give three or four stars. But since it was titled as "The beginner's guide to in-line skating", I have to give only 1 star. There is no way beginners can learn any skating technique from this book. I know since I have been teaching my kids and my friends how to skate/rollerblade. They need demonstration. They need EASY demonstration. Words alone just don't work for beginners.

While there are good succinct descriptions which really get to the point, there are other ridiculous descriptions, like: . Essentially the paragraph was saying, "Avoid them or roll over". I mean, what's the point ? Obviously, you should also avoid hitting against the cars or other bikers on the street.

In general, I do NOT think that this is a good book about inline skating, and especially beginners should avoid this book.

One day, I went to a used book store, and found this amazing book that other reviewers talked about: "How To Skate" by Inline Skate Magazine. For each technique, it shows at least more than 10 pictures(step-by-step photographs) with four or five paragraphs of explanation. This IS what you (beginners) should buy. Unfortunately, this book won't be available now, since it says "Summer 1995, Display until July 31".

The author of this book should actually have had some experience of teaching BEGINNERS how to skate, before they publish a book for them. If they have had, they wouldn't have written this way.