For me - yoga, calisthenics, balance exercises, rowing, and I am MUCH more consistent with these activities when I think of them as "off-skates work" and not "exercise" lol.

@Aleeta Powe oh it is ALL about the squats and the lunges. Lunging and taking a knee over and over, all across the track and back again 🥲 The burn. Good times.

A lot of great advice here, I will throw in my two cents: sticking your arms out in a T shape can be helpful when learning to balance like this. I sometimes feel dorky doing it as a grown man, but it's a helpful counterbalance to get me started and the more I get used to whatever new one-foot move I'm working on, the less I need the arms.

@B Solo Thanks!! Yep a decent jammer and a pretty darn good pivot if I do say so myself 😎 It was really challenging and I don't have that competitive drive anymore, but I'm super grateful for the fundamentals it taught me.

Un-learning the "skate really hard, really fast" mentality in order to learn footwork has been a fun challenge so far. I try to do a simple downtown and I travel 20 feet for some reason 😂😂

@Teresa S I'm working on this too!! Here is something that is helping me - https://youtu.be/VzJjnDGuhkQ?t=193&si=uE8bOqj4qt52V0UH It's for a cantilever but the exercise he does from 3:15 - 4:00 feels applicable to spread eagle/ side surf too. Off skates, he puts his feet in to that spread position and then slowly sits down on a bucket, trying to keep his feet in a straight line as he goes down, then passively holds that stretch while seated. My feet always wants to turn inward a bit and I feel like practicing off skates with a bucket or chair is helping me catch that and open my hips more. Still can't travel very far in this position on skates without veering off course, but making progress!

@Albert Schepis I really appreciate you calling this out!! For me personally - no dance background, but I had the good fortune of growing up with a yoga-obsessed mom who got me involved young, so the experience of slowly training flexibility (and then losing it because I stopped practicing.... then retraining.... and repeat 😂) is familiar. It's easy for me to take for granted. I'm new to sharing tips about these things in a community setting and will definitely bear in mind we don't all come from the same background and might not know how long it takes to hit certain milestones or how to tell if you're pushing yourself too hard. Thank you!