In my skating program, I provide purely skate coaching services. I don’t rent out or sell skates. Students will have to bring own skates and safety gears for the lessons.

Safety gears will include wrist, elbow and knee guards whcih are mandatory. I will strongly encourage students to put on helmets. But some students complained to me it deal to local hot and humid climate, they felt very uncomfortable so I will leave it to you whether to wear helmet.

There are many type of skates, ie. aggressive, freestyle, recreational, fitness, speed, etc. For beginner, I recommend recreational skates which are more comfortable and easier to balance. Freestyle skates are fine too but make sure you ask the shop to install the heelbrake because, by default, freestyle skates don’t come with heelbrake. But if you don’t want to have heelbrake on your freestyle skate, please do a 8 lessons course. I will need more sessions to train you to stop without heelbrake.

Recreational skates are usually soft boots whereas freestyle skates are hard boots. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Soft boots have thicker cushion thus their are more comfortable than hard boots. Hard boots are suitable for those have pronation problem. The stiff ankle support will keep your ankles upright while you skate. You can google more for their respective characteristics.

When choosing skates, I will emphasize on firm and secure of the boots. Designs, wheel sizes and frame materials are secondary to me. Look for recreational skates if you are beginners. Put them on and make sure they can hold the feet firmly and the ankles are not pronated. Pronation can cause injury to the ankle. Poor quality skates usually have such adverse effects on the ankles. Poor ankle support can cause poor alignment of the foot, ankle and lower leg, thus leading to other injuries.

Check that the wheels can spin freely and the stopper (brake, found at the back of the skate) is made of rubber, not plastic. The plastic stopper has very minimum gripping when heel-brake is applied. Especially if you try to heel brake while going down slope. You will probably freak out when you cannot slow down.
You need NOT start with expensive high-quality skates but you should not start with poor quality skates as well as it may hinder your progress and performance. Some skate shops are always having discounts/promotions to clear their previous years designs. You may want check with them.

If you have no idea where can you buy the skates and safety gears, you can see a list of skate shops here.