Requirement · part of 2. One of four options, and it decides the rest of the badge
2(B). Option B, Roller Skating
Optional May not apply
Thirteen steps, the shortest of the four options: three explanations and ten on the floor. Needs a roller rink, so it needs session times, admission and usually hired skates. Two of its steps carry an alternative inside their own wording.
Notes and warnings
Note. THE SHORTEST OPTION, AND THE ONE THE TWO SOURCES DISAGREE ABOUT MOST. Thirteen steps on the page against fifteen in the 2025 requirements book, and the difference runs one way. The book asks for a race on a speed track, demonstrating starting, cornering, passing and pacing, and for the limbo under a chest-high pole or shoot-the-duck under a waist-high pole. NEITHER IS ON THE CURRENT PAGE. The book's ball-handling item also asks for the length of the floor, or a circuit of the entire rink in both directions, where the page asks for forty feet and back. THE PAGE IS THE SOURCE AND THIS PLAN FOLLOWS IT, but if a counselor is working from a printed book rather than from the website, that is where the disagreement will show up, and it is worth having the page open when it does.
What this is made of
- 2(B)(1). Safety and etiquette on the rink
- 2(B)(2). The parts of a roller skate
- 2(B)(3). Five steps of skate care
- 2(B)(4). A hundred feet each way, and stopping
- 2(B)(5). Glide fifteen feet on each skate
- 2(B)(6). A forward crossover
- 2(B)(7). Backward, on two skates then on one
- 2(B)(8). A forward slalom, two feet then one
- 2(B)(9). A backward slalom
- 2(B)(10). Once round the rink, bending twice
- 2(B)(11). Two spins, or a hop, skip and jump
- 2(B)(12). A stepover
- 2(B)(13). Forty feet with a ball, and back
Where this step comes from
- Skating Merit Badge Requirements (Merit Badge Hub, last modified 2025-12-31), Requirement 2(B)