About SK8SHOT
About SK8SHOT
We are going to revolutionize the roller skating industry.
That means making rhythm skating a sport more people can enjoy doing, watching, and making a living in.
Where this ends
Four pictures we are building toward.
- 01Skate schools everywhere.
- 02Skating rinks opening more than they are closing.
- 03Roller skating a worldwide respected sport.
- 04Rhythm skating with a clear ranking of competitions that lead up to the equivalent of a Super Bowl. A spectator sport for the largest talent.
Why we are doing this
The rinks are closing. The best skaters alive are skating in rooms nobody sees.
There were thousands of roller rinks in this country in the eighties. There are about nine hundred today, and they are still closing. The best skaters alive skate at late night adult sessions and skate parties, from about 8 at night to sometimes 5 in the morning, in rooms most people will never walk into. And rhythm skating, the thing we do, has not changed in any real way in decades.
A lot of people want rhythm skating in the Olympics. We want rhythm skating to be big enough that it does not need to be. We will have our own skools, our own rinks, our own ranked competitions, and our own championships.
The truth is, we have to make our own platform if we ever want rhythm skating to grow into the sport it deserves to be. We cannot wait on someone else to do it or ask someone to do it for us.
Picture a skool in every city, taught by people trained to teach it. Rinks open faster than they close because the SK8SHOT business model makes them more profitable. A ranked ladder that ends in one championship a year, in front of a massive crowd, for the best talent on eight wheels in the world. That is what we are building.
The plan.
Teach people to skate, well.
Sell out kids camps and after school programs, and keep the studio in North Kansas City full of adults learning from zero.
Buy or build the rinks.
Use what the camps, the programs and the studio produce to buy or build rinks and make them more profitable.
Launch from the rinks.
Run the programs out of the rinks, then use the rinks to launch SK8SHOT into more studios, more rinks and more cities.
And along the way, open every door we can. Instructors. Performers. Competitors. Business owners. People who own the manufacturing. Skate shops. People who film it, write about it, and make the deals.
From the founder
The skate night that changed my life forever.
I started skating in 2016, my freshman year at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, on a marching band scholarship playing tuba. My best friend at the time, a JB skater from Chicago, kept asking me to go to the rink with him. I wanted to learn one thing: how to skate backwards. He taught me. After that, if we were not at band practice, we were at the rink.
That Christmas my grandma bought me my first pair of skates so I could practice over the break. The first Sunday back in January 2017, he said I was ready for adult night, and we drove 45 minutes to Little Rock. Line out the door, bass coming through the walls, and a floor full of people doing things I could not name. Snapping. JB. What I thought I knew about roller skating got smashed into a billion pieces. I decided that night this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and we were back every Sunday.
Nobody was posting skate videos back then, so I filmed the best skaters on my phone and went home to study them. That page had a different name before it was SK8SHOT. Getting the shot was the whole idea.
I grew up in Houston. In 2019 I joined the Air Force to get my life in order. I was a chef for two years, completed a six month deployment, and worked in the fitness center for the rest of my contract. Through those four years I read business books every day, especially in the flight kitchen where phones were not allowed. That built my reading habit and my love for learning. It was my business education. Through all of it I was still skating, still trying to figure out how a person makes a living on eight wheels.
In January 2023 I separated from the Air Force knowing what I wanted and not knowing how to get there. So I started teaching at the local rink. And I was bad at it. I would tell somebody, do it like this. They would do it wrong. I would say it a different way, and they would get worse. I had been skating seven years by then and was so far past being a beginner that I could not remember what it felt like to be one. Then one of my first students came back weeks later, watched me run a lesson, and told me I had gotten so much better at teaching. That hit me like a truck. Teaching was a completely separate skill from skating, and nobody had ever taught it to me. So I wrote down every cue that worked and every one that did not, and I took learning to teach as seriously as I had ever taken learning to skate.
In 2024 I competed on Roller Jam on HBO Max. We did not win. I have lost competitions I trained months for, been laughed at for saying I would put another rink in Kansas City, and had multiple ups and downs in my journey as a business owner and full time professional roller skater. All of it is in the walls of this place.
Here is the thing I believe: you don't know who you're standing in front of. The person holding the wall today might go on to be a better skater than you and do bigger things in this sport than any of us. Somebody brought me in. Now we bring people in, from zero, every week.
Knejie
How we got here
Ten years, one direction.
- 2016Knejie laces up for the first time as a freshman at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, there on a marching band scholarship.
- Jan 2017First adult night in Little Rock. The SK8SHOT page starts soon after, a phone in one hand and a lot to learn.
- 2019Knejie joins the United States Air Force and starts a journey of self improvement, studying business on every shift.
- Jan 2023Knejie separates from the Air Force to take the plunge into entrepreneurship.
- Nov 2023SK8SHOT Studios opens in North Kansas City. KCUR called it the region's only stand alone roller skating school.
- Feb 2024The first SK8 Dark 30 party brings more than 200 skaters through the door.
- 2024Knejie competes on Roller Jam, the HBO Max series, in front of the whole skate world.
- Summer 2026The first kids skate camp, ages 7 to 12, with a partner rink. Almost 100 kids signed up.
- Nov 2026The first Skate Instructor Certification cohort trains in the room at 1972 Linn St.
- NextSkate schools everywhere. Rinks opening more than they close. Our own movement.
How we teach
A real method, taught the same way every time.
Every skill at SK8SHOT is taught in the same order: in place, then rolling in a straight line, then with movement, then out on the floor with music. That four step progression is what makes a class a SK8SHOT class, whether you are on the wall for the first time or working on your footwork.
Nobody skates alone in their first classes, everyone learns at their own pace, and the room cheers when someone lands something new. Our instructors are trained in the method in the room with Knejie, and in November 2026 we start certifying instructors from outside Kansas City so the same class can exist in your city too.
See the class schedule
Where this comes from
Rhythm skating was built on the one night a week.
For decades Black skaters were allowed into the rink on one night a week, under coded names, to music the rink would not otherwise play. The styles, the sessions and the culture came out of those nights, and it is mostly known today as rhythm skating. Adult night is that night, still.
SK8SHOT carries that forward. We teach the history with the skating, we honor the skaters who built it, and we open the door to anyone who wants to learn. Everyone is allowed to learn how to skate.
What we hold ourselves to
Five things every SK8SHOT instructor lives by.
The best curriculum
The best curriculum to help new skaters get results.
Connected with the community
Staying connected with the community and focusing on our students.
Always learning
Always learning, from any source.
Clear and professional
On time and prepared.
Inclusive of all skaters
Because any type of person should be allowed to roller skate.
Knejie holds himself to all five first and leads by example.
Find your door
There is a place in this for you.
Learn to skate in person
Beginner classes in North Kansas City, every week, from zero.
See the scheduleNew here? Start with the Pass
The 30 Day Sk8 Confidence Pass is the way most of our members started.
Learn about the PassLearn to skate online
Thousands of skaters, lessons, and the SK8SHOT Society community.
Join the SocietyBecome a certified skate instructor
Two days in the room with Knejie, the method, the business, and a network behind you.
Instructor certificationKids Camp
Confidence on Wheels, ages 7 to 12. The 2027 camp is on the way.
Kids CampJoin the SK8SHOT team
Instructors, editors, front desk. Help build it with us.
Work with usPerform, compete, DJ, film, write
If you do something in roller skating, tell us what you do.
Get in touchWhat skaters say
5.0 on Google across 134 reviews.
“Beware: sk8shot is ADDICTING!!!! If you have ever thought about roller skating but too nervous to begin, set all those fears aside and give sk8shot a try.”
Sterling C.
“It's been 47 years since I've been on skates. WOW can I say wow again wow! The instructor was awesome!”
Clarissa K.
“you start off as a room full of strangers, but by the end of the hour, everyone is cheering for each other's successes.”
Richard S.
“THE place in Kansas City, Missouri to learn the culture, style and moves of roller skating!!!!!”
Kenneth W.
Creating our own movement
Join the movement.
SK8SHOT Studios · 1972 Linn St, North Kansas City, MO 64116 · (816) 320 4441