SUCCESS IS A SKATE OF MIND
K. and I went ice skating this past Sunday, which was only my second time ever. It may shock you to hear that I suffer an ice sport deficiency, but hey, I’m from Miami. True, I probably could have learned to rollerskate/blade, or skateboard, or do something that required balance atop a gliding object. I guess, “Better late than never” has pretty much become my official motto. That would explain why I have only recently gotten interested in journalism, or have started listening to the “Singles” soundtrack.
Anyway, back to the ice: K. had to hold my hand while leading me out, which was not unlike the first/last time at the rink. That happened to be our first date; I neglected to mention to K., until we were about fifteen feet away from the ice, that I had never skated before in my life. This made for a convenient excuse to hold her hand for just about the entire date. Was it dirty and lowdown? Probably. But hey, she could have let me slip and slide into a bruised, frictionless heap any time she wanted.
Of course she didn’t, and I can’t help thinking that is part of the reason K. and I are living together today. All in all, that first date went very well, give or take a spine-numbing fall of two, and the fact that I still hadn’t mastered how to balance myself on skates by myself. But no matter; I had a feeling—call it a premonition—that I would be back in a similar situation very soon, with the chance to build on the previous outing’s tumbles. At the time, neither K. nor I had any way of forseeing that more than a year would pass before we had the chance to skate together again. On the other hand, it probably should have occurred to me that my own prowess would not improve without actual, you know, skating practice.
Alas, a mistake is a lot like high school trigonometry, which we are doomed to repeat unless we learn from it the first time. Since I never did get over my initial shakiness regarding that frigid water-based mistress that men call ice, my repeat visit to the rink started off a lot like my first. In the early stages, I had to hold onto K. for balance. Actually, a more accurate term than “hold” might have been “desperate clutching,” as if I were trapped up to my neck in quicksand and her arm represented an outstretched branch.
My neediness caused pangs of guilt to seep in, since I knew I was keeping her from turning on the afterburners and tearing up the ice at full speed. Secondly, I knew I was putting considerable extra weight on her arm. Truly, I wanted to be able to skate on my own. The problem was, I had a complete lack of fundamental knowledge regarding skating. I felt an unusual disconnect, an inability to impose the necessary motor control upon my own limbs. And even when I tried mimicking the other skaters, who shot past me like the inhabitants of a house on fire, the slightest movement on my own part caused me to nearly topple over like a rootless tree.
Luckily, when things seemed to be at their worst, the other people K. and I went skating with—K.’s friends J., M., E., and E.’s boyfriend C.—each offered some very basic skating lessons. These combined into one large body of fundamental knowledge, comprised mostly of mechanical tidbits such as which part of what limb to bend, which direction to lean when pushing off with one’s foot, how to push off with said foot, how to keep one’s skates beneath oneself, etc. Granted, many times the person giving me the advice would mention how difficult it was to describe the theoretical skater’s motions. But after much individual practice, I actually started to “get” what everyone was telling me. At that point, I could also understand why putting the art of skating into words proved so difficult. There was a certain madness to the method!
Best that I can put it—and I would never feign to be an expert after a mere two trips on the ice—skating does not involve any forward momentum, per se. Rather, the skater pushes back with his/her foot at a forty-five degree angle to their body, and leans into the direction of his/her momentum. This should also be at a forty-five degree angle to their body, only opposite the direction of the foot. After this, the skater switches feet, as well as the direction in which he/she leans. As M. was telling me, this can seem very confusing to someone who is used to walking, since your body never leans forward to pick up speed, even when forward is the exact direction you wish to move.
But here’s the important thing: I think I got it. By the time everyone began collecting themselves to leave the rink, I was skating all by my lonesome. True, I pushed off with my right foot for the most part, but there were moments where I actually—dare I say it?—switched to the left! I’m a regular daredevil, aren’t I? This calls for a third trip to the ice, relatively soon. Unlike last time, when it took me more than a year to be reacquainted to the frozen pond’s butt-numbing embrace, I definitely plan to be back before 2006 is up. May God strike down my “Singles” soundtrack if I do otherwise.
K. and I went ice skating this past Sunday, which was only my second time ever. It may shock you to hear that I suffer an ice sport deficiency, but hey, I’m from Miami. True, I probably could have learned to rollerskate/blade, or skateboard, or do something that required balance atop a gliding object. I guess, “Better late than never” has pretty much become my official motto. That would explain why I have only recently gotten interested in journalism, or have started listening to the “Singles” soundtrack.
Anyway, back to the ice: K. had to hold my hand while leading me out, which was not unlike the first/last time at the rink. That happened to be our first date; I neglected to mention to K., until we were about fifteen feet away from the ice, that I had never skated before in my life. This made for a convenient excuse to hold her hand for just about the entire date. Was it dirty and lowdown? Probably. But hey, she could have let me slip and slide into a bruised, frictionless heap any time she wanted.
Of course she didn’t, and I can’t help thinking that is part of the reason K. and I are living together today. All in all, that first date went very well, give or take a spine-numbing fall of two, and the fact that I still hadn’t mastered how to balance myself on skates by myself. But no matter; I had a feeling—call it a premonition—that I would be back in a similar situation very soon, with the chance to build on the previous outing’s tumbles. At the time, neither K. nor I had any way of forseeing that more than a year would pass before we had the chance to skate together again. On the other hand, it probably should have occurred to me that my own prowess would not improve without actual, you know, skating practice.
Alas, a mistake is a lot like high school trigonometry, which we are doomed to repeat unless we learn from it the first time. Since I never did get over my initial shakiness regarding that frigid water-based mistress that men call ice, my repeat visit to the rink started off a lot like my first. In the early stages, I had to hold onto K. for balance. Actually, a more accurate term than “hold” might have been “desperate clutching,” as if I were trapped up to my neck in quicksand and her arm represented an outstretched branch.
My neediness caused pangs of guilt to seep in, since I knew I was keeping her from turning on the afterburners and tearing up the ice at full speed. Secondly, I knew I was putting considerable extra weight on her arm. Truly, I wanted to be able to skate on my own. The problem was, I had a complete lack of fundamental knowledge regarding skating. I felt an unusual disconnect, an inability to impose the necessary motor control upon my own limbs. And even when I tried mimicking the other skaters, who shot past me like the inhabitants of a house on fire, the slightest movement on my own part caused me to nearly topple over like a rootless tree.
Luckily, when things seemed to be at their worst, the other people K. and I went skating with—K.’s friends J., M., E., and E.’s boyfriend C.—each offered some very basic skating lessons. These combined into one large body of fundamental knowledge, comprised mostly of mechanical tidbits such as which part of what limb to bend, which direction to lean when pushing off with one’s foot, how to push off with said foot, how to keep one’s skates beneath oneself, etc. Granted, many times the person giving me the advice would mention how difficult it was to describe the theoretical skater’s motions. But after much individual practice, I actually started to “get” what everyone was telling me. At that point, I could also understand why putting the art of skating into words proved so difficult. There was a certain madness to the method!
Best that I can put it—and I would never feign to be an expert after a mere two trips on the ice—skating does not involve any forward momentum, per se. Rather, the skater pushes back with his/her foot at a forty-five degree angle to their body, and leans into the direction of his/her momentum. This should also be at a forty-five degree angle to their body, only opposite the direction of the foot. After this, the skater switches feet, as well as the direction in which he/she leans. As M. was telling me, this can seem very confusing to someone who is used to walking, since your body never leans forward to pick up speed, even when forward is the exact direction you wish to move.
But here’s the important thing: I think I got it. By the time everyone began collecting themselves to leave the rink, I was skating all by my lonesome. True, I pushed off with my right foot for the most part, but there were moments where I actually—dare I say it?—switched to the left! I’m a regular daredevil, aren’t I? This calls for a third trip to the ice, relatively soon. Unlike last time, when it took me more than a year to be reacquainted to the frozen pond’s butt-numbing embrace, I definitely plan to be back before 2006 is up. May God strike down my “Singles” soundtrack if I do otherwise.
posted by Phil at 12:10 PM
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