Week Ending 31st July, 2005

I started ice skating on Saturday the 30th of July, 2005, so this entry covers my first two days of skating. It's important to note that I rollerskated a bit as a child, and so forward stroking was not a skill I had to learn from scratch. My balance has always been pretty good too, and I'm fairly competent at sports like tennis, so I didn't foresee myself struggling too much with learning how to ice skate. I'm an adult male, 32 years of age and weigh about 63 kilos. Being lighter helps on the ice, as you have less weight to move around.

My first lesson on the Saturday morning introduced me to edges -- something that is just about the most important thing in ice skating. Each blade has two edges; an outside edge and an inside edge. Most of your ice skating time will be spent on one or the other, and sometimes on both. On Saturday I was skating in rental skates, and the edges were very dull and would not grip the ice. If you tried to skate hard on one edge you would likely feel it slip from under you making you stumble. To get around this problem I would need to get my own skates, which I could then get sharpened to hold the edge properly.

The first lesson was very basic and helped me gain confidence on the ice. One of the earliest things we learned was falling over. Yes, I'm serious! It's important to understand that falling over is a very real part of ice skating, and a skater cannot fear it, lest it limit their progress. So the teacher (her name is Lee) made us crouch down on our skates, and then fall over to the side. A couple of the girls in the class really didn't want to fall over, but when Lee told them she would have to push them over if they didn't, they decided to comply! Falling over is momentarily painful, as the ice is hard, but the pain wears off very quickly. Since that first fall I've had a couple of nasty ones that were NOT on purpose, and it does hurt -- but more than that it seems to be the shock factor that impacts the most. You feel yourself falling and when you hit the ice you sort of freak out a bit with a strange kind of panic. After the fall you feel okay -- a bit of a sting here and there, but the embarrassment and shock kind of hangs with you a while, making you a bit anxious on the ice. I'm assuming that after I've fallen for the 500th time I won't have that same feeling anymore! :)

The teacher then taught us how to safely get up off the ice, which is vitally important based on how many people I've seen in general sessions just sitting there on their butts and laughing with their hands splayed out behind them. Ice skating blades are pretty sharp, and you could take someone's finger off if you're not careful. Hence, it's important to bring your hands in straight away, get onto one knee and stand up nice and quickly. No sense in staying a target for any longer than is necessary!

We were taught a few things like forward stroking and the snowplow stop, and at the end she taught us how to do a basic two-foot spin. This is really tricky, and involves generating momentum with your arms and then snapping them tightly into your body to accelerate. The spinning sensation is very strange, and you get very dizzy from it. It's also extraordinarly difficult to stay balanced while spinning on one spot, as the body has a tendency to constantly overcompensate when it starts falling in one direction or the other. I practised all my newly learned skills in the general session after the lesson.

The second lesson was on Sunday morning. I moved up to the intermediate class, where my teacher Lee said I belonged anyway. She proceeded to teach us backward skating, forward and backward spirals, t-stops, and crossovers both forwards and backwards. This was the first time I'd skated backwards since my pathetic attempts on rollerskates as a kid, but I picked it up fairly quickly. The crossovers, however, were another story. It involves skating in a circle, forwards or backwards, and crossing one foot over the other to build speed and stay in the circle. This was really difficult and I spent a lot of time practising this after the lesson.

One thing I noticed was my lack of flexibility. Being flexible is a key thing for an ice skater, male or female. A good spiral involves gliding on one skate while the other leg is as far up in the air behind you as possible. Minimum height is hip-height. I could barely get my leg up that high! So I really need to start stretching and getting more flexibility into my skating. I expect that it will become more and more important as my skills progress.