HP #3 - "Now you become REAL skaters!"

Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See my first HP post for the full notes on these.

Background: I can't remember how long I'd been skating by this point, but we'd spent a lot of time doing forward chassés recently and were comfortable with most basic skating stuff (simple one foot edges, two foot gliding, two foot turns, lemons galore).

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"Now you become REAL skaters!" Ashley announced dramatically as we finished our latest round of chassé practice.

"Forward crossovers!" he said, with a manic glint in his eye. He explained that to build and maintain momentum while taking corners then you had to get good at crossing your outside leg over your inside in order to continue pushing while cornering.

We clutched at the rink barrier as we practised tipping our left blade onto its outside edge and stepping over our left foot with our right, before bringing the left back behind to begin the process again. You'd think it'd be more complicated than this and there is a lot of refinement you can do as you get better, but, essentially, this is the principle for now. No one really had any trouble with this so Ashley quickly ushered us onto a hockey circle and, with some trepidation, we began our clumsy-looking crossovers. Push off, hold left outside glide, bring right leg over and step onto right inside glide. Left foot passes behind and rejoins the ice in time for right to push again.

We got into the spirit of this with varying degrees of confidence. I have always been a bit of a speed demon on the ice (always trying to do anything we learned at the fastest speed possible) so I grew more confident after a few steps and soon found myself building speed easily. Before I knew it, I was whizzing round the group screaming as I realised I had no control whatsoever and was going to struggle to avoid the people in front of me on the circle without skidding and crashing out.

"Speedy Gonzales over here!" Ashley cried as he turned back to helping another member of the class, abandoning my desperate spiral out of control as I wiped out on the rink floor. He knew I'd bounce back up; people have started to believe that I'm made of rubber based on how fast I'm back up off the floor and into the practice again. Seeing my dramatic tumble the rest of the group took the exercise at a more sensible pace.

"Crossovers," Ashley said as he concluded the lesson, "are when you start to look like real skaters. This is what you think of when you think of skating." He proceeded to demonstrate a wonderfully sweeping set of forward crossovers as he travelled a wide circle in front of us. He looked elegant, regal, strong, graceful. Head up, arms wide, legs motoring away as his top half remained absolutely still. This was the skater I wanted to be. For now though I'd have to content myself with keeping my eyes on my feet as anything else was sheer madness at this point.

REAL SKATING, WE ARE NOT WORTHY!