HP #9 - Ashley's departure
Usual disclaimer applies: this is an old event I'm recounting. See my first HP post for the full notes on these.
Background: This was around mid-October 2016, I'd been learning to skate for about two and a half months and our group had already passed the criteria for levels 1-4 of the Skate UK course.
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Ashley announced that he wouldn't be working on Tuesdays anymore so another coach would be taking over both the Tuesday adult classes, he didn't know who and his facial impression implied the rink management had no idea either. We'd all really enjoyed being taught by him and we'd always felt he believed in us as adult learners (who can sometimes feel overlooked by rinks) so this news was met with some trepidation.
An unprecedented meeting was called between the level 1-4 and level 5-8 group members. Hurried talks of arranging a group lesson with Ashley on a different day were discussed, but nothing was agreed and the groups eventually resigned themselves to whatever change was to come.
Meanwhile, in our lesson, despite having stated that we'd all passed muster on the level 1-4 skills, Ashley hadn't officially marked us off on the recent stuff so we blitzed through that in the lesson.
Then something strange happened.
"What should we do now?" Ashley mused. "Let's do continuous outside 3 turns!" Most us can barely do one solid outside 3, let alone multiple, but we gave it a go and we all improved, I managed to get three continuous good-ish ones out so I was pleased. I struggle somewhat with the step-to-forward when going clockwise as the flowing rotation of it caught me off guard compared to going counter-clockwise (a common issue when having to do any skill in the opposite direction to normal rink public session direction).
"Now, continuous inside!" If our outside 3s are bad then our inside are worse. We don't talk about the clockwise attempts.
"Backwards crossovers!" We abandoned these quickly.
"Twizzles!"
The groups' heads span (and not in the good skating sense) as we plowed through the increasingly complex series of moves that we weren't skilled enough to handle. Ashley knew there was so much more of the skating world he wanted to impart on us, but this was his last chance so he was cramming it all in.
And then it was all over. Ashley said his farewells as we prepared for whatever would happen next week.
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I still see Ashley around the rink these days when I skate later in the week. He's always complimentary of my progress and has taken to shouting "... aaaaaaaaaaaaannd DOUBLE AXEL!" when he sees me preparing for a jump. I wish!
Background: This was around mid-October 2016, I'd been learning to skate for about two and a half months and our group had already passed the criteria for levels 1-4 of the Skate UK course.
-------------------------
Ashley announced that he wouldn't be working on Tuesdays anymore so another coach would be taking over both the Tuesday adult classes, he didn't know who and his facial impression implied the rink management had no idea either. We'd all really enjoyed being taught by him and we'd always felt he believed in us as adult learners (who can sometimes feel overlooked by rinks) so this news was met with some trepidation.
An unprecedented meeting was called between the level 1-4 and level 5-8 group members. Hurried talks of arranging a group lesson with Ashley on a different day were discussed, but nothing was agreed and the groups eventually resigned themselves to whatever change was to come.
Meanwhile, in our lesson, despite having stated that we'd all passed muster on the level 1-4 skills, Ashley hadn't officially marked us off on the recent stuff so we blitzed through that in the lesson.
Then something strange happened.
"What should we do now?" Ashley mused. "Let's do continuous outside 3 turns!" Most us can barely do one solid outside 3, let alone multiple, but we gave it a go and we all improved, I managed to get three continuous good-ish ones out so I was pleased. I struggle somewhat with the step-to-forward when going clockwise as the flowing rotation of it caught me off guard compared to going counter-clockwise (a common issue when having to do any skill in the opposite direction to normal rink public session direction).
"Now, continuous inside!" If our outside 3s are bad then our inside are worse. We don't talk about the clockwise attempts.
"Backwards crossovers!" We abandoned these quickly.
"Twizzles!"
The groups' heads span (and not in the good skating sense) as we plowed through the increasingly complex series of moves that we weren't skilled enough to handle. Ashley knew there was so much more of the skating world he wanted to impart on us, but this was his last chance so he was cramming it all in.
And then it was all over. Ashley said his farewells as we prepared for whatever would happen next week.
-------------------------
I still see Ashley around the rink these days when I skate later in the week. He's always complimentary of my progress and has taken to shouting "... aaaaaaaaaaaaannd DOUBLE AXEL!" when he sees me preparing for a jump. I wish!
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