They grow up so fast!
I tend to make something of an effort to speak to some of the new skaters on the rink basically because it seems to be a general rink tradition that everyone's just so friendly to everyone else on the rink. To that end, I recently got talking with a new guy in the beginners' class. That's right, alert reader, a new guy, which, as will be no surprise to ice skating regulars, is a rare thing, made rarer still by the fact he's in his 20s, like me.
You see - clears throat - LEGEND HAS IT... For every generation of skating learners (adult or otherwise) there is born just one male into the flock of women (heterosexual men take note of this gender imbalance). It has been this way since the dawn of time and we must nurture these rare adult males who might go on to be a lonely female's ice dance partner, or perhaps they will one day perform such adult free skating wonders as the double Axel, double to---
"Yeh, so, I'm learning in secret because my missus plays ice hockey and I was watching some of the guys and figured I could do better than them. So, I'm just getting the basics down and then I can join the ice hockey practices."
NEVER MIND. ANOTHER MALE HAS BEEN CLAIMED BY THE CHAOTIC AND MACHO WORLD OF ICE HOCKEY! Jokes aside, his whole story is insanely cute; learning something in secret to surprise someone is absolutely the kind of thing I would do.
Anyway, to the point of this post, I was talking to him recently about how he was getting on...
"I had a bit of a revelation today," he said, "I realised that I hadn't been doing my laces up tight enough all the way up and my skating's a lot better when they are."
I wanted to stand slack-jawed looking at him when he said this. I had had this exact same revelation at pretty much the same time frame in my learning that he was currently at at the moment. One of the nice things about learning to skate with others is that you tend to all run into the same problems so you all discuss the things you found worked for you (whether or not they really help), but something about having someone I could identify with more readily (male, 20s) bring this up struck a very nostalgic chord with me!
You see - clears throat - LEGEND HAS IT... For every generation of skating learners (adult or otherwise) there is born just one male into the flock of women (heterosexual men take note of this gender imbalance). It has been this way since the dawn of time and we must nurture these rare adult males who might go on to be a lonely female's ice dance partner, or perhaps they will one day perform such adult free skating wonders as the double Axel, double to---
"Yeh, so, I'm learning in secret because my missus plays ice hockey and I was watching some of the guys and figured I could do better than them. So, I'm just getting the basics down and then I can join the ice hockey practices."
NEVER MIND. ANOTHER MALE HAS BEEN CLAIMED BY THE CHAOTIC AND MACHO WORLD OF ICE HOCKEY! Jokes aside, his whole story is insanely cute; learning something in secret to surprise someone is absolutely the kind of thing I would do.
Anyway, to the point of this post, I was talking to him recently about how he was getting on...
"I had a bit of a revelation today," he said, "I realised that I hadn't been doing my laces up tight enough all the way up and my skating's a lot better when they are."
I wanted to stand slack-jawed looking at him when he said this. I had had this exact same revelation at pretty much the same time frame in my learning that he was currently at at the moment. One of the nice things about learning to skate with others is that you tend to all run into the same problems so you all discuss the things you found worked for you (whether or not they really help), but something about having someone I could identify with more readily (male, 20s) bring this up struck a very nostalgic chord with me!
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