Falling slowly

So when I was a lot lot LOT younger I used to ice-skate. Yip, every Saturday morning my Dad and I would get up super-early, drag ourselves out the house and make Die Groot trek to the other side of the world (i.e Krugersdorp).

I skated for a few years, loved it at first and ten as my gawky teenagerliness started taking over I began to not enjoy it as much, then hate certain steps and then resent it completely. And then I stopped.

Recently, as we’ve been going skating relatively often, She-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named and I decided to sign up for classes. They’re not too expensive (I think it works out as the price of a session plus R10 or so per lesson), and I was frustrated at my general lack of confidence in trying anything I used to be able to do, while she wanted to be more confident and do a few tricks rather than clinging onto the side.

So last night I battled through some delightful traffic to find that She-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named was nowhere to be seen. I found her eventually, stressing out like crazy over the average age in the previous classes (it’s around 5-8 years old I think), the fact that the classes are visible from the rest of the centre and that she didn’t want to fall. By the end of it all I was terrified too, particularly when we’d signed up (and had to fight a nasty stage-mother and inefficient admin person), put our skates on and found a small group of people over the age of 5 to hang out with.

The adults class was nicely placed out of general public view. It was also a nice size, with lots of really friendly people. Unfortunately I got kicked out within the first two minutes because I could actually skate, and I was sent off to meet my new classmate (yip, singular), a terribly shy girl who might have been six or seven years old.

It was the weirdest thing though: I’m comfortable on skates. I can zip around the rink quite happily, do one or two cool things and avoid the crazy skaters who always seem to try and trip me up, but I had never realised how slightly-nervous I am all the time. after two or three steps with a coach-guy explaining and critiquing and helping I suddenly felt SO much happier and more in control – to a point where I did a lot of steps that I’d tried recently and wobbled/freaked out/wussed out completely.

By the end of the lesson I think we’d covered the entire class syllabus (this guy hasn’t had time to become immune to my “what’s next? Teachmemoremoremoremoremoremoremoremoremore! attitude – the tai chi teachers are completely desensitised by now) and I’m hoping to move up to the next class next week. I tried out my nemesis-of-a-step last night and it didn’t end well, so I will need all the help I can get with it (and it’s in the next class).

After the lesson I went and found She-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named who had had an equally fantastic time (from clinging on to the side they had her calmly zooming around forwards AND backwards) and we went around and she practised very diligently while I bounced around in total over-excitement and tried out everything I could think of and I managed most of them! And I (sort of) managed my FAVOURITE step from back in the day which totally made my night and had me dashing around squealing and (yes, I admit it clapping) in joy.

I think the other people there think there is something wrong with me…

But I’m so excited and I can’t wait until next week!