I am not a fan of anything that has to do with water, even frozen water but with the help of my friends I was able to get on the ice and skate (or at least try). I would personally not try to skate again but if my friends are there with me I know I would be more willing to throw on skates. I am happy that this was an option for me because even though I was scared I am happy I went on the ice and even got to complete the whole rink.

GRF Sam took us to Lynah Rink to ice skate recently; I was very excited, since I hadn’t skated for quite a while. I had gone ice skating maybe four times total beforehand, and I had improved to the point that I could skate without having to remain near the rink’s edge at all. Unfortunately, the first thing I noticed when I put on the figure skates this time was that they were unbearably tight. I figured that once I was on the ice and got moving, it would feel more natural and perhaps more secure for it to be so tight. Unfortunately, things only got worse from there. Every skate-stroke (step? glide?) hurt my shins and foot-arches to the point where I had to get off the rink after only ten minutes of skating. This was a huge step down from where I had been before–skating for hours with no breaks. I was really disappointed that I seemed to have worsened.

This experience of worsening in a skill that I had beforehand been steadily progressing in was at first disheartening. However, I decided to look at it in the perspective that it should be looked at in: learning. Whether we are learning a new skill, a new subject, or a new anything, we should not expect our progress to always be linear. We will do better at some times and worse at others: it’s all part of the process. This is a mentality I’ve been trying to enforce in all aspects of my life (especially with classes), and it’s taught me to value growth and determination rather than a pure results oriented approach. I’m hoping this perspective can encourage me, as well as others, to not be discouraged by little setbacks while in the process of learning.

Last Sunday I skated at Lyna Rink. It was fun meeting fellow Rose House members, but once I got on the ice, I was shocked by how bad I had gotten at ice skating — I had never been good at skating, but this time, each step only pushed me around 2 feet and I felt off balance every time I switched shoes. It wasn’t until GRF Sam told me that I was wearing hockey skates — not the figure skates I normally wear — that I realized why my skating felt so awkward. My first thought was to go back to the skate rental counter and ask them to switch my skates to figure skates, but at GRF Sam’s encouragement, I tried to learn how to use hockey skates. At GRF Sam’s instruction, I tried pushing off with my back foot and staying closer to the ground. Soon, I felt much more comfortable. In fact, I felt like I had more control in those hockey skates than I normally do in figure skates. However, it still didn’t feel right to me — although I was moving comfortable, I still felt a little bit clunky, as if I was just walking heavily on the ice. So, for the last 15 minutes, I switched back to figure skates and felt that I was able to move much more freely. Hopefully, I’ll be returning to the Sunday night free skate pretty soon to learn how to better use hockey skates.

When I first saw the event for ice skating, I was excited but a bit apprehensive because in the past, my feet have started hurting within minutes of wearing the figure skates that Lynah Rink has. I’m really glad I still went, because although the figure skates still hurt, I got to try out hockey skates! Though I definitely still need to practice skating in them, I think I like hockey skates a lot more. It was fun skating in slow circles with the other people that went, though we all felt like extreme beginners compared to GRF Sam-in the time that it took us to make one loop of the rink, we saw him whoosh past us three or four times. It was nice to go with someone actually good at skating who could give me tips on how to use hockey skates; I probably would have fallen a lot more times without any instruction.

I’m not sure why, but I always push off of my left leg and so the workload each of my legs do is very unbalanced. I tried to also use my right leg to push off, but I think it’s something I still need to work on a lot before it feels natural. My goals for the next time I go ice skating is to use my right leg more evenly and maybe to try moving backwards. I had a ton of fun!