I'm on an inside roll, when I pass near a kid. I don't touch him. I never get closer than two feet away. But apparently, I glared at him with my laser eyes. If you had a Russian dance coach yelling at you, you'd use laser eyes too. The kid looks at me like a bunny and falls.
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| My laser eyes |
Coach and I kind of glance back at him as we pass. He's up again. Man I wish I had knees like that. At my age, getting up from a fall involves some grunting and a small civil engineering team.
Sad too say, I've turned into one of those scary people on public ice that can pass within inches of other people on public and don't think anything about it. Since I'm in dance patterns I'm down the sides a lot and not in the center and I pass close to a lot of people. And I look fast to them. I feel good about my skating when I'm on publics.
Unfortunately, on freestyle sessions, it's different. A week ago Dance Coach put me in the middle during a freestyle. "Should I be here in the middle? That girl's in program," I said. "She can skate around you," Dance Coach said. "I can skate around you," the girl said. "She can skate around you," her coach said.
Great, I'm so slow I get a pity pass from Freestyle etiquette.
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| Freestyle hand of pity bursting the bubble of my skating ego |
This is precisely why I've been too chicken to practice on freestyle ice. Not that my skating ego is very big. But that I would shrink up to a bunny who could be felled with one glimpse of the laser eyes of the REAL skaters.
ReplyDeleteI used to show horses. Being in a small ring with 30 people on 1000 lb of stupidity on the hoof, and you get real good at seeing things in your peripheral vision. I've got residual horse show reflexes. I'm okay in low Freestyle. And if I get eyeball from someone (this has happened twice in four years), I give eyeball back.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I don't have dramatic stories about skating Diva's and skating moms, and rink shenanigans. That would make the blog much more interesting. Everyone at the rink treats me like their grandmother, or a Queen.
"Residual horse show reflexes" sound PERFECT for skating, seriously. I still have mom-of-little-kids reflexes and peripheral vision, so I'm quite good at knowing when there's a careening 4-yr-old heading obliviously in my direction. (Hence, I'm good on noon-time public ice, which has about 3 adults + me, and the occasional preschooler or two.) But I'm very self-conscious that I will be the worst one out there on FS ice, so I haven't ventured out. The downside is that I don't have any adult friends who skate, and I suspect if I ventured to morning FS, I might meet a few.
ReplyDeleteAnd, by the by, I'm not sure it's a bad thing to be treated well by everyone else at your rink. The blog is great, even without the divas. ;)