My Skating Story, Part 1

I can't remember the first time I went skating. To be honest, I can't even really remember learning to skate. I grew up in the American south where skating is not a popular pastime, but my dad grew up in hockey territory, skating on ponds and eventually playing hockey in prep school. He used to take us to the rink once or twice a year. I always loved it, but I never knew it was something I could do more of. It never even occurred to me to ask for lessons. In my family, we danced, and I always (mostly) accepted that.

During the summer, my sister and I roller skated in the garage and driveway. The garage, being flat, was the perfect place to pretend to be ice skaters after seeing some on TV. We both wanted to be Kristi Yamaguchi, but because I was older, I claimed her and made my sister be Michelle Kwan. Those were the only two skater names I knew.

I always wanted to have an ice skating birthday party, but I have a summer birthday. My mom told me I could still have a skating party, but I was convinced that my friends would think it was stupid to skate when it was hot out and I felt begrudgingly fated to pool parties. By the time I turned 22, I'd realized my friends didn't care and I threw myself a skating birthday party. My friends were good sports.

Travelling Europe with some friends in January a few years later, I learned that Paris has a free rink in front of its city hall in the winter months. I was determined that skating would be part of our Paris itinerary. We'd walked all over town that day, but we still trudged out to the rink and rented our skates. I told my friends not to ask me if I was ready to go--I never would be. Whenever they came to a consensus that they were ready to leave, they should just inform me and I would resign myself to turning in my skates.

A few months after I started working at my first long term desk job, I noticed my pants didn't quite fit the way they used to. And I hated being stationary all the time. In the past, I'd done various forms of dance, ultimate frisbee, flatwater kayak racing and they were all things that I really enjoyed doing so that they never felt like exercise. But I didn't feel like going back to any of them. I started looking around for another form of exercise that I would be motivated to do, not because it was exercise, but because I enjoyed the activity itself. You can see from the above stories--and they are just a sample of many--why ice skating occurred to me as an idea.

I looked at the website for the local rink, wondering if I could work it into my schedule to go to a public and skate laps. On the website, I discovered that a session of skating classes was about to begin and that they had classes for adults. I remember being giddy with excitement waiting for my first class. I had no idea what I would learn in a skating class, and skating EVERY week for 8 weeks seemed like such a luxurious arrangement.

And, well, is it any surprise? I got hooked.
(To be continued)