Turning back around

One of the local roller rinks offers lessons for kids and adults. With the influx of derby skaters, they started a splinter group focusing on derby skating instead of teaching derby skaters how to figure skate (though I've heard that this is also helpful). Yesterday, after feeling frustrated with some stuff at work, I wanted to go skating badly. Unfortunately, most of the rinks aren't open on Mondays and after the bad weather, it was too wet outside to attempt outdoors skating. I was then reminded that the Roller Garden did have adult lessons at 8pm on Mondays. Dashing home to grab my gear (it would be so much easier to take it with me everywhere but wouldn't be good for the gear), I made my way there.

When I first started skating, I went to a few of the early Saturday morning lessons. While I did manage to get something out of most of these, I have this problem with mornings and getting to places on time. This often meant that I'd miss most of the lesson and just skate at the open skate. Turns out that Monday evenings are not only easier for me to get to but it was a lot less crowded as there were no kids getting lessons. The instructor, Dan, actually remembered me and told me that he'd missed seeing me.

Our group had a total of 3 people, though a couple of people came and went a few times. We started with two foot weaving, one of my weaknesses. Dan has always been amazingly supportive and last night was no different. With the smaller group, he was able to spend a lot of one-on-one time with each of us. I felt as though I got more than the other two but then I think I was also the weakest skater of the group. As I was managing to weave, Dan told me to relax and to use my feet more as my turning comes from there and not my upper body. It actually worked! I won't say that the weaving got easier as it was still a lot of work but it was more consistent. After mastering two feet, we all switched to doing it with one foot. My balance truly does still need work but a few months ago, I wouldn't have been able to weave at all. Yesterday, I was sort of able to do it. Not consistently but it was a start.

The biggest part of the lesson was backwards skating. This still feels amazingly awkward to me though I am now sort of able to do it. I tend to lean forwards these days which is an improvement over leaning too far backwards but it makes skating backwards awkward. I was continually reminded to take baby steps and when I was doing it (I'm my biggest critic) as I was expecting perfection right away. These small successes lead me to ask for help transitioning from forwards to backwards skating. Talk about baby steps! At first I didn't even skate but stood there on the floor, stepping through going from one direction to the other. Remember how last time I lamented ever being able to do this? Well slowly Dan got me to skate slowly forward and I was able to do it! Once again, not consistently, at least not going from forwards to backwards. Oddly enough, I have no problems going from backwards to forwards skating. I have no solid idea as to why this is other than a trust issue but at least now I can can turn halfway around!