Finding My Inner Klutz

I went ice skating last night, with Becky and Dave and Neal, and some other dancers and people from Becky's dorm. That was really quite fun. I'd only ever skated once or twice before though, and it was a long time ago, so I felt pretty wobbly out there. But it didn't take too long before I could comfortably circle the rink without too much trouble. Nothing fancy, though. There were lots of kids there, most of whom could skate circles around me. There were little 6 year old girls skating backwards and spinning around, and all the little boys were being hooligan hockey players zipping in and out of traffic. I only fell down twice, and only one of those was entirely my fault. On the other one, I was trying to avoid creaming a kid who darted out in front of me. My steering was pretty minimal, and I never did figure out how to stop at will (as opposed to at wall, which is how I usually did it). Still, when I wasn't falling over, it was very nice and relaxing to just glide around in circles for a while.

It actually reminded me a lot of being a beginning dancer, and trying to do a waltz or a polka. There was a very definite line of dance (though they changed at the zamboni break and went clockwise for a while, which was a nice change). There would be really good skaters who could steer around the rest of us effortlessly, and I'd be there just trying not to hit anyone or block traffic too much. There was even a spot in the middle for the people who wanted to do turns or other things that didn't travel much, just like in dancing. I was glad of my peripheral dancing vision, and of the fact that I didn't have to be spinning around as I travelled, which would have complicated it even more.

I find that I'm sore in unusual places this morning. That definitely used some different sets of muscles than I'm used to. Plus, my feet were going crazy cramping up trying to keep myself balanced. But they couldn't because they had no direct contact with the ground, just those slivers of metal. Very interesting. Anyway, it was quite a fun outing. Thanks to Becky for organizing it!