Skating

After our dinner with Vera and Olya on Sunday night, we walked to a nearby inflatable dome along side of the road which just so happens to be a skating rink…

We get inside and pay the admission. They give you this coded card, which is everything, from skate and locker rental to getting on and off the ice… Lose it, and you will be shelling out another 45 hryvnia to get a new one.

Mari would LOVE to skate with us, however, she is facing arthroscopic surgery when we get home and must be left watching from the sidelines. I have a great deal of empathy for her with my own bad knees, ankle, back, etc…

Advise from Mari? “Don’t do anything stupid!”

Too late.

Do I skate well? It’s been a long time, and the last ones I wore had wheels. My sense of adventure of course, sometimes gets the better of me. I’m also thinking that I had been downhill skiing on some of the finer bunny slopes of Minnesota and Mari, the kids and I have been rollerblading on Guam and cross country skiing on some of the flattest, moose-infested trails in Alaska, so I’m thinking the principle should apply and this can’t be all that difficult.

Let us start by saying that timing is everything… We get inside the rink and get our skates just in time for the ice to be cleared of wayward skaters and the Zamboni to come out and groom the ice. So while we wait for the ice to set, we put on our skates. Much can be said about the ankle support of hockey skates, however wearing bootie socks to go ice skating was mistake #1 (some chafing, but surprisingly, no blisters).

We get on the ice… white knuckle death grip on the boards along the edge until I find some semblance of balance, then it’s time to let go… Push & glide, push & glide; that’s all there is to it, right? After all, hockey players and figure skaters can do this and make it look so, so, easy… Mistake number 2 begins with the fact that I am 40-something, just a pound or two or 50 overweight and who’s athleticism has gone by the wayside oh, about 20 years ago.

The first lap away from the boards… Push and glide, then all of a sudden… Hands on my back and the sensation of being pushed… I can handle this… Don’t do anything to cost balance and fall. The next thought was “how long is this train going to get?” The push lasted just a lap or so, then it’s on to more conventional means. Vera, Olya & I manage to make several more laps around the ice as we watch others fall around us then pick themselves up, laughing the whole time. My ultimate goal is not to fall (and make a fool of myself). Perhaps this was mistake number 3… Not falling… Maybe the true goal here actually IS to fall and pick ourselves back up to continue on. This is where the fun REALLY is…

After my lack of conditioning and overuse of underused muscles kicked in, I resigned from the ice. Mari and I watch from the sidelines as Vera and Olya continue skating for just a while longer… Falling, picking themselves back up and laughing the whole time.