Skating as an Adult

After reading about my continuing attempts to learn figure-skating, Sandra sent me a video of an 81-year-old figure skater, Yvonne Dowlen. The story is here and it includes a link to the video. I sincerely hope I'll still be skating at 81, though I expect I'll be pleased enough if I can just go forwards around the rink at that point.

I took figure-skating lessons as a kid but did not get much past the basic skating skills: forward/backward cross-cuts, edges, etc. Julia has already progressed way beyond where I'd left off and Kate is not too far behind that point. I took classes on and off in the years since then but I started skating more regularly again a couple of years ago. The skating club was holding an adult ice dancing class in an adjacent rink at the same time as Julia's lesson, so I decided to join, as an alternative to sitting in the stands. The following year, I couldn't fit the group class into my schedule and so I started weekly private lessons with a terrific coach and am still doing them now.

A while ago, I found this piece on what it means to be an adult skater. The first item is, "Telling your body to do something and watching, helpless and horrified, as it does something else." Yup, that pretty much sums it up in a sentence.