Baby Steps

Skating... I'm obsessed!

Jackson Freestyles with Donut Soakers

It has been 5 months since I bought my first pair of skates - Jackson Freestyles!
(see image - aren't they gorgeous!)


The exam-procrastination-impulse-buy probably came as no surprise to my friends, who had been pummelled with earfuls of me talking about skating for the 5 months before that moment.

After struggling the whole year with completing the third year of my engineering degree, I have finally finished my final exams, and in my freedom have decided to take up private lessons (and with that, start this blog).







Here's a little summary of the lead-up process:

Me - a 21-year-old engineering student, soon approaching a full year of internship before my final year of study.

February - first realised that taking lessons isn't an impossible feat for a beginner, took some Learn To Skate (LTS) classes with kids half my size.
March - university took over my life.
June - exam season, after dreaming of owning my own skates I finally bit the bullet and paid up.
July - found out that Coffee Club (CC) exists, and is better for adults than skating with 3-4 year olds. Started going to CC whenever university schedule allowed.
October - exams hit again!
November - that's now! When I am going to take up private lessons!
The future - from December I will be full time interning and taking a year off studying, hopefully that will let me skate more.

This blog begins as a way for me to track my progress from here on out, both in skating and in trying to juggle adult life with skating.

Current reflections:

I am so excited to start lessons tomorrow, but at the same time am very scared. I picked my skating friend's coach (she got me into skating by showing me too many awesome tricks that I wanted to try), who I've heard is quite tough and technical - exactly what I love and fear!

I am most afraid that all the skills I picked up at CC will be deemed "wrong", and have to relearn everything. Yet at the same time, I do want to learn everything properly!

At the moment, having rolled around in about 15 CC sessions, my skill set includes:
- Forward stroking (still in progress getting it looking nice...)
- Forward crossovers (left feels more comfortable but apparently right is technically better?)
- Backward crossovers (friend told me they're all wrong though)
- Ugly 3 turns (when they feel like it, FO and FI, and sometimes BI if the day is right)
- 2-foot spins (5-7 revolutions, usually CW but after a month off CCW is better???)
- 1-foot spin (like 2 revolutions)
- RFO spiral (apparently a pretty good beginners one!)
- Mohawks (one is more comfy than the other)
- Snowplow stop (lost it for a while when I got my new skates and moved off rentals)

I get the feeling that ALL of these need hours of more work. Here's to waking at 4AM tomorrow to get to the rink for my first lesson!
Part of this blog will be on my struggle to shift my sleeping pattern to become more of a morning person, and learning to cook for myself (!!) in the early morning. Here's to a long future with this expensive sport!