Open Skate and Practicing My Skater's Edge

There is still ice time to be had, and that is at Campion. In fact, they have public skating, which has become a bit of a bore for the kids, but not for me. When I took the Skater's Edge skating class, there were several drills that were beyond my capabilities. In fact, virtually all of them were over my head, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that you should never give up trying to learn something if you have a desire to learn it. In fact, the challenge is what makes it fun and interesting. I try to convey this to the kids, who can get frustrated when they can’t do something. I try to teach them that if it’s challenging and difficult, with hard work they can learn it. Hockey seems to bring out a lot of these lessons.

The class is run by DR, who is a former NHL pro, and the drills are pretty daunting, but I’ve also found that if you take a bit of a leap of faith and just give it a try, you can learn them and even master them, meaning the kids, not me. The classes stress edge work, and you really have to lean into the exercises to get the most out of them. It’s scary, because everyone falls, but you also realize falling is not the end of the world, and if anything, it’s part of life. Wow, was that profound, or what?

I did my first DR class a couple of weeks back, and needless to say, there were several things I couldn’t do, but I was trying. The public skate was the perfect time to practice, because when else was I going to be able to? I had a blast trying, and pulled off several of the drills. Unfortunately, A&N were bored out of their minds, which is a shame, but that’s a by-product of hockey. Suddenly, skating in circles is no longer fun, or rather, it’s no fun with boring old dad. It would be much better if they had their friends with them. I tried to encourage them to practice their own stuff, which the did to some degree, but in the end, they were just bored.

I, on the other hand, got a lot out of it, and could have stayed longer, but at some point felt like I was torturing A&N, so we left. Now I have to figure out a way to coerce them to go to the public skate again. Not sure how I’m going to pull that off.

Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to ilkkakauppinen for the pic.