Taking Ice Skating Lessons

I signed myself up for ice skating lessons at the MedStar Capital Iceplex. I wanted to learn the proper techniques. I decided to skip level one and start at level two since I already knew the basics. I went to the first session yesterday after work.

The instructor was fantastic. She made ice skating look effortless. She emphasized the importance of having a good posture. She showed us how to shave the ice for us to learn to stop. She demonstrated the snowplow stop and the hockey stop and advised us not to do the latter until we learned the former. I already made the mistake of learning the hockey stop on my own. She also showed us how to fall without hurting ourselves—fall on your back pocket. She taught us to do backward swizzles. I haven’t even learned forward swizzles, but I managed to do fine. I need to practice that on my own.

The session was only half an hour long. I wished it was longer, but she gave us enough materials to work with on my own without feeling overwhelmed. I am glad I signed up for it. I can’t wait to come back next week. I also need to invest in a pair of ice skating shoes. I still don’t know what to get.

While I was waiting for our session to begin, I talked to a friendly lady. She moved from Atlanta to Arlington for her new job. She works at the embassy and she will be assigned to Sài Gòn for two years. She is now learning Vietnamese. I offered to help if she wanted. I told her I wanted her job. I asked her why she wanted to take ice skating lessons and her answer was just to try out something new she hasn’t done before.