Learning to Ice Skate at 40

I am trying to learn to skate again. My first class was June 9th. It was hard and exciting. I could tell my body remembered some of what it learned in December, but I was definitely not as far along. In addition my feet were killing me within 10 minutes.

The next two classes were challenging, my feet did not recover like they did my first few tries before I broke my shoulder. Both classes were agony and I do not have the capacity to fight through pain like I used to. But today, things started to turn a corner. My feet hurt but not so bad I couldn’t push it away for a bit, and I actually was able to push myself forward with both legs. Which was eluding me. I am off the boards (wall) and even participated in a few group activities.

So it is going well, but skate class is not what I expected. For one, apparently no men are willing to learn to skate. In my adult group, there are 3 women and me. Two, we are on the ice with children. Children who can all skate circles around me. This is not the group who skates before us who are falling all over the ice, these children are capable, and it can make you feel crazy.

I have learned a lot of things over the past 20 years since I left college. Job stuff, homeownership stuff, finance stuff, relationship stuff, life stuff, etc. I consider my willingness to challenge myself to learn a new skill a core part of who I am. But man, I have not learned a physical skill in forever. I have pushed myself in running, walking, biking, etc, but I think the last time I tried to learn a new physical skill I was learning to water ski.

Two months in and I still feel a little bad about myself when a kid whose parents are definitely younger than me skates by me like a NHL fourth liner. But I am surviving and getting stronger. This week I made progress on backwards skating, which is terrifying, but necessary.

Oh, and a few weeks ago as we were skating through warmups, a kid who couldn’t have been older than 5 skated by me and yelled at his peers, “Watch Out For That Man!” which almost brought me to laughing tears. So it’s not all bad.

There really is not much of a point to this post, but I wanted to share anyway.