Dear Reader,
Last Sunday I went ice skating for the second time in my life. In Florida, ice skating is definitely not as common as in other states. So everyone in my family was excited when my aunt announced that my little cousins were having an ice-skating birthday party. The last time I went ice skating was when I was sixteen and visiting my family in Denver. I fell… a lot… and came home with blue knees, but it was fun. It is very similar to roller skating/blading (which I am not very good at either). But I felt confident going into this birthday party that I was not going to look completely clueless.
There is such thing as false confidence, Dear Reader. While I confidently remembered what size I was in skates and even confidently stepped into the rink, I forgot that when you first step on the ice it feels like one of those nightmares where you can’t walk and are just falling. I lost all of my confidence while I was clinging to the rail like a drowning cat with five-year-olds whizzing by doing triple axles. When I did work up the courage to go wobbling behind a mom who was trying to teach her little boy to skate, my little brother just skates by like he is part of the Mighty Ducks. I think I fell flat on my rear at least twice. The first time I fell my foot hit the metal door of where they keep the machine to clean the ice, and the whole rink looked at me. My uncle asked me if I was going for the loudest fall… but I am proud to say by the end of the party I could confidently skate around the ring with my six-year-old cousins.
While I was trying to stay in a vertical position on the ice, I did have one thing going for me; the ice rink is just like the horse arena. It has the same groups of people, the same rules, and the same annoyances. There are the novices who are doing their best to just be out there and not get run over, there are the intermediates who know where they are going and what they are doing, and then there are the experienced riders who seem to be in a league of their own. The rules of the ring are the same as the arena, go in the same direction as everyone else, unless you are working on something specific, then find a little corner out of the way. If you see someone working on something specific, don’t go in their corner, but if a novice comes in your little space, have a little grace. Also, the biggest rule that often goes unspoken until someone breaks it is: Don’t hang around the gate. If you want to cause disruption and annoy a lot of people at one time block the gate at horse show. It can cause the same disruption at the skating rink.
I have had adults tell me that they feel afraid when they are on a horse, and I totally understand that, but learning to ice skate is scarier than learning how to ride a horse. Even though you are sitting on a thousand-pound animal that has a mind of its own, for your first ever ride you will more than likely be placed on a calm, trained horse that cares more about food than running off with you. This animal can stand up by itself under you, it’s not going to wobble and slide everywhere. And in most cases horses have strong sense of self-preservation, so if you can hang on, they will more than likely get you out of a hairy situation. Unfortunately, with skates you have to rely on your own equilibrium and fight your own sense of preservation to actually be able to move.
I am not a fan of trying new things when people have to watch me learn how to do the new thing. I am the type of person who wants to have a handle on something before they mention that they are learning something. When I was in high school, some family friends sent me to a flight day camp one summer and let me stay with them during that week. Every night after I got home from camp, I would practice flying on a computer simulator that they had until they made me go to bed. On the last day of the camp, we actually got to fly the airplane with an instructor, and I was not about to mess something up. The instructor told me that I did have the best landing of our group, but I have always been a little jealous of people who are ok learning in front of others. I guess bruising your ego is little better than bruising your body, though.
Sincerely and not so gracefully yours,
The Rancher’s Daughter
