While I have written a column under the name of the Finish Line for many years, I recently changed it to Conversations on Skates. The Finish Line had a lot to do with setting goals and achieving them, but I really wanted a more inclusive title and so.....
I won't write the posts with serious regularity, rather I write a post when the topic writes itself in my head, when the only way to get it out of my head is to write it down. That is the way all my decisions are made, all my challenging communications are sorted out and how I make my world make sense. I write it down. This column is a natural extension of this.
I am not a great skater, but when I skate I feel that everything is perfect. It comes from somewhere within and that moment is always signaled by a few joyful tears reaching my eyelashes. Somewhere within me everything is right, balanced, uh, wouldn't you know that I can't seem to describe it well enough to write it down. All I know is that I love my life and sometimes when I skate I know that I am doing the right thing at the right moment for all the right reasons. It happens when I am skating to great music, my feet do the moves and I'm not thinking about what they are doing. They just do it.
This is my friend Mauro: He makes skating look GOOOOOOD!!!
I once wrote a column after my brother Blair died in 2000 that 'skating makes my world make sense.' I still think that is true, but it was more true as I slalomed through the range of emotions that were in front of me during that time in my life. I don't think I need skating now like I did then. Now I have more energy for skating so I don't have to have my life make sense, it just does. It is because I went through about 6 years of well, various configurations like slalom skating that skating comes easier, is more joyful more often.
Skating is something different to everyone. There are many disciplines, but even within the same discipline it is simply different. In indoor speed skating some are looking to improve their skills through racing or they thrive on competition, while others are doing it just for fitness. Why these differences?
Some people take up skating and for a variety of reasons don't enjoy it: at the skate school we see a lot of new skaters really struggle with just the very basic steps. What is interesting is what separates the brand new struggling skater who keeps at it and becomes a teacher from another struggling skater who quits.
Above is the "Skate for Susan" a community skate to raise money for her to enjoy the OutdoorsForAll programs. She went skiing!
I think the answer is that skating is a feeling. I feel it, the teacher who overcame early struggles, and the indoor speed skaters all felt it. I don’t think the feeling is because someone is good, or a natural, but simply that when they skate something happens to them. When it comes to deciding how someone wants to spend a day, a skater who ‘feels’ their skating will choose to skate. A skater who doesn't get the feeling won't skate for very long. One skater chooses to skate and join our skate community and the not skater goes on to other endeavors. My hope is that the non skater will find that sport, that instrument, that movement that gives them the ‘feeling.’
It is my hope that our skate school simply offers everyone in the community who finds us a chance to see if you have the feeling. How will you know? When will you know? I don’t know the answer to this. I just cry, then I know.
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