Skating differently, weeeeeeeeeeee!

It is with great joy that I noticed last night that I have added yet another way to skate. Due to a scheduling change this week, I found myself at both the Wednesday night Lynnwood session and the Thursday night Skate King session. I attended the Skate King session last week as well and my friends there well know that I usually head to bed by 9pm were happy that I was making it a habit....now I want to.

I do want to give you a description of the Thursday night skate: 8:30-11pm, 4/5’s quad skaters. R&B music, dark and the lights are bright only for the ‘backwards skate.’ Good quad skaters, I mean really good quad skaters. The grace and beauty of quad skating is found both in the middle of the rink as well as the outside ring where they skate in lines, each one following the bobbing and sway to the music of the person in front. They do this at blazing speed while NOT running into the new skaters in rental skates. Unlike inlines these quad skaters wear the top of their skates untied and often the inner tongue, hanging out has some kind of fabric like a dalmation or there is glow wheels or a strip of blue light under the boot shining out on the floor as if to say, Halaleujah, I’m skating! Each person has their own complete style, born out of the 20-30 years they have been skating—I’m a teenager compared to their time on skates.

I guess my best way to describe the session is to believe it is like hearing Barry White’s voice. I adore these skaters, many longtime friends. They greet me warmly when I come to THEIR session and it always seems as if I just saw them yesterday. They are generous with their time, always willing to teach me or anyone something new. They always notice a new move I might have conquered, always taking time to see what others around them are doing. No hurries, no worries, just a joyful time on skates when we all come together. Ah, I can still feel it now.

During both the Lynnwood and the Skate King session I was subjected to a type of music that I do not easily cotton to. It is not a beat my body feels easily and therefore I struggle to get my skates to move in the ways I am used to.

Maybe it was the three nights in a week--the rhythm beginning to speak to my skates, but I found myself slowing down, carving more patterns, and doing so faster or maybe more efficient & artistic ways--in ways I hadn't felt before.

In skating I am a feeler. Ask me to do something and I have to go out and do it before I can break it down for a student. Music is what translates the movement between my head and my skates. Last night this great quad skater was skating by in a way I can only describe as lyrical and I commented how beautiful a skater he was and he replied (paraphrasing): I'm just hanging on for the ride, my feet tell my head where to go.

New bumper sticker: I'm just hanging on for the roll.

I am sure I cannot adequately explain what was going on, it is always difficult to explain a miracle but here is my best shot: Tim and Ernie (I like to look at my feet-fame, Ernie) were commenting on the incredibly short frame of my SEBA's and how I must love my skates. Tim laughed and said he could now teach me to dance (meaning that my Pic Skates did not afford me all the movement needed) and the music inspired me and I showed them some of the stuff my skates allowed me to do. It was just then that I realized: I'm skating more fluid, faster and in different patterns than I can on my Pic Skates. I had found yet another way to skate and that is what I love about skating. There are so many different ways to skate and finding yet another one was miraculous.

My movements in this way are not another discipline, maybe an offshoot of quad skating to R&B (my own style of course given that I am rhythm challenged.) It is simply that I have found completely new patterns available to me with these skates.

How many pairs of skates do you own? I get that question a lot and new skaters always assume they can find one skate for their needs. The truth is that as you improve you will need a different skate each time you try a different discipline: Short frame skates for indoors, Long frame/bigger wheels for marathons, short frame rockered skates for slalom, Pic skates for artistic, quad skates for Roller Derby and med/long frame medium sized wheels for trails. Within those disciplines our advanced students have several pairs based on weather, aches & pains and surface.

My point on the number of skates you own is that your ability to skate in a variety of ways, to not get bored with your skating, to challenge yourself, is only limited by the number of skates you own.

I know this sounds nuts but even as I write this, my heart is absolutely busting with joy that I found something new. That I get to skate differently. I can't believe my skates discovered it without my guidance. See what happens when you move your brain out of the way?

You know, I'd be silly to not keep going to the Thursday night session...look what I found. Man I love to skate, weeeeeeeeeeeeee!