Freestyle 18+

This was officially the first freestyle session I’ve been to. Before, I’d been to coffee club once where the rest of the ice was freestyle, and practice afterwards was freestyle still. But to intentionally go to a freestyle-only session, today was a first. Intimidated is all I can say.

I chose on purpose my initiation into the freestyle world by starting with the 18 or older freestyle session on Sunday noon, thinking that thereby I can avoid having my confidence being shattered when I see ten year olds doing double axels. 18 or older, that’s basically adult figure skating, isn’t it? I’ve seen the adult skaters at our rink. The majority being in the intermediate class which I’d been in, and about ten really good adults in the advanced class which I’ve just joined. So I wasn’t really expecting many other insanely good adults around. I was even wondering with hope and delight that maybe it would be a nice empty rink. I was so wrong.

There were around twenty adults on the ice, so this was heaven compared to my usual public sessions. But they were twenty pretty advanced adults. Quite a few of them were doing double jumps. They all skated with a lot of speed. I saw spread eagles, sit spins, really high spirals, complicated footwork, lay back Ina Bauers, and one lady skated her routine to “The Swan” with such elegance and artistry that I could have stood there and watched her for the whole hour (had she been doing her program).

I don’t know which is more damaging to my confidence and pride: skating with really good adults or skating with really good kids. Because for the latter, at least I have the explanation of, well, they probably started training since they were like 5 years old, of course they’re good. But for the adults, how are they so much better than I am? That’s actually not a question, since I know what the answer is. They’ve spent hours and hours and hours practicing to get to where they are. It’s just that just when I’ve started feeling a little bit good about myself, the truth hits me really hard in the face telling me that no, I’m really just not that good.

But I will end this dismal note with an optimistic ending. I will add a “yet” to the end of the “I’m really just not that good” sentence, because one day, I will be.