Trying out ice skating

[chalcedony_starlings]

^β(The bulk of this is cross-posted from our personal journal, but a few minor details are access-locked.)

Today, at the urging of a good friend, we wound up trying ice skating for the first time! “first” meaning that the zeroth/first of us had taken some basic classes about… fifteen years ago? We weren't sure whether there was any motor memory of it left. This is also part of more general Adventurousness Training, of which “retraining the visceral, body-facing side wrt things like risk tolerance” is a major part.

Illum was fronting most of the time today; at some point I want to try it more thoroughly myself, but I still caught a lot of it.

Results so far:

• No reliable memory of how to brake properly.
• Error recovery is still pretty wonky in general.
• How to balance on the ice seems mostly workable.
• These reflexes work for falling, sort of.
• It's an interesting sort of exercise… I assume this involves core muscles quite a bit?
• These foot arches complain a lot, and it's not clear what to do about this.
• They don't have half-sizes of skates, but a 13 “wide” worked better than a raw 13.
• No reliable memory of how to properly lace the things either, 403 had to show us. c..c
• Definitely noticing a lot of flickery signaling waking up on the other side of the system↔body rubble while trying out motion in that environment.

I'm a little stymied by the foot arch issue, since that seems the most significant. These feet have gotten pretty wonky over the years in general, and I feel like there might both be some arch issues and some circulation problems. Same for the sizing… I don't know if any of this is common enough that any of y'all might be able to give quick answers to it.

Thinking of going back for some basic classes, resources permitting. Would appreciate sharing of other experiences, or feedback on ways to get more out of this kind of practice. :-)

(ETA: oh, for those of you who might not be aware, since I'm not sure we've posted here before: we're the in-same-body successors of the one behind this comment thread, and the “get the somatic link working properly” matter has surfaced in its own way in our era, having undergone interesting twists and turns. Just in case the context is useful.)

Comments

[abyssinia]

*waves* . Ice hockey player here - learned to skate and started playing when I was 29.

Not sure if you are wearing figure skates or hockey skates and if you are renting or have your own - but skates come in a huge variety. The skates available to rent at a rink are usually pretty low quality, especially for foot/ankle support. If you think you are going to continue this, you can often find used skates relatively cheap at a used sporting good store. Try on lots of different pairs - different brands fit differently (depending on wide/narrow feet, high/low arches, more/less narrow heel, etc.) and they do come in half sizes when you buy them. When I decided I was serious enough to buy nicer hockey skates I got properly fitted (they will bake the skates in an oven to mold to you feet) and I tried all the main brands one and one was obviously infinitely better for my particular feet.

For me - I was a student on a university campus that had an ice rink and I would go to open ice times between classes - it was great because it was mostly empty so I could play around and get the feel for things. After I got reasonably comfortable skating around the rink, I took an adult hockey class that taught me more details/mechanics.

I don't know where you live - here rinks aren't always great about advertising classes they have for adults - sometimes you have to ask.

My biggest suggestion is knee pads! When I was learning to skate I fell really hard and bruised the bone on my kneecap - hurt so bad I almost puked on the ice. Ever since then I always wear rollerblade kneepads if I'm not wearing my full gear. You may or may not also consider a helmet - more and more people wear them all the time since falling back is a good way to slam your head and ice isn't forgiving.

Have fun! It works your hip flexors a lot (and, yes, core and butt and thighs) but it's fun and nicely low stress on the joints because minimal impact)