Skate 1 (2011/04/10)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHJ9dL3aX5A
This is my second time on the skates. It was fun!

First Attempt @ Skating in X Decades: HARD!

OMG! I never would have guessed how difficult it is to skate! I went for my first time today. It reminded me of when I was a kid skating on the ice rink. All those years of lessons and how much I hated them (and sucked at it) all came back to me.

Wow... this. is. difficult.

What. a. challenge!

I think I was right to order that book (that didn't arrive yet), but I wanted to try something new (as Darrell suggested) so I put the skates on anyway and went out for a bit.

A bazillion thoughts ran through my mind:

"How do you stop? How do you go? How do you turn? How do you turn the other way? How do you stay standing? How do you sit down? How do you do this? Will I die if I get run over by a car? What should I make for dinner tonight? Is that dried dog poop I'm heading straight toward? Help!!"

I made sure there were lots of "things" around me to grab on to because for the life of me, I have no idea how pushing that rubber stopper on the right heel into the ground is supposed to stop me.

I bet my ankles are going to be stiff tomorrow, because they sure were burning as I was trying to simply stay upright. I sure was wobbly. (That will be a fun memory).

Twenty minutes. That's the best I could do today. Good thing I bought lots of protection, too. I just wish they had a bum protector that works as well as the hands, elbows and knee protectors. Ouch!

Think of a staircase, for a moment. We FEEL that we are progressing when we move up the staircase. But while we are horizontal, it doesn't feel like we are getting anywhere. This is the PERCEIVED Learning Curve. This horizontal period is also when many students decide to quit whatever it is they are learning, because they feel they are not progressing. 

However, the actual learning curve is a little bit different. Think of those stairs again, and draw a line through the tops of each step. Can you see now there is a graph that is continually moving upward over time? This is the ACTUAL Learning Curve. Even though we don't perceive we are learning, actually we are. We just don't realize it.

Last weekend I made a teeny step forward and up: I bought my skates. Today I took another step forward: I used my skates. If I continue to use them, I know I will get better; I know I will learn. Even if it doesn't FEEL like I'm getting better, as long as I keep doing it, I am pretty confident that one day I may suddenly realize, "hey! I'm doing it!"

This IS going to be a challenge! I got a snicker out of a couple of 9 or 10 year old girls as I was holding onto a stop sign to keep myself from falling down... At least I was able to make somebody happy from my adventure. Can't complain about that.

I love you!
Cam