Ice Skating?

Well, I tried something new today.

My high school took all its students to the local ice rink for some skating. I had tried to skate once before, on a similar school trip in 5th grade, and failed miserably. Fortunately, it's been a few years, so I seemed to be a little more in control of my balance.

I managed to stagger over and onto the ice without falling down. Like most of the other people who had never skated before, I used the wall as a crutch and continued to remain upright, though some stumbling did occur. In an uncharacteristically brave moment, I let go of the wall and moved out toward the center of the rink. Of course, within moments, my feet went opposite directions and I fell.

I actually continued a cycle of moving around a little bit followed by falling for quite a while, bringing my total to eight in an hour. Near the end, I was actually able to move around with only some less-than-elegant rebalancing required. Like in most things, I did my best to figure out for myself how skating works, which resulted in a probably very strange version of procedures for such things, but it worked for me.

Like everyone says, trying new things is a good thing. I'll never be a hockey player, but this experience was enjoyable. My elbow still hurts, though.