Adults Are Special

In skating parlance, Adult Figure Skater (AFS) refers to someone who didn’t skate as a child and only took up the sport as a grown-up. However, there are also subtle shadings to the term. Adults, even those who are quite skilled and even talented, tend to skate more clunky, less gracefully, and more slowly than kids.  It takes us three times as long to learn new skills. We have reputations as scaredy cats who won’t push themselves past certain limitations because we’re too afraid to fall. We often look weird or strange and move in erratic ways. To say you “look like an adult skater” is a bit of an insult.

I skated as a kid and off and on for fun as an adult. But I really only pursued figure skating when I reached my 40s.  I had a few advantages in that I could skate backwards, knew some basic edges, and could stop. Otherwise I was hopeless at first. I took lessons for a couple of years. Quit for about a year and half. I came back and started working with a new and amazing coach (I will call her Coachie because that nickname would make her vomit). I’ve been taking private lessons with her for two years and have progressed remarkably.

But I still suck. Royally.

As of this date, here is a brief list of some things I can do consistently and reasonably well: upright spins, waltz jumps, salchows,  toe-loops (real ones, none of those toe-waltz things), Adult Bronze MITF, forward and backward spirals, forward crossrolls, and forward and backward power pulls on my left foot.

Some things that I can do occasionally, but am still working on: loop jump, flip jump, sit spin, backward cross rolls, right-sided power pulls, and a real live scratch spin (like, fast to blur spin).

I work very hard, skating about six hours a week, with two half hour lessons a week. My slow learning curve is relative; I’m learning much faster than most adults, but compared to the kids I’m stuck in the Pre-Cambrian Age.

In the figure skating world, most adults are perpetual beginners because the overwhelming  majority of us never learn an axel jump, the milestone that marks the difference between newbies and advanced levels. (My husband learned an axel as an adult.  That is an incredible accomplishment. I’m proud of him but I still want to strangle him when he lords it over me.)

I’m gonna write lots of entries about adults. That’s just how special and complicated we are. 

Here I am!

I had a frustrating skate today, followed by a weight-loss dinner of fish and vegetables.  Because I’m feeling sorry for myself, I decided to self-medicate with two chunks of chocolate cake (how’d did that get in the house??), and some red wine.  Since I’ve already suppressed my CNS, I decided to go whole hog and initiate my own adult figure skater blog.

This blog is inspired by Stephanie Spins and Gordon Sk8ter Boi. The latter is pretty technical and kind-spirited; the former goes less into figure skating technique in favor of bitchy witty bon mots about the joys and craziness of rink culture. I don’t think I can stand to bore myself with deep analyses of all my skating mistakes. I’d much rather whine and moan about my perpetual self-inflicted skating misery, perhaps punctuated here and there with some successes. Plus, I want an outlet to vent .

I don’t expect anyone to actually read this thing, but if you know me, don’t be so vain, this song is probably not about you. I’m deliberately mixing up names, dates, and the identifying characteristics of my fellow skaters with some tales I’ve heard, or encounters far away from of Skating Land, and etc. However, everything I’ll discuss is true.

My intended audience (I know, I just contradicted myself, but hey) is other adult figure skaters. We come from all walks of life, but for some bizarre reason, analogous to taking up crack addiction just for “fun,”, we’ve decided to spend all of our hard-earned cash and free time on learning to do spins, jumps, and MITF. And while we do pretty well for our, ahem, age group, most regular people who watch champion figure skaters on TV would say we suck.

I’ve read plenty of adult figure skating blogs and most have died.  You’ll be reading months of stories about working on mohawks and turns and then an entry will appear: “That’s it, I’ve had it, I quit.”

I’ve reached the stage in my skating where I’ve come too far to quit, even though my progress is glacially slow. I’m stuck.  Ergo, I blog.