Inline skating and Me

I live in Seattle area, Northwest US. You know how it is here, not much cold but much rain could be harder and no outdoor work makes Prathi a dull boy. So we (me and my friends) thought of something to do on weekends. I heard about inline skating and how good a workout it is and a nice school nearby my place. We were planning long to attend the classes but keep skipping, at last one fine Saturday we made it.



The mere thought of learning a new way to move from one place to another was really exciting. And we were at the peak of excitement when we stood on the wheels without kissing the ground. Then came the shock from our instructor, he said, "Well everybody's up, let's learn to fall!". Certainly, I didn't come to the class to learn how to fall, I came to learn how NOT to fall while skating. But the instructor had a very good point, you may have to fall at some point or other, you can't be perfect all the time, so better learn how to fall safely rather than falling and hurting yourself. We struggled a lot to make ourselves to the ground, it's really difficult, if you don't believe me, try standing up and fall on to the floor. You're so conscious and you couldn't really fall knowing that you can hurt yourself if you are not careful. But the point in the exercise is that of falling with your body parts, which is geared up with guards, first.

Then we started learning the stride and it is fun the whole class. We (although not the same batch) returned to the next class nearly after 2 weeks. I was in the impression that I can comfortably move on to the next level, but to my dismay I ended up on the same level. Then the instructor came up with a nice info, "practice". I have a slight problem while skating, I tend to look down on my rollers to see how they're aligned. In the laws of physics that is a bad thing to do, because it pushes your COG (centre of gravity) outside your body and you'll lose balance. My instructor told me this exact sentence when I was looking down, "Don't look at the ground, it's going to call your name", how true.

I need to tell this happening on my second class. Two kids of age 5-6 yrs also joined the class with us. That was the first time they're wearing the rollers. After an hour, they were striding absolutely beautiful, we have no words seeing that. Kids, they don't have any fear and learn everything fast. I just gave a thought why as kids we learn things fast? Kids just grab everything that comes on their way, they never think twice or the consequences. On the contrary, we think about of all the things that can hinder the thing we are supposed to do, and I was afraid of falling and breaking the bones, hospital charges, whether my insurance would cover that, whether my work will be affected,...really a train of thoughts that just blocks the fun and learning advantage we had as kids. Just want to go back to be a kid!

later...