Today I have been humbled and all that I thought I knew I actually don't know. And I had fun too.

Today I went for an inline skating lesson with the son of my mum's friend. My mum's friend sat by as us two students had our lesson with the instructor, (there were only 2 students in total) under the MRT track in Ang Mo Kio. Yes, did you know that there is a running track and pull up bars under the MRT track?

The instructor is an American who's uber fit and looks youthful though you can see the age on his face. He CYCLED to the location bringing all that equipment with him on a trailer rack attached to the back of his bike. He also has a lot of skating credentials.

First thing I had to learn was to fall, something which was quite unnatural for me, for we try to avoid falling down on a normal day. It took me a bit of courage and I'm getting the hang of it.

Then the instructor explained the 5 basics of skating (theory again...)
1) Balance - the basis of skating which the other 4 are dependent on
2) Push
3) Glide
4) Recovery (bringing the feet together)
5) Control

I have problem with the push and especially the recovery one, which we learnt today in the drills.

The push was like cutting vegetables, the force slices from the toe to the heel (very different from ice skating). With 2 feet doing it at the same time (like the squiggle you learn from ice skating), i'm fine, but when it comes to balancing on one foot and doing it with the other, it's a challenge. And I have to remind myself to bring my feet together at the end, which I find difficult for the boots to touch each other and make it more difficult to balance (physics on stability). I haven't really found my balance yet I guess.

And the instructor asks us to keep our bodies low and quiet, that means have ta bend down and don't be doing so many things with the body, be relaxed. I am used to standing up straighter when skating so there you go, another hurdle to overcome.

Then after that have to learn the recovery one, which means have ta let the wheel at the toe glide to behind the foot we're balancing on before returning it back to next to each other. very tricky balancing. He says it's the hardest drill to learn. When I followed behind the instructor and mimiced him, I performed better than when I had to do it on my own.

Then the last bit of the lesson was free skating, where we just go around the track slowly and quietly and get a feel of the technique being used.

The whole lesson lasted about 1.5 hours. I was tired and sweaty and red at the end, but I had fun. I learnt so many things I didn't know about skating. Being self-taught how to skate on the ice rink, the way I push off the way I skate, all wrong! (or nearly all) I haven't skated for a long time. It's been more than a year I think so I'm quite rusty. I couldn't even glide like I could last time.

So I have to practice 2 hours of skating before the next lesson next week. Before that, have to find my skates and gear and get a helmet. I borrowed from the instructor the equipment which he ferried there in his little trailer. Something to occupy me now then!