Today I took on the sport of ice skating with a little hockey added in. I knew going into this that it would most likely be my worst sport of the summer since I know many of my elementary students that I teach can skate circles around me. I grew up here in Charlotte, so I'll blame the fact that ice skating and hockey were not very popular back in the day but thanks to places like the Extreme Ice Center in Indian Trail, it is becoming much more popular. I was first instructed by Brenda Saturday morning in the basics of ice skating and I do mean "basics". This was the first time since I was in kindergarten that I had to have my shoes tied for me. How embarrassing but now I know how to secure my skates. We started out on the ice doing some marches and walking with the skates and the quickly leading into two feet forward gliding and backward "wiggles". Halloween came early this year because I looked like Frankenstein walking around the ice. I think I saw a few kids running away from me. Anyway, Brenda was very patient with me as I tried my hardest NOT to fall. That was my problem. I went slow enough that I didn't allow myself to fall which is really what I need to do a few times to get over the fear. After my basic lesson, I met up with Dennis, Extreme's Hockey Instructor, who took a lot of time to work with me on the basics of Ice Hockey. This is definitely a NEW thing for me. Not only did I have to take what I learned from skating but I had to add in manipulating a hockey stick and controlling hockey pucks all at the same time. VERY DIFFERENT from the floor hockey I play with the kids at school. I can REALLY play that game! Dennis worked with me in dribbling, passing, and shooting the pucks. I stayed up on my skates the whole time but I tended to lean on my stick a little too much which is not the way to do it. The best part of the day was combining everything I do in the video above by skating up while dribbling the puck and shooting at the goal. In my mind, I was going pretty quick, but after watching this video........WOW I'm slow. And as my wife pointed out to me, great job but where were the defenders! THANK YOU EXTREME ICE for allowing me to get a little more comfortable on the ice and to do something really cool by shooting pucks!
No comments:
Post a Comment