I turned on my phone this morning finally at 11:00AM to discover a text from my coach (sent at 8:15AM, sry) that our usual freestyle sessions were cancelled. She asked if we wanted to reschedule or skate our lessons on the public. Knowing how much space this old woman needs to land her jumps (hahaha) I told her that we would reschedule. I forgot, however, that Muffet is skating at ISI Winter Classic this weekend and had a lesson scheduled with her partner at 4PM. Bummer! We packed up and headed to the rink.
I have grown to strongly despise public sessions. Usually at our rink they are not too bad if it is not a holiday for kids, aside from the stupid hockey coaches who try to run speed drills with teenage boys in full pads down the center of the smallest ice surface on earth. But alas, today was a holiday and the session was packed with toddling adults and kids hugging the walls for dear life. Mix in the two high level coaches who were attempting to conduct their regular lessons out there and it was chaos. The ice had not been cut for at least three hours. The terrible top 40s music was blaring out of the speakers. It was HORRIBLE!
The good news is that Muffet and her partner looked fantastic and my toe didn't hurt today. I was able to get some jumps in and felt solid. Nobody got hurt - as soon as Muffet was done with her lesson she said, "Let's get outta here!" Which is VERY rare indeed. I usually have to drag her off the ice.
As I was driving home, I realized just how spoiled we are. Our freestyles occur just about every hour of the day on a beautiful Olympic sized surface. Rarely are there more than 10 people on any given session and most are very kind and courteous of one another. On occasion there will be a stranger there who tries to run us over, but usually we have a clean sheet of ice to work our magic. I have heard stories of skaters in Japan who have no choice but to train on public ice as there is no such thing there as "freestyles." I remember hearing of how Oksana Baiul trained in an old warehouse with the floor covered in water then frozen as her surface. I have skating friends who travel hours just to get to the nearest rink.
So as horrible as it was, we were able to do our favorite thing in the whole world just minutes from our home. Sure we had to share the ice with about 50 other people, but who knows, maybe we inspired one of them to start up in our sport. Next time I skate a public, I will remember just how fortunate we are.
