I used to go ice skating regularly at Macquarie Ice Rink for many years. I still recognise a few of the "older" ladies that are in the Monday Coffee Club today.
Quite a few years ago one of my Coffee Club classmates and friend passed away and soon after I stopped attending Coffee Club classes.
I never really went to any ice skating classes after that but continued to ice skate recreationally mainly overseas. I also organised groups of people I met whilst overseas to go ice skating with me.
This year I decided to go back to Macquarie Ice Skating Rink and start ice skating there again. My very first ice skating session soon after returning from my annual overseas trip to Canada was an endurance session - I managed to skate around the entire ice rink for the entire 2 hour session with only a brief break. My second ice skating session was my very first Monday Coffee Club class and I was so terrified to join the class. I gathered the courage to join in but it happened to be the most difficult class to commence in. Where was the stretching session off ice? and where was the warm up stroking? The class went straight into 3 turns and swizzles. None of the moves I had the confidence to perform. I kept telling the instructor that I couldn't do each move. The class became a little easier getting back to the basic moves like forward and backward crossovers however my toe pick caught the ice and I had a massive stack on the ice hitting my right knee quite hard. Not pleasant.
I missed the next 2 Monday Coffee Club sessions due to a trip down to Melbourne and the Easter public holiday long weekend.
I was determined to attend the next Monday Coffee Club session which I did. I was still not very confident but I kept telling myself to trust my blades. I needed to relax as I was told by the instructor that I was a bit stiff - wouldn't you be if your sole concentration was on trying to get the moves right?
I started listening to modern classical music and lyrical jazz music and also commiting myself to going to regular lyrical jazz classes to help.
I'm begining to enjoy my ice skating classes more and just started to do a basic spin. There are still a lot of moves I can't do and some are so ugly on ice I question why anyone would want to do them particularly when at least a third of the class can't do them and it makes you dizzy!
I started talking to 87 year old Bruce who told me he started figure skating at the age of 66. He is incredible for his age dispite his vision impairment. His off ice flexibilty is amazing and his on ice moves of jumps and spins are incredible. I remember watching him when I first started ice skating at Macquarie Ice Rink and thinking "WOW"! He is an inspiration to skaters. I asked him if he remember the time when there was a mini series being filmed where there was a fake hockey game being played and we Coffee Clubbers were asked to be extras in the crowd. He did indeed. I told him how we thought we were each suppose to get a Korean souvenir as a token of appreciation for our participation but it was suppose to be a lucky draw only. I still have my souvenir today.
My commitment to continue to attend Monday Coffee Club classes will be in memory of my classmate.
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