Maybe We Should Break Up

Lately, skating has become like that boyfriend whom you love, but doesn't love you back. You give and give and give and you get nothing in return. Sometimes I think we should break up. Summer is nearly over and what do I have to show for it? The steady progress I was making in skating has taken a hiatus after a nasty fall on my knees. How nasty? After years of skating, I have purchased knee pads. I found them on a dance website and thought I'd give it a try. They seem thin, yet padded enough to dance knee slides and knee turns. Great, non-evasive. The second rink at Chelsea Piers has finally finished the renovations. After enduring weeks of sessions with over 30 skaters and 18 coaches, a second rink will come in handy. There's something a little crazy about 30 skaters of different levels on the same ice at 7:00am. This one is doing double axels while this one is doing bunny hops. Soon it will be over. However, with or without extra people on the ice, my skating has collapsed. I am stopping myself when jumping, I can't seem to step into a spin and the mandatory mohawk in the Swing Dance is never on time with the music. Recently, I took a week off from skating with the hope that I would return with a clearer head. No such luck. My skating is just as bad today as it was when I took the time off. Maybe we should break up. Usually, I have a game plan prior to arriving at the rink. My outlook is relatively positive and I have a list of things I plan to work on. With 30 skaters on the ice, those plans usually go up in smoke. So much so that I have never successfully skated the Rhythm Blues. Nope, not once. I'm sure a lot of my issues are dependent on my weight. Everything seems to be about my weight so much so that I'm sick of talking about it. I even watched a video about teaching a camel spin to a kid who had no core strength to try to incorporate those tips into my own camel spin. It didn't quite work. Maybe we should break up.