New adult beginners!

Yay, I met two new adult beginning skaters today at my rink. I did my best to be friendly and encouraging, it's always great to see other adults giving skating a try. Seeing them also made me appreciate that I have made a bit of progress. (I remember feeling the way that they looked like they were feeling after their second lesson!)

There were some folks at the rink practicing for competitions, one was a woman around my age. You GO girl! (Actually there was a car with this on the license plate parked outside, I don't know if it belonged to her or not but )

Thanks for posting, Linda. My honey and I are going to give it a try soon too - after extensive back exercises and lots of warming up -- and we are in your ballpark, agewise, so the encouragement is nice.

We are not planning to try anything fancy - just want a taste of that speed and power!

That's GREAT Linda!

At one club where I skated this year, there were 4 of us in the "over 50 club" - at the other club, I have 5 years on the oldest coach!

(56 here and only 2 months back after 36 years away - a re-beginner who's jus got her forward edges and cross-overs back - now on to the backward edges and XOs!)

Rusty Blades said:

a re-beginner who's jus got her forward edges and cross-overs back - now on to the backward edges and XOs!)

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I have to hand it to the instructors I've had thus far .... I've gone from thinking I would NEVER be able to ever skate backward, to now contemplating actually accomplishing some forward crossovers. Today's practice was a good one for me and I'm really looking forward to getting on the ice more often.

You definitely don't have to go out intending to land any triples! I really am enjoying competing against my own capabilities and seeing progress. Warming up and stretching before and after practices is a very good idea. I would also join the many who recommend crash pads of some sort because they will help you risk a little bit more as an adult, Spun Silver! Keep us posted here when you get on the ice, please!

Crash pads, good idea. Thanks! It will be a little while before we can do it, but if it's not too humiliating I will post! Can hardly wait.

You should see our rink during the adult beginners' classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings - it's heaving! They are having to cone off half the ice surface just to accommodate the classes - time was, they barely needed to cone off below the blue line!

I haven't seen what the adult weekend classes are like yet, but I gather all the lowest-level learn-to-skate classes are stretching the coaches - and the rink - to their limit. So many people are trying out the sport - I just hope some of them will persevere.