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Naomi Grigg's skating years
Part 1
by Naomi Grigg, March 2007
Introduction
This article is all about Naomi's years of learning to skate, and how she
progressed through the skating world. It's pretty cool, partly for the
bits I can empathise with, and partly because it makes her a little more human!
Naomi writes:
I was 15 and bored out of my mind. It was the school holidays in a small
village in Wiltshire where I knew pretty much no-one, and I decided to go to the
ice rink in Swindon. I walked 2 miles to the bus stop, waited for the hourly
bus, and went for a skate – and again a week later, and ended up going 2 or 3
times a week. It became the most exciting parts of the week – I was so excited
before each visit – I’d be away from all of life’s stresses in the most perfect
environment. There seemed something almost magical about the sight and air of an
empty ice rink before a session, and the anticipation of the rare calm that
would envelop me when I stepped on.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I would get to do two sessions – the morning and
lunchtime sessions. The later sometimes only having 5 or so people on the ice.
They don’t do it anymore but it was awesome. The weekends were for the more
‘social’ (I didn’t actually speak to anyone) sessions where I watched other
skaters to get ideas of what to learn next.
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I’d learned to physically skate when I was about 7 on a trip out with my
family – I was trying to move forwards by walking/scissoring on the ice, and my
brother showed me to point my feet out so I could glide over the ice. But now I
had much higher sights! I wanted to do that thing where the really really good
skaters could skate towards the barriers and veer away from the m at the last
minute, with their scissoring feet just brushing the edge of the rink as they
lean away from the barriers. I must have fallen/slammed into the side/chickened
out hundreds of times in the quiet sessions that week before perfecting what I
now know is the ‘parallel turn’. I felt pretty damned good the next weekend
though. Yeah - I just did that… quick – did anyone see? I reckoned I was now in
the top half of the skaters on the rink at the weekend mornings.
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Soon enough I was turning from forwards to backwards without
stumbling or falling over at least 3 times in every 10. Occasionally I
would glide along (pretty slowly), throw myself around (both feet on the
ground) and continue backwards with exhilarating smoothness – and it was
those occasions that kept me hooked – addicted to the feeling of being
able to express myself more fully today than I could yesterday. Inching
towards greater freedom. Its still the feeling of freedom of expression
that keeps me hooked today, though the progress is more related to the
thrill of learning than increased ability to express myself – doing a
crossed legged toe spin over an object on the floor doesn’t exactly fill
me with wanton glee and a sense of abandon.
When it came close to my birthday my parents offered to help me buy a
pair of ice hockey skates of my own. I’d been on hire skates for months
and months, but eventually decided that this was a hobby that I was
going to be keeping up. The cheapest pair in the shop was £60, and
hiring skates cost 50p per session. If I spent £30 on one skate, and my
parents gave me the other skate for my birthday, I would make the money
back after 60 sessions. Those Tour XL 45’s lasted me 2 years before the
rust and rot of what must have been hundreds of sessions eventually got
the better of them and the boot started to come away from the chassis.
The one that broke, I took apart and examined out of curiosity, but the
other one is still in my old bedroom in Wiltshire – I keep meaning to
throw it out, but it’s just a bit hard to do. All my other broken
skates, including my first pair of inlines have been chucked out, and
I’ll chuck that one out at some point too, but it’s not taking up
valuable cubic cm’s in my London flat.
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Naomi's website:
http://www.skatefreestyle.com/
Summary of articles by/about Naomi on
this website
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