Over the holiday weekend I decided I would venture out and go ice skating. You know, the usual holiday fun for someone from the South, who has never before seen a real frozen body of water.  However, don’t let that fool you into thinking this was my first time on the ice. Mais no! I have skated several times before in my life. Maybe four times. But they were four good times. 

Last year, time number three, I went skating at Rockefeller Center. Very romantic. I learned there that I like to go very fast, but I don’t know how to stop. Thank god for the side walls. But back to Miley Cirus. 

So this trip, I decided now that I’ve all but mastered going fast without knowing how to stop, the next logical progression was to learn how to ice skate backwards. Has anyone ever done this?  Because let me tell you, it is quite possibly one of the more counterintuitive actions one can try. (I think I’m going to ask Carrie Underwood if she might have any tips for me where this is concerned). 

My teacher, Lord love him, continued to offer encouraging quips of instruction, all the while allowing me to claw his arms to shreds so that I didn’t constantly bust my ass. “Push from your toe.” “Don’t lean forward.” “Bend your knees.” “Lean back a bit on your skates.” “Don’t point both toes inward.” (No, my instinct to go all pigeon-toed didn’t work. Imagine that.) “Keep both skates on the ground.” (You’d think that would be natural. It is not.) He even tried, to no avail, to encourage the perfectionist Virgo not to get frustrated with herself. I quickly informed him that getting frustrated was “part of my process.” Doesn’t he know that in my heart the next reasonable step is to fling myself into a triple salchow/lutz combination (whatever that really is)  and then try out for the Winter Olympics? (Oh yeah, keep in mind here that I’m wearing hockey skates because the middleschoolers and highschoolers, the only other people at a skating rink on a Saturday night, had already rented all the figure skates.) Well, at least they were playing fun music. You know, in case I wanted to grab the hand of the freshman near me and go for a couple’s skate. 

After an hour and a half of mentally pummeling myself for not having already mastered this technique and moved on to my spins, something clicked. For some reason I tried moving to the music. Turning my hips side to side, to the beat. My teacher began screaming, “You’re doing it!!  You’re skating backwards!” And for one brief moment, I put my hands up. They were playing my song. I felt like I could fly away. Bobbing my head like yeah. Moving my hips like… Yeah, backwards skating, bitches!!!! Thanks Miley! See you at the Winter Games!

– Jennifer