2nd Ice Hockey Class

My 2nd ice hockey class was last night. The good things were that I didn't fall, and I didn't get injured. Also, I did pretty well with the partner drills of passing the hockey puck back and forth. And, I did pretty well with the drills of skating, weaving in and out of cones that were set up.

The bad part was that I sucked at essentially everything else. This week, we moved onto more difficult things. The holes in my skating ability were very apparent. I did not feel like I belonged in the class at all about 75% of the time. We started with stopping drill (which I still can't stop well to save my life). Then, we did drills with skating backwards and stopping (which I can do this one, but I'm soooo much slower than everyone else). Then, he had us do this drill where we're skating in a straight line going forward. We had to sort of hop around and continue skating in the same line, but now we were going backwards. I was in no way advanced enough to do that at all. I sort of turned, but I didn't continue any kind of backwards momentum. In fact, I kept going forwards, which took me in a circle. Sigh.

My husband was going to come last night to video me and take some pictures. Now, I'm so glad he didn't. It would have been extremely embarrassing. I do still want him to come take pictures, although I'm not sure that I want him to witness my being by far the worst in the class. But, we'll see.

Each class, though, it seems like we're going to be progressing into more difficult skating. So, I think I'm going to be getting more and more behind. At least one of the guys who recruited me to be in the class is happy to partner with me for the passing drills (which luckily I don't suck too bad at). So, I don't feel like a total loser. I haven't been skating anywhere near as long as the other people in the class, so I shouldn't feel too bad. I'm probably doing pretty well considering my skating experience. Next week we're going to practice cross-overs, which I'm still learning. Plus, everything is harder to skate while all geared up and holding the hockey stick. Hopefully, though, that won't be a complete disaster.

It's very hard to be the absolute worst person in a class at something - especially since I was probably the best skater in the Basic 1 class. In the Alpha class (which is combined with the more advanced levels), if the lady from my last Basic 1 class is absent (which she was last week), I'm definitely the worst one in the class there, too. If she's there, then we're about on the same level, which is good. I might be slightly better. But, at least I'm not way behind everyone else. I suppose typically I excel at activities that I try. This is a new experience for me - being the worst in a class at something (especially in the ice hockey, where there's such a huge gap between me and the 2nd worst person - who I have no idea who that would even be. No one else stood out to me as being really bad). I suppose this is character-building, though. I'm definitely going to finish out the classes. I'm not going to quit.

Oh, and they were talking about renting out the rink in 2 weeks after our Ice Hockey class. They asked me if I would play. I said, sure, it sounds like fun - but only as long as you guys don't think that I would mess up the game or anything since I'm so far behind everyone else. They assured me that it should be fine, that we would mainly just be messing around. So, I'm a bit wary of that. Hopefully I can improve upon my stopping in 2 weeks so that I'm a bit better before then. Ice skating seemed so easy in the Basic 1 class. The skills are getting so much harder now.