All I wanna do…is skate

I didn’t have skating this morning and to compensate for it’s absence, I will be dragging my roommates/willing friends/anyone to Rosa Parks Circle this weekend! What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than skates and hot chocolate?

Week 3…

I’m not a morning person, and typically coffee counteracts that. But as it turns out ice skating is a great way to begin the day. The  sting of the cold air in the rink practically forces you stay awake, get moving, and pump some blood around. After interim, mornings just won’t be the same without a little ice skating. I mean what other time than a good old Calvin interim are 18-22 year-olds permitted to dedicate a few weeks to learn something like ice skating, quilting, even the C.I.A.? I think interim gets a bad reputation because of January in Michigan. But I contend that interim is a useful, enjoyable break from the semester workload. 

-Official ice princess

Watch Katie 5 days in

See how much progress Katie’s made after five days of ice skating class. Watch the video on Vimeo.

Week 2

Our sizable class of 50 students is split up into two groups: beginners and advanced. Since we started skating last Wednesday, I have worked with the beginner group. Yesterday, however, I thought I’d switch it up and skate with the pros. With reluctance I glided down the ice to the other side hoping that I wouldn’t make a complete fool of myself. In this group, I was skating alongside Calvin hockey players and girls who could do twirly, whirly things with their legs, which is intimidating to say the least. In the advanced group people skate better and faster. Though I may have had to glide off to the side and watch at times, I think that I learned more that day in the advanced group.

More adventures from Day One

Watch Katie as she makes her way on the ice on day one of ice skating class.

Katie’s Skating Adventures from Calvin College on Vimeo.

Day one…

Trying to walk on glorified razor blades, I stepped into the Patterson arena, along with fifty other of my fellow figure-skating classmates. The arena reeked of hockey-player feet, and the ice looked like glass; cold, intimidating, slick. Somehow I was supposed combine my glorified razor blades with the glass-like ice in such a way that I didn’t look like I had a mild case of vertigo. Much to my surprise, the hour-long lesson went by swiftly–time is of no importance while trying to maintain one’s balance–and I sustained no actual injury save some bruises that will likely form over the weekend. I was happy to recall some of the minimal skating skills that my mom taught me during my Western Michigan (cold) childhood. I think that these basic skills served me well in that my balance only failed a couple of times. Hopefully my wipeouts per hour rate will decrease in the coming weeks. Ah, just maybe falling means I was taking a risk, trying something new, with hope of getting better. Or, I simply have an inner ear problem.

-Katie (ice princess in the making)

Join Katie

Katie rocks the ice on her first day of class.

Soon interim at Calvin will begin and endless fun will be had by Calvin students studying on campus and off. Communications and marketing student writer Katie Landan is taking ice skating, a class offered by the HPERDS department. Follow her here as she writes about learning to glide, spin and jump on the ice.

Watch for pictures and video from her class. She’ll be updating soon!