Today, breaking from my regularly scheduled life, I went for a skating lesson downtown.
My morning was spent navigating the Village first to acquaint myself with the obscure location of Mercer Playground, which has no fixed address, but is instead wedged between other addresses and cannot easily be located on Hopstop...
Then, I got lost traipsing around in hopes of finding the NYU gallery that was housing Marlena McCarty's work (you can find a description of the show here), which I really enjoyed outside of the requirement by my drawing teacher to go see it.
And then back to the Playground, where I first made contact with some very cool aspiring derby women and waited around in the November cold for Lezly, a.k.a Skate Guru.
I needn't tell you how frightened I am with outdoor roller skating.
I love the idea of skating about, being agile and going at high speeds, but for now, I am just a clumsy unbalanced girl that can't bend her knees to save her life. Today was the start of my education.
I wanted to pursue outdoor classes so that I can practice anywhere - for any skaters in NYC, you already know there is a dearth of indoor roller rinks around here, as most of them have closed down. So, I suited up and started flailing about in the hopes that I could figure out this bizarre talent of rolling around on four wheels.
Lezly appeared at around 12:35pm and immediately ordered us out of our skates. Much like in yoga, we practiced changing our weight distribution, which seems easy enough on the ground. But in skates, it's a whole different matter. I clung to the fence until I finally figured out the basics, then kept layering on more and more advice. I got better in very tiny increments.
Throughout the class, I felt a tinge of embarrassment - as anyone does when they are new at something. Why wasn't I a natural skater by birth? This is something no one will ever answer to me. I fell once, hard, on my hip. But, by the end of the lesson, I felt much more in control than I ever had on skates.
As you might say, I'm working on it.
8,403 words.
Read more Nerd Girl Inc. posts and check out the related series, Caught My Eye.
