Thin Ice

Would you like to go ice skating?

What a lovely idea! 

Only, don't do it with me.

Because I've started going ice skating.

You need more explanation?

Well, as delighted as I am with my new boots, my phase may not last long, and it's easy to give people the impression that you're doing it for fun. 

I'm not.

I have an exit strategy locked in.

The "sell" point is when I've achieved a level just below average competence.

See! 

I shoot for the moon.

Because ice skating is an intolerable, unnatural, bonkers activity.

Anybody with a normal level of under-competence, such as I, will be counting the minutes until they can get off the ice to click their rediscovered heels in the air (should they still have the capacity after removing the skates).

The trouble is that I have no doubt that it's good for you physically, if not mentally.

And I confess to holding out a hope that a certain level of competence might make it enjoyable, perhaps enough to see myself in scene from a Fred Astaire movie, in which case I could add the 'mentally' onto the list.

But of course, I won't know until I've committed a little.

Fitness wise, it ties in well with balance and core, and those other sort of yoga/Pilates things, that I might have scoffed that a few years ago but seem to make a little more sense to me nowadays as an alternative to pumping iron. 

If iron was meant to be pumped,cornflakes would give you wind.

Learning wise, it's even more appealing, forcing your joint position sensitive to compute a new set of variables, educating yourself nerve ending by nerve ending.

True, your life still seems to rely a little too heavily on the quality of the work of the fellow who sweeps the ice. And I'm pretty sure his minimum wage is not the safety net my ankles require. And if I was any good at it I would probably give up, my mission complete, for those of you with an passing interest in paradox. (How else can a renaissance continue?)

But you have to try to take part. 

Otherwise you just sitting watching. 

You've got to be more Torvill & Dean than Pearl & Dean.

Or at least more Torvill. 

Than Orville.