In this week's episode we find our fair protagonist involved in a high speed drill that involves skating as fast as one can till the whistle blows, then sending participants into a one knee slide that ideally spins them 180 degrees to facing the opposite direction, next dropping to the ground and performing assorted exercises including holding a plank position, push-ups, sit-ups, or leg lifts. When the whistle blows you are to hop up onto your feet without using your hands in any way in less than 3 seconds and then off skating in the opposite direction at maximum speed. This is repeated for the duration of 5 minutes.
I am Kate Kobak, bumbling, confused and often mild-mannered mom by day, and ultimate super hero on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Perhaps my mind is just that demolished from my momming duties, but this is the most fun I have had in years. I have missed the calm and open space that my brain arrives at when tasked with challenging, aerobic pure movement for movement's sake. I could do this for half an hour if they'd let me, collapsing in a heap with my water on the side of the rink, eyes twinkling , giggling like a mad woman and relishing the mental clarity I have arrived at.
But alas, we end the drill after the allotted 5 minutes, and move on to working the track. I have decided that the smile that enters my heart when I skate fast and efficiently is matched only by the smile that crosses the boy's lips and spreads throughout his entire face up to his ears and scalp when he hears a song he knows on the radio in the car. It's like he is always so surprised when that happens, as if the music he knows only exists at home. It is amazing and delicious. I want to eat his whole head, or at least kiss him till he begs me to stop. He experiences it in his whole person, and often asks me "what is Aldo doing?" when he is immersed in it.
But I digress....Today we are working on skating the track, going out to the edges on the sides and then crossing in tight in the corners, staying in a low derby stance and crossing over the whole time. Allowing your head and shoulders to point into the direction you want to shift, leading the whole thing. Again, I am begging for this never to stop. Then we move on to falls and slides.
The trick here friends is an excellent, chunky round toe stop. You must have no fear or tightening and also cannot throw yourself down into the floor, but instead approach it with some opposition. Although you are physically moving down in space to reach the floor, you are in no way sending all of your direction and energy down. It's like a one legged squat, with your back knee on the floor and toe stop or side of your back skate dragging a bit, but your torso and head are still aiming up in space, taking a lot of weight and force off your knees and legs. All about the torso leg opposition. You are also not allowed to use your hands in any way to get up. That is the power of the toe stop. Slam that puppy into the ground to steady yourself, send your head up into space and waa laaa! You are up and running on both toe stops and then gliding again. Two knee slides are basically the same, except you get to lean waaaay back to counterbalance and pretend you are David Lee Roth. If you are a huge dork like me you can also envision yourself giving the appropriate double handed gesture that those rock and roll gods always do, with the two middle fingers folded down toward your wrist and thumb, pinky and pointer finger sky high. You know the one. Yep, I do that and waggle my tongue around wildly like Gene Simmons, but as Robin Williams said in the Birdcage, "You do an eclectic celebration of a dance!! You do Fosse Fosse Fosse!! You do Martha Graham, Martha Graham. Or Twyla Twyla!!! or Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Madonna, Madonna....but you keep it all inside."
But as we all know, each superhero/closeted rock and roll goddess must have their kryptonite. And mine, dear readers is the obstacle course. I was an abomination. And not in the sense of the human mutate Emil Blonsky with superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, regenerative and healing factors who battled the Hulk, to some ranked as the "Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time." No, sadly I was the other kind.
You begin the course sitting. When the whistle blows, you get up, skate off, duck under a broom handle two people are holding, then jump over another broom supported a measly 3 inches off the ground, then pick up speed and slalom in and out of several cones, and finish with a plow stop. (Which is opening your legs wide, then pointing your toes together and bringing them towards your center, using huge amounts of inner thigh power.) Because of my spill last week I am still nursing a very sore tailbone and I began the whole thing with a big fear of falling as I jump. With the whistle I got up fine, squatted under the first broom no sweat and then allowed TERROR to set in....knocked the second broom off, dragged it a while and then literally froze in the slalom cones and ended up dragging most of them with me, all in a line under and around my skates. The plow stop (which I can do effectively at any other point in time) turned out as a ridiculous fall on all fours, accompanied by yours truly getting up and performing the campiest, most over the top bow I could take, laughing till I had tears at the ridiculous mess I had created on the course. Fear is an amazing power. Such a limit it puts on all the possibilities available to you. To make my time, I totally could have just swerved to the outside of that broom. But instead I froze, and shut off my ability to reason.
Well, folks, I've squandered another naptime with babbling on my blog. The kiddos are rising, and the call of coffee is powerful. With my sliding seminar still fresh in my head and body I feel it's appropriate to leave you with a favorite quote from Hunter S. Thompson that my father-in-law uses.....
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a ride!!!"
Stay tuned, folks, for the next episode in my mad cap adventure.....
I am Kate Kobak, bumbling, confused and often mild-mannered mom by day, and ultimate super hero on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Perhaps my mind is just that demolished from my momming duties, but this is the most fun I have had in years. I have missed the calm and open space that my brain arrives at when tasked with challenging, aerobic pure movement for movement's sake. I could do this for half an hour if they'd let me, collapsing in a heap with my water on the side of the rink, eyes twinkling , giggling like a mad woman and relishing the mental clarity I have arrived at.
But alas, we end the drill after the allotted 5 minutes, and move on to working the track. I have decided that the smile that enters my heart when I skate fast and efficiently is matched only by the smile that crosses the boy's lips and spreads throughout his entire face up to his ears and scalp when he hears a song he knows on the radio in the car. It's like he is always so surprised when that happens, as if the music he knows only exists at home. It is amazing and delicious. I want to eat his whole head, or at least kiss him till he begs me to stop. He experiences it in his whole person, and often asks me "what is Aldo doing?" when he is immersed in it.
But I digress....Today we are working on skating the track, going out to the edges on the sides and then crossing in tight in the corners, staying in a low derby stance and crossing over the whole time. Allowing your head and shoulders to point into the direction you want to shift, leading the whole thing. Again, I am begging for this never to stop. Then we move on to falls and slides.
The trick here friends is an excellent, chunky round toe stop. You must have no fear or tightening and also cannot throw yourself down into the floor, but instead approach it with some opposition. Although you are physically moving down in space to reach the floor, you are in no way sending all of your direction and energy down. It's like a one legged squat, with your back knee on the floor and toe stop or side of your back skate dragging a bit, but your torso and head are still aiming up in space, taking a lot of weight and force off your knees and legs. All about the torso leg opposition. You are also not allowed to use your hands in any way to get up. That is the power of the toe stop. Slam that puppy into the ground to steady yourself, send your head up into space and waa laaa! You are up and running on both toe stops and then gliding again. Two knee slides are basically the same, except you get to lean waaaay back to counterbalance and pretend you are David Lee Roth. If you are a huge dork like me you can also envision yourself giving the appropriate double handed gesture that those rock and roll gods always do, with the two middle fingers folded down toward your wrist and thumb, pinky and pointer finger sky high. You know the one. Yep, I do that and waggle my tongue around wildly like Gene Simmons, but as Robin Williams said in the Birdcage, "You do an eclectic celebration of a dance!! You do Fosse Fosse Fosse!! You do Martha Graham, Martha Graham. Or Twyla Twyla!!! or Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Madonna, Madonna....but you keep it all inside."
But as we all know, each superhero/closeted rock and roll goddess must have their kryptonite. And mine, dear readers is the obstacle course. I was an abomination. And not in the sense of the human mutate Emil Blonsky with superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, regenerative and healing factors who battled the Hulk, to some ranked as the "Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time." No, sadly I was the other kind.
You begin the course sitting. When the whistle blows, you get up, skate off, duck under a broom handle two people are holding, then jump over another broom supported a measly 3 inches off the ground, then pick up speed and slalom in and out of several cones, and finish with a plow stop. (Which is opening your legs wide, then pointing your toes together and bringing them towards your center, using huge amounts of inner thigh power.) Because of my spill last week I am still nursing a very sore tailbone and I began the whole thing with a big fear of falling as I jump. With the whistle I got up fine, squatted under the first broom no sweat and then allowed TERROR to set in....knocked the second broom off, dragged it a while and then literally froze in the slalom cones and ended up dragging most of them with me, all in a line under and around my skates. The plow stop (which I can do effectively at any other point in time) turned out as a ridiculous fall on all fours, accompanied by yours truly getting up and performing the campiest, most over the top bow I could take, laughing till I had tears at the ridiculous mess I had created on the course. Fear is an amazing power. Such a limit it puts on all the possibilities available to you. To make my time, I totally could have just swerved to the outside of that broom. But instead I froze, and shut off my ability to reason.
Well, folks, I've squandered another naptime with babbling on my blog. The kiddos are rising, and the call of coffee is powerful. With my sliding seminar still fresh in my head and body I feel it's appropriate to leave you with a favorite quote from Hunter S. Thompson that my father-in-law uses.....
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a ride!!!"
Stay tuned, folks, for the next episode in my mad cap adventure.....
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