Falling and Getting Back Up and Falling and...

Our family recently went ice skating.  It was the kids' third time ever, my second, and Derek's hundredth.  Or something.  The point is, he's been a lot, the children and I have not.

As such, Derek is very steady on his skates.  Adelaide and I actually skate quite well, for novices, whereas Caedmon takes a while to master his fear and let go of the wall.

Atticus, meanwhile, continually hurls himself across the rink at high speeds, inevitably falling in a flailing and sprawling of limbs. He is never seriously hurt, usually smiling as he gets back up.

Taking a break between skating/falling/skating/falling.

I, on the other hand, fell twice in the two hours we were there, and now have a bump at the base of one of my fingers, where digit meets palm, which hurts when pressed on, and which one of my friends has given a layman's diagnosis of a bone chip caused by these falls.  This is apparently the difference that 25 years makes in falling.

Just a few years ago I was pretty good at falling; I had frequent practice, tripping every few months while walking or running throughout my life, and had learned a way to not fall quite so hard.  With increased yoga practice, though, my balance has improved dramatically, to the extent that I can no longer recall the last time I fell.  Barring the time I strapped blades to my feet and went coasting along on a sheet of ice, of course.

I've been reading a lot about falling lately, in large part due to this book that we got at the library several months ago.

I don't think I'm within the intended audience age bracket for this book, but I can't help it:  I still found it helpful, and it's caused me to re-evaluate the way I do a number of things in my life.  I think my favorite part is that the author recruited a group of women, who call themselves "goldeners" and who are all over 70, all of whom went through Bowman's program and benefited greatly from it.  There are sections throughout the book written by these women, where they talk about what led them specifically to the program, or about things they found they could no longer do, and how the exercises or shifts in movement helped them, along with any number of other things that I can't think of without the book in front of me.  In short:  it is so good.

In the book Bowman states that fear of falling is just as crippling as actual falling and outlines a series of exercises addressing this, which I apparently need to incorporate into my daily routine.   Also, I want to take one of the classes featured in this New York Times article.  Do you think they'd let me in?  And who wants to pay for my flight to the Netherlands so I can fall with the elderly?  That's not a euphemism.  

For now I'll just treat every run as an opportunity to potentially practice my falling; we've been covered in snow and ice for a while now, with only a couple days above freezing to allow any melting.  I've tried running on the treadmill at our local gym, but anything more than ten minutes on those things makes me want to go full Office Space- Printer on them.

Yes, that is an imperfect analogy, as the treadmills don't enrage me by malfunctioning; I just can't abide spending copious amounts of time on them without being overcome with feelings of worthlessness and resultant, irrational anger, usually going something like this: "I'm not going anywhere.  I'm not getting any of the benefits of being outdoors.  This entire enterprise is utterly meaningless.  Life is meaningless." 

So, I run outside, even though yes, it is very cold out.

At that point I find I have exorcised what may be some underlying anger issues for yet another day.   Life once again has meaning!  Huzzah!  

Ice Skating! Worthy of Exclamation Points!

Last Saturday, the Crislers went ice skating as part of an extended-family birthday celebration.

Derek had been ice skating before, but the other four of us- including me- had never been.

The kids were excited to try it, if a little nervous.  I was just plain excited, having long ago made my peace with making a fool of myself while doing any activity involving my person.  For years, our kids watched those VeggieTales cartoons, and you may remember how the vegetable hosts always ended each episode with the benediction, "God made you special," "And he loves you very much."  Well, one of the ways that God made me special was to gift me with extraordinarily poor hand-eye coordination and a propensity to fall/run into solid objects/accidentally hurt myself on a disturbingly frequent basis.  Strapping blades to my feet and letting me loose on some slick ice in a crowd of innocent bystanders?  I've really outdone myself this time, says God, as he pops some popcorn and settles in for a good show.

That is why Saturday was such a pleasant surprise:  I can ice skate!  Like, actually ice skate!

Listen, there are very few physical activities I've ever tried in my life that I caught on to quickly, so having a natural knack for something like ice skating made it so that I spent most of my time gliding (with, yes, frequent wobbles, IT WAS MY FIRST TIME, OKAY?) around with a gobsmacked smile and baffled laugh accompanying me.  This must be how Derek feels all the time, and let me tell you, it is glorious!


Adelaide likewise took to it with relative ease, and like me, was just as pleasantly surprised and cheered as I was to find something she could do with such quick confidence.  "I am good at this!" she crowed after an hour.  "I know!" I replied, and we understood each other perfectly, as this is not normal for the two of us.  Not normal at all.

Atticus was... well, he was interesting to watch, at least at first.  He's a pretty athletic kid, and so far has taken to most of the sports he's tried rather well.  So it was just bizarre to watch him struggle so much when he first got on the ice.  That boy's feet acted like they had a blood vendetta against him at first, like they were bound and determined to slip this way and that way and often two opposite directions at the same time.
You know how, in the Harry Potter books, there is a curse that is cast by yelling, "Tarantallegra!" that causes your opponent's legs to dance under them in a quick and uncontrollable fashion?  You remember that?  Watching Atticus during the first half hour of ice skating was almost exactly the way I envisioned that curse playing out.  He fell over and over and over, then he'd take a break, then drag himself back on the ice, then fall again, over and over and over, but at some point, even though he kept falling, he forced himself away from the bar running along the wall of the rink, and by what I'm guessing was sheer stubbornness forced his feet under control, and began skating.  He was still falling quite a bit, but he was also skating, and getting faster and bolder and stronger on his skates, and I'm not gonna lie:  It was beautiful to watch.  He's the Crisler that started our outing rather dejected, but ended begging to go back.

Caedmon's skating abilities fell somewhere between Adelaide and Atticus's:  He wasn't as quick a study as his sister, but it wasn't as difficult for him as it was for his brother.  He used the little ice-skating-aid-walker-looking thing every so often (or sagged against it as the adults took turns pushing him around the ice, which, by the way, is exhausting), but also pulled himself around via the bar and mustered enough courage the brave the ice away from the bar.  He won Saturday's award for Refused the Most Help which, despite being a medal that only exists in my mind, still equated to many, many cries of "Don't hold my hand!" "I don't need any help!" and "I can do it MYSELF!"  That was before being reminded that guess what, bucko, manners still matter on the ice, and why, yes, you can still get in trouble while ice skating!  After that it was polite but repeated, "No, thank you"s.  He, too, can't wait to go back.

Derek skated around for a while with his usual disgusting natural ability for physical endeavors, but his ankles didn't hold up for long; whether that's actually his legs' fault or not, it's hard to say.  He had warned me before we went that the worst part about skating at a public rink were the rental skates.  I obviously have nothing to compare them to, but I will say I still have sore spots where the top of the skates met my shins- if I had to guess, and based on the skates I saw people wearing that were owned by them, my skates weren't tight enough, and I had them laced as tight as they could go.  Even whilst skating, I had a fair guess as to what the problem was, as it reminded me somewhat painfully of the perils of not properly tying and tightening the ribbons on my pointe shoes.  Ankle support matters, friends!

Look at us!  We're a family of ice skaters!  Not in a triple-Salchow-kind of way, but in an able-to-propel-ourselves-about-on-ice way, which I will TAKE.

Big thanks to Derek's sister and her family for the idea and invite, to his mom for helping drag the kids up and encourage them time after time, and his dad for providing two solid hours of rink-side assistance.  We can't wait to go back!