Skate Rink, Party of One

After a week of not skating due to a business trip and other obligations, we woke up this morning to serious thunderstorms. I love a nice, rainy, dark day, but by afternoon I was feeling some cabin fever and a desire to skate. But how? I decided that the best option would be to head to semi-suburban Atlanta’s most common building, a parking garage.

A little streetviewing on Google Maps identified a garage just a few minutes from my house that looked ideal, so I drove right over. I found a quiet spot on the third level that was free of rain water and debris, and was unlikely to draw attention. So I strapped on my skates and…doh! I had forgotten my cones at home. So I grabbed the only cone-like item I could find in my car, a tiny camping coffee cup.

Despite the setback, skating in the parking garage turned out to be pretty decent. It was essentially my private skating rink, albeit a bit industrial and low-ceilinged. Without my cones on hand, I practiced backwards skating, spin stops, and sprinting uphill (aka up the ramp to the next level) and riding downhill (aka down the ramps). It was a bit boring but far, far better than a day without skating, and some good music made it enjoyable.

I really tried to focus on spin stops on my bad side: clockwise. Now that I have a handle on spinning counter-clockwise, I feel at risk for only wanting to ever go in that direction, so I’m trying to force myself to practice clockwise. It ain’t easy.

Being a language nerd, I love the word proprioception: awareness of your body and movement in space. I’m mainly fascinated because my proprioception is so terrible! (Fortunately, my wife has extremely good proprioception, which she’s passed on to the kids.) After attempting an endless number of clockwise spin stops, I started to realize that I wasn’t getting quite low enough on my leading left leg, and I also wasn’t orienting my torso in the right direction. So I was able to make some corrections which are improving my form – still a long way to go, but getting a touch better.

I’m also anxious to skate because we’re heading to Minneapolis for a few days next week, and I’m looking forward to skating the trails, bridges, and streets there. Later in the summer, we’ll be headed to NYC for the Big Apple Roll. It’s my first time skating in NYC – I know the city quite well, but have never skated there, so it’ll be quite exciting.

Skates: Seba High Light v2, 80mm Street Invader wheels
Theme song: Hypnotic, Yeah Yeah Yeahs