Entries this day: ice_skating_with_Emiko

ice skating with Emiko

10:56pm JST Tuesday 16 February 2010 (day 14573)

Emiko and I went skating at the seasonal outdoor rink in 六本木. Fortunately, there was a bit of precipitation, so not many people were on the rink. Even more fortunately, the temperature was right around freezing, so the precipitation was snow! She was a bit shakey at first, but got much better during the hour or so we were out there. Zipping around the small track, I fell twice. The first time I thought I was just ridiculously clumsy, but the second time I realized what happened: there's basically a brake on the front of the skate! I skate without brakes on my inline skates, so the front brake threw me off, and by off I mean onto the ground!

A group of about 10 English speakers appeared after a bit, and one of them was doing some strange jump thing, so I was like "yo yo whatchoo doing?" and he said he was trying a new jump that his friend the professional skater was teaching them. So I went to her and she taught me the trick of the front brake: it's not a brake, it's a toe pick, and it's not a way to stop, but a way to jump! I can basically skate fast and lean forward onto the left toe pick and jump as hard as possible, landing on my right skate. Cool!! It took me about 4 tries to become comfortable with full speed jumps. I was like "thank you!" to her and she was like "no worries!" and "pretty good jumps!" Nice.

Turns out she's not professional, though she'd like to be. I didn't trade name nor contact info with her, though part of me wants to have.

Emiko got tired before I did, then came back out and we skated some more. Then got tired again and that's when I learned how to jump. I got a bit tired, plus my kneecaps were a bit bruised from my two tumbles, the second of which was more ninja like, as I rolled right back up and kept skating.