Imagine you are in the gym doing your best. You’ve only been there for a month and you’re getting a hang of it. Occasionally you still have some trouble with the settings of the devices and you can only grab the smallest weights. Then some guy comes up to you. He is not sporty at all and you haven’t seen him before. Then he says to you: “I don’t think it’s going to work out with you at all.” In the gym this would be a strange setting, but the learning-to-skate-world is a whole other level…..
Is it me or you yealous?
No I can’t do any kind of stunts (yet). Yes, sometimes I get a little out of balance. You’re right I’m a little bit older then the average others picking up rollerblading. And I don’t dress up all pretty just to go outside. Make up tends to melt of my face with any kind of excercise and I don’t want to look like a sad clown 🤡. So with minding my own business, doing my own thing and trying my best, I notice that other people have to comment. And certainly not always in a positive manner.
A weird thing, because I’ve never experienced this before with any other sports. With all kind of other activities other people tend to give positive feedback.
BTW, the one’s who comment the most, are mostly older then me (even older…..OMGWTF), are walking of cycling and don’t seem to have done any rollerblading. So are they indeed jealous or do they suffer from FOMO?
Oh whatever, for me it’s just fun to write my blog here. And I like to share with you the strangest things they throw at my head. Behold!
“Are you doing OK honey?”
Of course, this honey is doing just fine. Just make way. Everytime I hear this comment I only can think of this song from The Ting Tings. Warning! Only click on the link if you can handle having a tune in your head all day long 🎤 “That’s not my name, that’s not my name” 🎤. On one hand, people calling me honey could be seen as something nice. But on the other hand, if I were to say to a random rollerblading guy “are you doing fine honey??”, I am very afraid of what kind of reaction I would get.
Well, this comment is a sort of positive one. Although older men (iew) are the ones saying it. From here one it only gets worse….
“I think she is afraid of falling”
And this is one people say when I’m just standing. I didn’t fall or trying to. Usually I’m just standing, resting, waiting for traffic or whatever. So what is this about?
Oh and BTW. Ofcourse I have some kind of fear of falling. Standing on inlineskates at this moment is not the most stable pose. And falling could hurt my beautifull face (hahaha), but even more my ego 😉 With my rollerblades on, I’m about 15 cm taller so it looks “high”. And I think when I fall (at this moment this didn’t happen yet, so I’m sure I’m jinxing it by writing this) I can really hurt myself. For this reason I wear all kinds of protection: kneepads, wristguards and helmet.
This maybe makes my even less cool, but it makes me more confident = less afraid of falling.
“Oops, there it almost went wrong”
That’s right, I’m still learning and I know very well that I got out of balance, but as you also could see I recovered myself just fine!
Ohhhhhh, this one is so irritating. Nothing more to say about this one 🤬
“You definitely need that helmet!”
Yes I wear a helmet. I hope I don’t nééd it. But I use it to be sure if things go wrong. Something that can also be due to others. It’s a pity the helmet doesn’t come with earflaps to prevent me from hearing you 🙉
When you google “accidents inlineskating” you get all kind of terrifying articles. And I can agree, rollerblading without any protection can be dangerous. Especially when learning and being in traffic (please please please find a quiet spot the first time you put your rollerblades on🙏). A stupid loose tile or bump already can do harm, so better learn how to fall (= on my to do list) and wear at least a helmet, wrist guards and kneepads (my son also wears elbow pads and he definitely needed them today).
“You certainly could use some lessons”
Bingo, I’m probably not a natural but I’ll take the effort to learn it. And everything that didn’t go well today, will get better tomorrow!
By the way, I took a group lesson about a month ago. And that was very informative and fun. Nice to meet others who are just starting feeling less “lonely”. We did some excercises like:
- how to take turns
- how to get up and down a curb
- how to brake
- how to handle obstacles
Unfortunately there are no group courses or individual lessons in the field of inline skating in my area. But if you find one, Ican definitely recommend it to participate. So yes, the most I will have to learn all by myself. Gladly nowadays we have the internet and Youtube gave some descent tips and tricks that have come very much in handy. Now I write this, I will come back shortly with the best tips I’ve seen so far on Youtube (*makes note for next blog session*).
These comments above can come across as negative, but…..
Don’t let the comments prevent you from putting your inline skates on!! I certainly won’t (if you need some motivation, read my 5 reasons why I started inline skating here). There are also a lot of kind and supportive people 💚
Leave a Reply