Great Skate #28 - North Toronto Memorial Community Centre
My friend Csilla, who goes skating with her family nearly every weekend, invited me to join them at their local rink, North Toronto Memorial Community Centre. I did on Saturday, January 24 - almost exactly two years since the last time I went skating with them. It was cold and overcast, but still great skating weather.
The rink is not beautiful, but the ice was in excellent condition. The double-pad facility means that there is always a rink available for pleasure skaters while shinny sessions and skating lessons run next door. When I arrived, a city-run skating lesson for parents and very small children was just getting underway.
Csilla's young son was also taking skating lessons, private ones organized with a friend. Their teacher set up an obstacle course of toys at one end of the rink for the boys to skate around. She also inflated a balloon and had them chase it while she darted it back and forth just beyond their reach.
On the neighbouring rink, parents and children gathered in circles around the instructors, who encouraged them to practice lifting one foot and then the other, balancing with their hands stretched out like tightrope walkers.
Meanwhile, skaters of all ages who were not taking lessons glided around the rink with varying levels of expertise and confidence.
It made me appreciate the different ways to learn to skate. Some people (like my nieces) take cautious, tiny steps, not building up any speed until they are confident of their balance. Then they add the gliding steps and pick up some momentum.
Other skaters are all momentum when they're learning, careening across the ice in a pre-fall state until somehow they find some balance and control.
(Skating offers lots of metaphors to ponder while you're going around in circles in the cold.)
Here are some of the photos Csilla's daughter took at the rink. I told her I wanted pictures of skaters' legs, no faces, and she did a terrific job.
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| The rinks at North Toronto Memorial Community Centre. |
Csilla's young son was also taking skating lessons, private ones organized with a friend. Their teacher set up an obstacle course of toys at one end of the rink for the boys to skate around. She also inflated a balloon and had them chase it while she darted it back and forth just beyond their reach.
On the neighbouring rink, parents and children gathered in circles around the instructors, who encouraged them to practice lifting one foot and then the other, balancing with their hands stretched out like tightrope walkers.
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| Csilla and me, with her husband Barry being goofy in the background. |
It made me appreciate the different ways to learn to skate. Some people (like my nieces) take cautious, tiny steps, not building up any speed until they are confident of their balance. Then they add the gliding steps and pick up some momentum.
Other skaters are all momentum when they're learning, careening across the ice in a pre-fall state until somehow they find some balance and control.
(Skating offers lots of metaphors to ponder while you're going around in circles in the cold.)
Here are some of the photos Csilla's daughter took at the rink. I told her I wanted pictures of skaters' legs, no faces, and she did a terrific job.
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