The worst and most stupidly tragic thing that happened at my rink was in 2000, before I joined it. A hockey dad, watching his son at a game, got mad at another hockey dad. They were both huge fellows, so when they started to brawl, it was disastrously hard to break them up. The attacking dad punched the other so horribly hard that it killed him right there - in front of his son, the other kids, and everyone spectating.

Every time I encounter really difficult parents (of course, not as extreme as these guys, but still varying degrees of being a pain), I realize that I don't know what goes on in their hearts. They probably want the best for their kids - but I just hope they know what the costs of their desires could be...

oh my gosh... it KILLED him? Did the puncher go to jail?
I feel so sorry for the boys. They probably never wanted to see an ice rink again.

Also, both their dads sound like they were retards. They started a brawl in the middle of the rink???

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See: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/01/...ict/index.html

Geez man, in the Netherlands, you get 6-10 years for first degree murder oftentimes...

Yeah well... My boyfriend used to be a pretty good hockey player (well, at least his team was) when he was a kid - as a teenager, he quit playing. But no matter. I'm just saying, my BF knows to skate and what skates should feel like.

Obviously, in the 10 years since he quit skating, his feet kinda grew. So he had to rent skates. So he gets skates, puts 'em on, stepts on to the ice, tries to push off (textbook correctly!) and his pushing foot just... glides away. Over the ice. Kind of like you would want to happen on a 1-footed stop, except in the opposite direction.

SOOOO he says, let's go change these for some sharpened ones. So we get to the kiosk that rents out these skates and I'm like, look at these, they're as blunt as they come *runs nail over blade to prove point and no shavings are produced*. OK says the gal at the counter, takes out a different pair and JUST PUTS THE BLUNT PAIR RIGHT BACK AMONG THE SKATES TO BE RENTED OUT. "I'm not sure we have any sharp ones, but try these".

I swear they're trying to sabotage the country's attempts to learn to skate sometimes!



Oh yeah and recently... Two really fat, middle aged women stand around watching my scratch spin which has finally gone over the magical (for testing reasons) frontier of 6 revolutions. It's still inconsistently centered, but no matter, people who can't skate don't know the difference anyway. To them, this looks pretty cool already.
Anyway so they glare and glare and glare and keep telling eachother like "Go ask how she does it." "No, YOU go ask how she does it?" "I don't dare to" "Well then why should I go ask how she does it?" "Cuz you wanna know." "But I don't dare to ask!" etc.
At some point I got kinda tired of this so I skate closer up to them and I'm like, I understand you ladies have a question?
They're like... "Yeah how do you do this?" (one lady had Graf Davos and one had Graf Bolero skates on: acceptable to learn to spin.)
I'm like, well you start out with a 2 foot spin, and proceed to explain the basics to them. After explaining how to start spinning, I said "and then you tense the muscles on the inside of your thighs and on your stomach and you slowly pull your legs together and your arms in, like this"
After trying once, the ladies decided they had no muscles to tense. And that they were too fat to learn to spin.
I told them I have a 200 pound, 5 feet tall figure skating coach who can spin in both directions, on any foot and in any position. That in fact for your ability to spin and stay upright and centered, it doesn't matter whether you're fat or not - only for how fast you can spin.
Needless to say they didn't believe me. They decided they were too fat for sports and... went to buy a hot choco. I wished them bon appetite and went back to my sit spin...

Pfft. Too fat for sports. What's next? Too fat to eat healthy?

Oh yeah later they came up to me and asked me to do a spin in the air so I went and did a single jump. They were rather dissapointed I didn't do a triple axel cuz like, they had seen a competition and they saw people do it and hey, if I could jump, and I could spin, why couldn't I jump AND spin 6 revolutions in the air? I didn't bother explaining, I invited them to watch a figure skating practice instead.
Dumb people shouldn't be allowed to watch TV. Maybe they'd go to the library and read something useful if that were the case.

I much prefer the muggle description, makes it so much easier to understand ...

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UK Passport (figure)
Bronze : PASSED 13-Oct-07 Woohoo
Silver: PASSED 08-Dec-07 Yippee
Gold: Backspin PASSED One Foot Spin ____ Toe Loop ____ Programme ____
The impossible is just a journey away ...

what's muggle?
(man, I really thought I was pretty fluent at English until I encountered this board!)

Muggle was the term used in the Harry Potter book series to describe non-magic people by wizards. Lots of people now use it to describe people outside whichever group they are in (muggle to figure skaters would be non-skaters, muggle to knitters would be non-knitters).


It is however also a slang word from the 1920s that means "a common person, especially one who is ignorant and has no skills" at least according to the few dictionaries I checked.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Sorry I assumed the term was understood, was it Mrs Redboots who used it previously? - again sorry if I am wrong there. The term 'muggle' is taken from the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling, and refers to non magical people, ie the 'general' public. In this context, it is referring to non skating people, loosely encompassing recreational skaters ... all in good fun, no malice intended.

Edit - wow Jesse, I never realised it was a REAL slang word

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UK Passport (figure)
Bronze : PASSED 13-Oct-07 Woohoo
Silver: PASSED 08-Dec-07 Yippee
Gold: Backspin PASSED One Foot Spin ____ Toe Loop ____ Programme ____
The impossible is just a journey away ...

You are - extremely fluent. But don't forget that at least two versions of English are in use on this board - the UK and the US versions - and also we all have our own slang! Plus, skating terms are difficult - I can do skating terms in UK English, American English, French and German, but only because I've trained in France & Germany and hung out on this board long enough to learn the American terms!

And I have precisely two phrases of Dutch ("Dank u wel" and "Tot siens"), although I can read it well enough to understand road signs, etc, so

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Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

psst... tot ziens

Hey well two phrases isn't so bad! You know we Dutchies all think all the British folks are like "How do you do, very nice to meet you, what was your name again? Ah yes. Oh no matter. No, no, I'M sorry. Would you like a cup of tea? I'm not arrogant at all, where on earth did you get that idea, you silly girl? God shave the queen." kind of people. But here's one that actually understands some Dutch! You're spicegirlpowerrrr!!!
I'm sorry, I'm on the silly side today. I've spent too much time at my computer finishing up a project lately lol!
(or maybe, all that pot my roomies have been smoking has finally soaked through the door haha! - while we're on the subject of stereotypes

No seriously, the Dutch don't expect anybody to learn their language, migrants included, that's how come there's so many people actually living in this country who don't speak Dutch - only French or German or English...
Actually, Dutch is right inbetween English and German in terms of grammar, words and pronounciation, which makes it pretty easy to learn both languages once you've learned Dutch. And we're only a small country, we don't make a lot of our own TV. We just subtitle (written) English and German programmes.

On the subject of Dutch language - I spent some time there and I learned how to ask for an icecream with cream!!!! It was delicious!!!

Husband worked for Shell so we mixed with lots of Dutch expats abroad and were always so impressed by how fluent all the Dutch were in English. In Indonesia we noticed a lot of Dutch influences in the language.

Sadly the British are notoriously bad at languages - though being Welsh myself I do try.

Our ex rink manager (Chris Howarth) was in Holland for a while assisting the Dutch figure skating association. He's in Chicago now and they are very lucky to have him - lovely guy. Obviously did not manage to sort out your problems with rinks that are only open half the year though.

Without wishing to sidetrack the thread (is that possible?), my wife and I are off to Luxembourg for a few days at Easter. My niece, who worked there for a year, said they speak Luxemburgesch, French, German, English, and I will probably hear Dutch and Portuguese as well. I fear my lingual abilities will be an embarrassment, but I will give it my best shot.

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UK Passport (figure)
Bronze : PASSED 13-Oct-07 Woohoo
Silver: PASSED 08-Dec-07 Yippee
Gold: Backspin PASSED One Foot Spin ____ Toe Loop ____ Programme ____
The impossible is just a journey away ...

I've never skated in Luxembourg (do they even have an ice rink?) although I've driven through it, but I have skated in Holland (bringing this vaguely back on topic); at one stage there was a sort-of adult competition in Amsterdam. Which is the only time I have ever been to Holland, and all we really saw was what could be seen on the tram between the station and the ice rink! And I didn't even see that on the way back, as I fell asleep on the tram, then on the train, and I don't even remember anything about the flight home..... but it was fun!

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Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

I thought in Luxemburg, they just spoke french?

It's a nice place though, I remember it being extremely green for some reason.

I'm sorry, I know this was just a typo but I had to over this. (Where's the smilie that's laughing falling end over end?)

Anyway, I have Dutch cousins and I've visited a couple of times. I also have cousins who were political exiles from Argentina who moved to Holland. I speak German, and I could often puzzle out some Dutch words/phrases because of that.

I think Luxembourg is beautiful.

I've never skated in Holland, though!

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August 22, back on the ice!

I remember this being on sky news in the UK.....shocking

Andrea

You WISH!


Nijmegen has a nice rink but the ice is buttersoft, it totally messes with my jumps (that is, it messes with my 3-turns) but it's lovely for spins... Tilburg has very good ice, Heerenveen has the best ice of all of course! Also the warmest rink.
Den Bosch isn't too good, their cooling system is pretty busted but they're the only ones open in summer apart from Zoetermeer.

Eindhoven sucks, their club at least. When I was 11, according to them I was too old to skate, their skaters don't stretch their knees on the spirals - even "advanced" skaters and if you're unlucky enough to be clockwise, they won't let you skate clockwise. Everybody has to skate ccw there.

A similar thing happened to me. Last fall, I told one lady at work that my husband and I were going to Skate America. The lady said sounding very impressed, "So you're going to skate there, huh?" I laughed and said, "Oh, no, no, Skate America is for the best in the world." She shrugged and said, "So what? I know you skate." Isn't that funny?

I was teaching at a crowded public session when a hockey coach/dad put his overweight 10-yo DD on brand-new super-sharp hockey skates for her first ice experience. When she couldn't stay up, he solved it by getting a metal folding chair for her to scoot around with on the ice during the very busy public session. I had visions of the kid falling, splitting her face on the chair, which then went flying into the crowd and took out an unsuspecting rookie.

Needless to say, he was affronted when asked to give up the chair. He knew better than the experienced instructors and the rink manager. We were making a big deal out of nothing. I muttered that I'd like to see his liability insurance policy under my breath.


Sk8pics: Monty Python would have a field day with that typo! I didn't see it until you pointed it out. LOL

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Oh my gosh! These stories give me the willies! The worst I ever saw was a woman carrying around her baby (not a toddler, a BABY) while she was on skates and when I tried to point out how dangerous it would be if she fell (the lady was not an experienced skater by any stretch), she burst into tears and said "I'm just trying to spend quality time with my child!" I didn't know whether to laugh or not but I did have her get off the ice anyway. All you can say is Yikes!

She probably wanted to skate with her older child. Glad you were able to talk her out of babyskating/falling! I think a teenager could make money "babysitting" at public sessions.

We've had several kids signed up for group lessons that don't speak english. While many of the coaches/assistants speak a second language, it's never worked out that the kid was assigned to a group with someone who could communicate with him/her. Last week, four adults (Mom, Dad, Grandpa put on skates and interrupted the LTS "hockey" group to translate for their kids. Guess they weren't thinking about insurance liability or even their kid's self-esteem.

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I've taught LTS with kids who couldn't speak much English...it was easier than I thought because the kids just imitated what I did. Kids especially are pretty good at physical learning. They seemed pretty used to being surrounded by people speaking a language they didn't understand. Trying to tell the parents what is going on is a different story.

j

They didn't even speak a little english and the poor kids weren't "getting it" from the demos. Even having a second instructor model the marching and stepping didn't help. They were just hanging onto the instructors/assistants as if for dear life. I think being very young first timers on hockey skates added to the language barrier. They were probably afraid, right?

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Yea, especially if they didn't know what was going on. I had two sisters and like I said, they didn't seem the least bit intimitated at being surrounded by people who spoke a different language. They obviously wanted to be there, which makes a difference.

Kind of off topic, but many years ago I taught English to a Chinse class, not speaking a word of Chinese myself and was amazed at how much they were able to pick up. I still remember sending them into gales of giggles as I demonstrated the difference between "in the sink" and "on the sink" - (yes there was a sink in the class room)



j