These both happened a few years back ...

Most painful:

During a public session with dance intervals, I was standing next to my coach, who had his back to me. A dopey middle-aged dance couple came too close, so I moved back slightly and fell backwards over my coach's leg. As I fell over he kicked his leg back and with a crashing thud I fell onto the heel of his skate which penetrated the skin about 1/4 inch in the kidney area. I had to spend two hours lying on my back in the changing room before I could move properly, and when I got back home my shirt was covered in blood. But I was back skating a week later (must be mad ...!)

Most stylish:

I was doing a back pivot on a public session and a kid around seven years old came too close and fell over right under my legs so that he hit my legs and took them from under me. Mindful of the reality that blame is always allocated to the adult in these situations, I had to think quickly and fall well out of his way. I rolled backwards over his back in a tuck position (keep those blades out of harm's way!) and actually ended up doing something like a back somersault before gliding to a halt. The kid just took it in his stride and skated off without a care in the world ....

Good Gawd! That sounds terrible!!!!!!!

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"It’s never too late to skate at any age." - Alexei Mishin.

Yikes, these stories are making me cringe! The funniest fall I've seen was my daughter and her coach.....I don't know how it happened, but they got their feet tangled and one fell to the right and the other to the left in perfect unison. Nobody was hurt...and it was unusual to see the coach fall, so it's something we still laugh about.

My coach couldn't stop laughing when my feet came out from under me and I flew up in the air and landing in perfect "centerfold" position on my side. What a Kodak moment

My Wipeouts

Most :

Walking into the ice with guards on during the warm-up session in competition.

Funniest :

Catching the toe pick on both my feet doing a half flip and falling forward. Slid forward till my hands touched the barrier, then put my forehead to the ice and startied kicking my feet around the back. Sat up after and laughed.....2 seconds later, my friend who was laughing and doing back crossovers, tripped and fell too.


Wipeouts I've seen

My ex-coach standing on the ice coaching (with skates on). Then suddenly trips and falls on his butt. What made it so hilaious is the fact that he wasn't even moving and that it happened two days in a row.

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~~==Happy Landings==~~

Gina

I just thought about another I saw, last year. I was in a group class and we were standing at the boards. Our coach (must be at least 6 foot tall) was facing us and talking, skating backwards slowly as he was getting to the end of the explanation and we were about to do it. A five year old girl skated up behind him, couldn't get out of the way in time and he didn't see her. She crashed into the back of his legs, somehow got tangled and fell over, and he fell backwards over her and landed really hard, right on his back. The girl burst into tears though, and he got up straight away, picked her up and skated to the side with her. It must have been so painful though!!! But kudos to him for the way he acted.

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"It’s never too late to skate at any age." - Alexei Mishin.

Well one of my most embarrassing moments was when I'd had a little tiff with my dance coach and he made some snarky comment as I skated off (he was being a wanker so I decided I'd just let him have a few minutes to blow off steam). I turned and started skating backwards and made some equally snarky retort, and, not paying attention to where I was, ran smack into the boards which knocked my flat on my butt. Apparently it LOOKed worse than it FELT; he was really worried, and forgot about being a butthead, so I let him help me up and we went on with the lesson.

Another embarrassing moment was when a bunch of us were having an illusion spin contest. I swear I don't know how I did it, but I ended up falling on my head. I swear I saw stars.

My most painful wipeouts have always been when I was doing something I had no business doing, but this one tops the list. My partner and I decided that the headbanger spin couldn't possibly be that hard to do so off we go to try it. We'd "practiced" it a little off the ice and were confident that we wouldn't get killed so we got on the ice. Oh my; it wasn't pretty. Needless to say it was harder than we thought. I hesitate to say I got thrown into the boards but I imagine that's how it must have looked. My entire right side was sore for, I am not kidding, a week and a half. We couldn't tell our coach what we'd done so I had to act like I was just fine. Never again.

peachstatesk8er - what is a headbanger spin? Is it the one like Ina & Zimmerman do where the girl bends down low with her upper body and has her leg in the air? If not, what is it? (Also, you know the lift dismount that Meno & Sand used to do and Berezhnaya & Sikharulidze did in their SLC SP, where the girl swoops down to the ice headfirst before landing - am I right in thinking that's called a headbanger too?)

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"It’s never too late to skate at any age." - Alexei Mishin.