How Stupid?

[AndreaUK]

Hi

Today I witnessed the most stupid thing I have ever seen in my entire life at an ice rink.

I turned up for the morning session thinking that it would be quiet, as it usually is on morning sessions to find that some of the children from local schools are having their half term breaks. Naturally the rink was fairly busy with lots of young kids whizzing or stumbling around the arena but that is to be expected.

What I didnt expect was to see a mother exhibit complete moronic behaviour which was beyond anything I had ever seen before.

Firstly she pushed the babies buggy right up to the rink exit so that no one could get on or off the ice. Secondly she took the baby out of the buggy and placed him on the ice. This child could not yet have been a year old. She allowed him to crawl on the ice regardless of the fact that there were approximately 70 children with no control who were not skaters whizzing past him. Thirdly said stupid mother was walking on the ice in stilettos and thought that it was perfectly acceptable for her to be on the ice in her high heals and her baby to be crawling around as if he was at home.

She was told by several of us that what she was doing was extremely dangerous however she just could not understand why and felt that as she was stood on the ice with him the child would come to no harm. After being asked to exit the ice she refused saying that she felt she had every right to let her little baby crawl around on the ice and she also stated that it is perfectly acceptable to walk around in stilettos. Eventually the Steward had her removed.

I have honestly never in my entire life seen anything so absolutley stupid and I am totally gob smacked.

Has anyone else ever witnessed anything absolutley stupid whilst being on the ice?

Andrea

[Derek]

Totally selfish springs to mind ...

Hope the rest of your session was at least pleasant.

[phoenix]

Yup, just as stupid & I see it all the time: teetery parent in rental skates picks up & carries baby/toddler around on the ice. I once went over & told a dad he should put the kid down, as it was extremely dangerous if he were to fall.....he said, "well then I won't fall." 8O

[kayskate]

A lot of rinks I have been have a sign posted that no one is allowed on the ice w/o skates. Solves the problem immediately. Yes, I have actually seen a situation quite similar. Blocking the entrance w/ baby carriage is actually not uncommon.

Kay

[doubletoe]

If I were dictator, I would require an intelligence test for everyone before they were allowed to reproduce. Sigh. :giveup:

[dbny]

A lot of rinks I have been have a sign posted that no one is allowed on the ice w/o skates. Solves the problem immediately.


Not if it isn't enforced. I was actually told that by helping a few patrons I posed a liability to a local rink. At the very next session, there was an adult skating with tot in his arms. The skating director (the one who told me to cease & desist), chastened some teens with cell phones and totally ignored the dad with kid in arms. So much for liability issues.

If I were dictator, I would require an intelligence test for everyone before they were allowed to reproduce. Sigh. :giveup:

I wish that were all there was to it! Some very smart people have been know to do extremely stupid things when their overblown egos were in control.

[mikawendy]

Yup, just as stupid & I see it all the time: teetery parent in rental skates picks up & carries baby/toddler around on the ice. I once went over & told a dad he should put the kid down, as it was extremely dangerous if he were to fall.....he said, "well then I won't fall." 8O

I've heard that before and it always makes me go 8O 8O 8O :roll: :roll: :roll: 8O 8O 8O

I hadn't thought of this before, but I wonder if yokels like that could be persuaded to think safety first if one were to ask them, but what if someone crashes into you because they're stupid or can't skate? You wouldn't want to fall and land on your child, would you?

[Rusty Blades]

Indeed! At my age I have seen enough stupidity to know that Darwin was wrong - some apes never "evolved".

[Sonic]

Now if only that woman could be persuaded to do the same thing on a busy highway instead of a rink (probably wouldn't be difficult)....that might help the gene pool.

Failing that, let's hope it gets itself spayed before it produces any more innocent young to get trampled at an ice rink....

S xx

[Sessy]

Has anyone else ever witnessed anything absolutley stupid whilst being on the ice?

Andrea

Yeah, two parents who put their paralysed daughter in her wheelchair on ice amidst like 100 other kids on skates and were amazed that 5 minutes later, the girl was in tears and were amazed that the kid wasn't having fun like they suggested she should try to have... :frus:
IDIOTS. :frus:

If you want to acquaint her to figure skating, at least take her to the nationals or a selectional competition for the nationals. She wouldn't be feeling bad about not being able to do double and triple jumps. Of COURSE she's feeling bad when she sees everybody else skate and she can't get up out of the wheelchair!!!

Idiots, I wanted to kill the parents off right there. :frus:


And yes I've seen many parents who can barely stand pick up the child and put it in their neck, on their shoulders, when they can barely stand themselves. Once, I skated up to such a father and told him that a Russian pair of figure skaters were doing exactly that (well not quite, but hey, close enough) when he dropped her and she went into coma. He was like: Yeah but I'm not gonna drop her.
MORONS.


Another thing are people sitting on the boardings. If somebody bumps into a boarding, they'll tumble over backwards and hit their heads and necks against the hockey team benches in the booths... Fortunately, they really started to re-inforce the rule that that's prohibited.

However, I'm not allowed to practice spins when there's a lot of people but the hockeyers are allowed on the ice with their black flat ball thingies! During public hours. GREAT thinking, ice rink! Wow!


Most ridiculous things I've ever seen:
- you know those short skis? I'm talking about these: http://www-solar.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~eric/IMAGES/nimericski.jpg and some guy thought that he could skate on those...
- hockeyer attempting to copy my flip and not realizing the toe picks are there for a reason - he ended up being carried off ice
- daddy with a sleigh on which he put his kid, the sleigh had a really long rope by which the daddy pulled it. The sleigh slipped in the curve, banged into the boarding...



BTW it's always GUYS I see doing stupid things... Makes me go Hmm!

[Mrs Redboots]

Sometimes we have wheelchair sessions on the ice here, and the sister of one of our skaters has to use a wheelchair, but she has been part of show numbers with her sister and other skaters - notably as R2D2, with Mum being C3PO. She had a lovely time, as she did in a winter number, when she had skates on, but just sat on a sledge.

Stupidest - and funniest - thing I ever saw at the rink was once on a public session, someone picked up a pair of blade guards that were sitting at the entrance to the rink, not, I think, realising that they were someone's private property, put them on, and proceeded to try to skate round in them. One of the coaches went over to him to try to tell him that this was dangerous and that he was using someone else's property, but he was like "Oh, this is much safer to start with, I think!"

[cathrl]

We have wheelchair sessions here too - they also have some of those low profile plastic sledges that you sit in rather than on, and some of the kids who don't need the sitting-up support of the more sophisticated wheelchairs go in those.

Our rink stewards may get a lot of complaints for things they don't do, but I can't see them allowing anyone on the ice in shoes, or putting a baby down on it 8O

[jskater49]

I guess my stupid story was several years ago when a teenage mother brought her baby in and left the baby in the baby holder in the warming room, where you put on your skates - alone, while she had her lesson. I had two thoughts...I was tempted to hide that baby to teach her a lesson, but that would be too cruel and might get me arrested ...and I made a mental note to tell my daughter that if she had a baby I would support her and help with the baby but that would be the end of her skating lessons :o

[Sessy]

Sometimes we have wheelchair sessions on the ice here, and the sister of one of our skaters has to use a wheelchair, but she has been part of show numbers with her sister and other skaters - notably as R2D2, with Mum being C3PO. She had a lovely time, as she did in a winter number, when she had skates on, but just sat on a sledge.

Stupidest - and funniest - thing I ever saw at the rink was once on a public session, someone picked up a pair of blade guards that were sitting at the entrance to the rink, not, I think, realising that they were someone's private property, put them on, and proceeded to try to skate round in them. One of the coaches went over to him to try to tell him that this was dangerous and that he was using someone else's property, but he was like "Oh, this is much safer to start with, I think!"

Yeah but it is different when there is a session for handicapped people. It is like with wheelchair dancing, I mean you dont put a child in a wheelchair in a normal dancing class, there are special classes for that, if you do, youll have the kid in tears in no time, of course you will! If you want your child to look normal while doing sports, try swimming: a girl in my class, in a wheelchair because of a broken back, had no problem at all swimming with the rest of the class.

As for guards, one time, this guy with hockey skates (I have those double-sided guards that one can jump and run in) comes up to me and goes like... can I borrow your guards? Im like, no, you can use my soakers if you want but not my guards: they wont even fit you.
Result: he went and stole them and went outside to have a smoke. Then I went to the skating rink people and told them my guards were stolen, so they brought back the guy and made him apologize. I told him next time I would file a thievery report with the police (and as a law student, I do know some tricks to keep the police from not-persueing the matter because it is too small an offense like they usually would) and I regret I didnt last time, because one of those guards keeps slipping after that incident... :x

[Ice Dancer]

It is amazing how many stupid incidents happen really. I am suprised that more accidents and injurys don't occur because of it.

The worst i've seen was at a day session I went to. About 3 or 4 adults (I'm assuming teachers) took a class of primary students along. They were sent up to skate hire on their own, expected to tie their own skates (they were about 5) and then marched onto the ice, clinging onto the barrier whilst the adult in charge (she was definately a teacher) walked on in shoes and took photos! There were not enough adults for them as it was, let alone one on in shoes, and the others couldn't skate well. Luckily it was as I was leaving as I am sure that there would have been accidents.

Another time a group of about 200 came along and were purposely crashing into each other :frus: When I left one was disappointed that they weren't hurt like their friend!

I would seriously ban morons from the ice. At public evening sessions at my rink the hockey guys seem to just stand by the barrier in a big line trying to look cool. It just looks dangerous though, especially at the moment where it is busy with people who can't even stand. Good on them for going along and giving it a go, but at least the people who can skate should make it easy for them and not hogg a section of barrier to stand and talk to your mates by!

[russiet]

A few times a year I will see some one (usually a teenage boy) skate fast up to a friend who has fallen on the ice and do a quick hockey stop in an effort to throw ice shavings on them.

Every time I cringe.

I have made it a point to stop and explain that it would only be a small slip and their blade would slice into their friends head.

I don't know if I have any effect.

[Rusty Blades]

I would seriously ban morons from the ice.

The ice would be pretty deserted! (Except for figure skaters, of course ;) )

[Mrs Redboots]

The worst thing of all, of course, happened at our rink a couple of weeks ago when a 16-year-old boy was shot dead.

However, it's not clear whether he was actually in the rink at the time, or outside it and rushed in to get help. Certainly he was not skating, but I understand a group of youths had run in via a side door with the intent of robbing the punters.

[Sessy]

A few times a year I will see some one (usually a teenage boy) skate fast up to a friend who has fallen on the ice and do a quick hockey stop in an effort to throw ice shavings on them.

Every time I cringe.

I have made it a point to stop and explain that it would only be a small slip and their blade would slice into their friends head.

I don't know if I have any effect.

Russiet, are you going by the same name on YouTube? Cuz then I've seen you skate on video, I actually practiced my salchow from your videos at first! :)

What I think is most disgusting about this hockey stop stuff is that hockeyers spit, bleed, and snot on the floor. With those shavings, all that stuff comes onto you. And that's not just simple streptococci and staphilococci bacteria and flu type viral strains, that's actually also (possibly) hepatitis, mononucleosis and a lot of other stuff you really don't want on you!

The hockeyers at our rink do that to every young girl they can find, whether she's standing or sitting on the ice or whatever. Most girls end up screaming like WAHHH YOU MORON etc, and the hockey guys just like it... One time, I was still new at the rink, I was practicing jumps, fell down, and this guy goes and does a hockey stop on me literally covering me in snow. I was really hot from the jump practicing so I went automatically like "Mmm nice, do that again" before the conscious part of my mind that thinks it's icky kicked in.
The hockey guy was totally dissapointed and since, nobody ever hockey-stopped on me.

[Sessy]

The worst thing of all, of course, happened at our rink a couple of weeks ago when a 16-year-old boy was shot dead.

However, it's not clear whether he was actually in the rink at the time, or outside it and rushed in to get help. Certainly he was not skating, but I understand a group of youths had run in via a side door with the intent of robbing the punters.

8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O :o

[russiet]

Russiet, are you going by the same name on YouTube? Cuz then I've seen you skate on video, I actually practiced my salchow from your videos at first! :)

What I think is most disgusting about this hockey stop stuff is that hockeyers spit, bleed, and snot on the floor......

That would be me. They were my first sals. You should be emulating some one else! I practiced from watching a slo-mo video of Brian B. The slo-mo got my timing mixed up at first. It made the sal really wide.

About the ice, when my daughter was younger I would warn her about the un-purity of the ice. I would ask her, "If some of this ice were melted into a glass, would you even THINK about drinking it? Hockey players SPIT on the ice! Stop playing with it!!"

[Sessy]

That would be me. They were my first sals. You should be emulating some one else! I practiced from watching a slo-mo video of Brian B. The slo-mo got my timing mixed up at first. It made the sal really wide.

About the ice, when my daughter was younger I would warn her about the un-purity of the ice. I would ask her, "If some of this ice were melted into a glass, would you even THINK about drinking it? Hockey players SPIT on the ice! Stop playing with it!!"

Yeah my sal is still my most screwed-up jump, and now I know the cause!!! ;) Hahaha, trouble is, our teacher doesn't manage to explain it to me in a way that I understand it. Ohwell I get around and my free leg's in front, I'm just double-bent in the air but hey, could be worse. I should really get some private lessons and maybe someday I will. For now, I can't.
I spent a lot of time watching our competition girls practice their double sal's (this is holland, they don't do triples) and at least I got the shakeyness out of the landing now...

You know I really like slomo's of double jumps from http://www.sk8stuff.com/m_recognize.htm
The timing is far less off than with triple jumps. And also, somehow Plushenko's jumps are easyer to emulate than those of other people. I don't know why. Maybe because his technique is truelly clean or something. The timing for single jumps isn't even THAT far off. Though personally I really like the way Slutskaya has been known to do her loop sometimes - first a series of forward and backward 3 turns in backspin position and then jump haha. :)

[miraclegro]

Doubletoe, referring to what you said, i had to laugh my head off. Sad thing is, the powers that be at my rink would fall into that same category.


They ALLOW a certain man and another child (2 different times) to be on public session with stick and puck, hitting them agains the wall. Any complaints? Well, just don't complain. Forget that the rink might get shut down from a lawsuit. And it's a new rink.

A group of kids was there the day the man with the stick/puck was there, and they asked to rent a hockey stick (or more). They were told those things were allowed. ha ha. Scarey, isn't it?

[miraclegro]

Oops, i mean "NOT allowed" is what management said, yet they SAW these others hitting the puck around...

[black]

People trying to skate in blunt rental skates which are not done up properly, "This is really difficult" they say - No sh*t! :giveup:

[b viswanathan]

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...

[peanutskates]

The attacking dad punched the other so horribly hard that it killed him right there.

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???8O

[Sylvia]

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.
oh my gosh... it KILLED him? Did the puncher go to jail?
See: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/01/25/hockey.death.verdict/index.html

[Sessy]

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

[Sessy]

People trying to skate in blunt rental skates which are not done up properly, "This is really difficult" they say - No sh*t! :giveup:

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! 8O



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.

[Derek]

... 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 ...

[Sessy]

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

what's muggle?
(man, I really thought I was pretty fluent at English until I encountered this board!) 8O

[Skittl1321]

what's muggle?
(man, I really thought I was pretty fluent at English until I encountered this board!) 8O

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.

[Derek]

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 :)

[Mrs Redboots]

what's muggle?
(man, I really thought I was pretty fluent at English until I encountered this board!) 8O
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 :bow: :bow: :bow:

[Sessy]

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 :bow: :bow: :bow:

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!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:
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! :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.
:giveup:

[BatikatII]

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.:D

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.

[Derek]

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.

[Mrs Redboots]

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!

[Sessy]

I thought in Luxemburg, they just spoke french?

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

[sk8pics]

God shave the queen." kind of people.

I'm sorry, I know this was just a typo but I had to :lol: :lol: :lol: 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!

[AndreaUK]

See: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/01/25/hockey.death.verdict/index.html

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

Andrea

[Sessy]

I'm sorry, I know this was just a typo but I had to :lol: :lol: :lol: over this. (Where's the smilie that's laughing falling end over end?)
I've never skated in Holland, though!

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.

[garusha]

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?

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?

[Isk8NYC]

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. :roll:


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

[Mainemom]

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!

[Isk8NYC]

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.

[jskater49]

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.

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

[Isk8NYC]

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.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?

[jskater49]

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?

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

[kateskate]

Den Bosch isn't too good, their cooling system is pretty busted but they're the only ones open in summer apart from Zoetermeer.



I skated there a couple of years ago for a summer course :)

[Sessy]

Yeah, the cancelled that course this year, the retards! 8O :cry:

[Schmeck]

Before our local rink bought the skate bars for the kids to use, people used to bring milk crates and stack one on top of another for their kids to use. That's OK for small kids with skates on their feet, but some dumb parents would sit their toddlers on the top crate and push him/her around. Either the crates would topple and the kids would fall, or the parent would trip, and knock the kid off... 8O One idiot actually pushed the kid/crate combo away from him, and the kid crashed into the boards!

[Sessy]

Apart from a teenage babysitter sitting for money at public sessions, I'm thinking you could get a liability lawyer sitting right by it! :twisted:

[Skittl1321]

When I was young I babysat on ice- more that I took the kids I was babysitting to the ice rink.

Now I still babysit at the rink. The other week a friend had an emergency with her sitter- so I met them at the rink and watched her son while she skated.