Day 1

After a few days of getting things sorted out, I finally stepped foot on the ice for the first time.  I spent about an hour and a half skating long track, then switched my blades to give short track a try.  Fortunately for me the first time I stepped on the ice for the first time there were only national team members from about 4 or 5 different countries(for those who don't see that I'm being sarcastic, I am).  Also, several of my great friends from inline stuck around and got to watch the debut as well.  Luckily Kalon Dobbin and Reyon Kay were both on the ice when I got out there and they helped me out as much as was possible(there was no sarcasm in that).  Now everyone has always tried to explain what it feels like the first time you skate on ice, but they always end it with a side not "you just have to feel it yourself".  I would like to tell everyone that they were most certainly right.  It's like starting all over again, but at the same time it's not.  My feet just wouldn't do what I wanted them to do, and I was getting pretty mad at them.  They didn't much care however, and just continued to do whatever they wanted.  Well after some work and some experimentation I got decent enough I could throw together a few decent crosses.  By no means was my brother, but I could go faster than a snails pace.  So I would put together a corner, get my speed up, and then I would get to the straights. Yeah... the straights..... The best thing I can say about my straights was at least I didn't fall down.  I don't know if the loud noises my blades were more embarrassing then how a terrible I was, but neither was very good for the ole ego.  I'd like to say I figured out the entire sport of long track speed skating in the first hour and half, sadly it didn't happen like that.  However, I did improve.  And that's all I can ask for on day 1(ok I could ask to be amazing at it, but that wouldn't be very realistic).

    After my hour and a half of long track was done, I quickly switched blades and jumped out there for a beginner short track class.  Now switching blades(clap to non clap) and frame position basically started me all over again.  So I was struggling a lot at first, but I got more comfortable a lot quicker.  Quick note; one thing that really stuck out to me was how narrow the track is.  I knew it wasn't super wide, but I felt like it would be a lot wider than it is.  I feel like it's got to be just crazy to go around the corners at sub 9 second laps.  And I could only imagine how fast those pads come up when they crash.

   Well day one on the ice... I survived.  And the good new is it can only get better, unless it gets worse, and in that case it's going to be a long few weeks.  Catch up with you guys in a few days.