Beavers Skateboarding Lesson Part II

As you know, last Friday was my skateboarding lesson. I got there early so I could get myself situated and all geared up. I paid for the lesson and the kid at the counter says to the other kid "Hey, this is the lesson!" That's how they referred to me...The Lesson. I could see the amusement in their eyes and faces. They weren't rude or anything like that. It was more of a how is this going to turn out kind of thing. After I paid I went upstairs and got my safety gear on. It was hotter than hell in there so sliding the elbow pads up my arm wasn't as easy as I'd hoped. I started wondering how far into the lesson I'd be when I passed out. There is no A/C at Rye Airfield. The place is just too big for that.

They called me down to the front because it was time for my lesson. To answer my question from last week....my instructor was not old enough to vote. I'm not even sure he's old enough to drive. It didn't matter. I didn't think Rye Airfield would have someone showing me how to skate if they weren't qualified to do so. So Chris and I went out to have us a skate lesson. The first thing I needed to learn was how to place my feet on the board. My instinct was to have my toes dangle over the edge and keep my heels on the board. I was wrong! Toes on the board. What a difference that made. It definitely gives you more control over the board. Not that I had much control of anything at that point. I tried rolling in a straight line for a few minutes. Ok, I seemed to do ok with that. Not great, but I had the idea.

Then Chris had me get a little momentum going and skate up a slight incline. We were at the bottom of a very tall vertical ramp. The idea was to go up the incline a little and then roll back down. Sounded easy enough. I got a little freaked out by this. I can't even begin to describe the feeling of rolling up the incline and then back down. It's the weirdest thing. It's like a rush. I don't ride roller coasters but that's what came to mind. It was like I was floating. Very cool feeling, yet very weird. I fell while I was doing this. When I fell I was thankful for all of the stretching I'd done. If I hadn't prepared myself with the stretching then I'm pretty sure I'd have torn myself in half. I do have a bruise on the inside of each knee from the fall. I'm not complaining about that. I was having fun!

The video I posted previously shows some of the rolling around I did. Mike was upstairs taking the video. I know it's not a great video but that was as close as he could get without actually coming out on the floor with me.

I don't want this to be too long and to be honest, my arm is killing me right now. I'm going to end this here for now. I have more of the lesson to tell you about, which will explain the pain in my arm, but I'll have to do that another day.

-Beaver