It occurred to me while I was on the skating trail this morning that good skating ability is based on practicing good skating form. Success at many things in life is largely based on good form, usually gained from an assortment of uplifting CULTURAL learnings such as a strong work ethic and having savvy about life.
I’ve had success in marriage and I can confidently say that because I’ve had 2 long, rewarding marriages–not just for me, but also for my husbands–the former and present one.I can assure you that neither of them has any complaints. Lol My marital success is based on good marital form. I’ll be talking about what good marital form entails more in future segments.
Form, in the case of skating, consists of applying routine knowledge about body positioning of torso, arms, and legs in relation to the skates, speed, turns, and gravity. If form is good, you won’t fall and the skating session will be fun. However, if your form is off or careless, you will spend most of the time on the ground and may get injured. I’ve had my share of falls, so I’ve learned the real hard way that it’s a lot easier to practice good form and skate the right way. Lol I also wear my protective gear most of the time, especially my wrist guards since wrist injuries are the most common skating injury.
Of course, the worst injury is a head injury. Always wear a helmet. I had one terrible fall years ago where I fell backwards and slammed my un-helmeted head on concrete! Not injured, thankfully.
We’ve skated in many states and even when we go out of the country on vacation. Darren is a speed skater, usually skates for about 10 miles during his workouts, never wears any protective gear and in all the years we’ve skated, he has never fallen. He can go uphill, downhill, up and down stairs on skates, slalom, hop, whirls, and make all kinds of treacherous moves on skates. I don’t dare! I know my limits.
He has excellent form. Practicing good form makes you a much more successful skater. The more successful you are at it, the more fun you have, and you will skate more. Inline skating is great cardio workout, a great calorie burner, and much less traumatizing to the knees than running or even walking.
Like Darren, many people who’ve inline skated for years don’t think about form. They just know how to skate. They’ve already pulled all those little bits of knowledge about positioning etc. into a nutshell and they apply them automatically. It’s the same as walking. As a baby, it was hard to walk at first, but humans and certain other hominid babies easily learn to walk without thought, due to body structure and inherited form gained over thousands of years.
I was trying to get a friend of mine to come out skating with me, but she’s scared. She’s also scared to bike. She said that as a child, she fell once when she tried to skate and also fell off a bike. So, she never tried again. While in college in my twenties and living in NYC, skating and biking are the main way another girlfriend and I met a lot of guys. On a regular basis, we biked in Central Park, roller skated at rinks in Queens and Brooklyn, and ice skated in Manhattan at Rockefeller Center and Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
Women tell me that it’s not easy to meet quality men these days. I tell them it’s never been easy to meet quality people. Quality people, in general, have never been hugely abundant, but meeting lots of guys of various ethnicities (easy to do in the ethnic mix of NYC) helped us to keep our conversation and flirting skills keen. It was kind of like a laboratory. We learned what worked and what didn’t. LOL We knew that those males typically weren’t interested in a serious relationship with us, but we weren’t serious about them either. We were just young women having fun at that season of our lives. To everything, there is a season.
Darren and I will teach my grandchildren how to skate in another year or so. I want them to learn how to engage in as many lighthearted activities as possible, before any fear sets in. Meeting different people in an array of settings enables you to practice and observe all kinds of social skills and enhance yourself socially overall.
It goes without saying that subscribing to and practicing the best standards of a generally uplifting CULTURE also generates much more automatic success in life. CULTURE is a form that is applied to life. If the best standards of an uplifting CULTURE are put into practice most of the time, that automatically prevents many common mistakes in life and propels you toward greater achievements and more fulfillment in life. Notice that I didn’t say you won’t make any mistakes. I also didn’t say you will have total success all the time. But 73% success is much better than 28% or 0%. Is it not? Nothing is perfect. It’s a matter of degree. Overall, if you put aspects of uplifting CULTURAL form into ongoing practice, you will spend much less time trying to bounce back from avoidable mistakes and more time moving forward.
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73% success in life is better than 28% or 0%. Is it not?
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