Skating Is Magical

Roller skating is magical – and I don’t mean that it leaves me feeling like a princess traipsing through a medieval castle on a fine evening.

(Not that feeling like a princess would be a bad thing. But that isn’t the feeling it gives me and it never will be.)

When I’m skating around and it goes smoothly, it feels as though I’m an elegant bird in flight or better: a ferocious dragon cutting through the air and taking no prisoners. It brings back the feeling of being capable of doing whatever I think about doing. It brings back the feeling of being carefree and happy, though that sensation doesn’t last long after I pull the skates off and return to the mundane world around me.

I was a child when I laid hands on skates for the first time.

It didn’t go well.

I slipped and it wasn’t a simple case of bruising the hell out of this unfit arse. The legs went out from under me and I hit the ground like a tonne of bricks. I couldn’t move for over ten minutes. I could feel nothing from the neck down and I knew what that meant from watching countless medical procedural dramas on television.

Fortunately, I’d just been in shock and the fall had caused nothing major, but that debilitating fear of what happened when I put skates on was enough to make me abandon them altogether.

I was convinced that I’d never skate again.

That conviction died a sudden death when I made friends with skaters that had nothing but good things to say, and that initial interest I had in skating was rekindled after one single conversation. I decided that I’d attempt to skate again and so I arranged to meet one of these friends at an 80s roller disco at the nearest roller skating rink.

That night was almost twelve months ago and I’ll never forget it.

The disco lights illuminated the room and the music was pulsing, the vibrations rippling through bone and sinew. There were several kids laughing and a number of skaters messing around with each other wherever I looked. There was so much talent in the room that I was both attracted at once and terrified of looking like a fool in front of them. The roller skating rink was the perfect breeding ground for pointless crushes on nameless talented people and an incubator for insecurities in the same sweep. I gripped the rental skates I held with both hands and thought about fleeing, about running back down the stairs and never coming back.

But I didn’t because I wanted to show that I could do what I said I’d do – even when that meant inching around the rink and hoping I wouldn’t fall in a bedraggled heap and that I wouldn’t break something.

I put the skates on and spent several long moments just breathing before wobbling over to the entrance to the rink. I paused there and took another breath before stepping out onto the smooth wooden surface. And then I skated for the first time since I was a child and the world didn’t end despite the fact that I was wobbling, and stumbling, doing the best I could to find some semblance of balance like an overweight human version of Bambi. I was trembling like a leaf and exhausted after ten minutes…but I felt like I’d accomplished something all the same.

I did what I set out to do: I got back on eight wheels.

And then I kept skating.

I kept skating and found that I had a good time at the roller disco despite falling, and I’d fallen hard. I ended up feeling bruised for a week. But I wasn’t the first to fall that night and I wasn’t the last. Witnessing someone super freaking talented face-planting into the hard wooden floor made skating seem so much more accessible to me. It made it seem like falling would be okay, because all skaters fall – even the talented ones. Talented skaters are talented because each of them spent an immense amount of time falling and getting back up to skate again.

I returned for the next roller disco and the next one. I fell less and the skating improved incrementally, and that was the foundation of the path I’m on now. Originally, I’d never planned to get involved with roller derby, because I’d never been great with contact sports or athletics in general.

But that was before I watched Whip It.

Ellen Page has a lot to answer for.