The Floor Tax

 I remember when we were first taught to fall safely.  Our instructor said, "Everyone pays the floor tax."  It made us all give a nervous chuckle.  You KNOW I'd considered myself very lucky over NOT falling during my first few weeks of lessons, but I knew it was inevitable.  And it finally happened.

I decided to be brave and use our longer, less-structured lesson to practice stopping (something I still haven't mastered, and this was weeks ago).  I fell, but almost in slow motion, squatting down and putting my hands out in front of me.  It was a gentle, baby fall.  I was okay.

During the free skate that follows all lessons, my friends were trying to do crossovers.  This is a basic-looking skating technique.  You see people zoom ahead of you and cross one skate seamlessly in front of the other, easy like Sunday morning.  I had read not to try it until you're comfortable, and that it's not as easy as it looks.

Before the fall

I gained some confidence, however, when one of the orange shirts skated over to me and said, "Hey!  Your friend just did a crossover!  I think you can do it, too!"  He'd seen me practice lifting a foot and putting all my weight on the other, but did he know it was for only like 2 full seconds at a time?  He told me the steps, made it sound easy, and I tried it.  

I got my right foot out ahead of my left, but not in line, just ahead and still a bit to the right.  The point is to cross your foot over the other (hence the name).  I was still standing, and was encouraged to keep going.  This time, I put my right foot completely in front of my left, and the rest is a blur.

I lurched forward before an invisible force yanked me backwards.  I felt briefly airborne, and then slammed down on my back.

Falling on the rink is like an out-of-body experience.  You're part of the flow, and then you stop.  It's unnatural.  Everyone continues the flow, zooming past, and you feel like you're not one of them anymore.  You're the girl lying down in the middle of it all.

After what feels like 5 minutes, but is really probably 5 seconds, it dawns on you to get up. 

Unfortunately, the orange shirt had come down with me (sorry!!).  I think he'd fallen the "correct" way.  I followed the steps I'd learned about how to get back up, grateful to have learned that so I wasn't accompanied by comedic, banana-slip sound effects in onlooker's heads as it happened over and over again.  I successfully got up in one go, and continued skating my laps.  One of the senior regulars, who is always doing crazy tricks, skated over and told me not to worry, and did I know how often that had happened to him?  I've noticed how supportive this community is, and I'm so thankful for it.

I was VERY lucky that I didn't hit my head--I heard the claw clip in my hair clink against the ground, but it didn't break, and I didn't feel it press into my head.  My back and my bottom got the brunt of the fall (thank you, padded shorts!), and I had some whiplash in my neck.  The oddest sensation was the numb feeling in my cheeks (on my face, to be clear).  My guess is the blood rushed to the front of my face with the impact of the fall.  I called it a night a couple laps later, and took an Advil before going to bed.  My neck felt back to normal 2 days later, and my body felt fine.  

In a way, I'm glad I had my big wipeout.  The worst didn't happen.  I broke my "I swear I will never fall" mentality that was making me more tense and less likely to try new things.  I definitely don't want that to happen again, but I survived.