On this recent trip to Brazil, I’ve met up with lots of old friends. I used to spend 3-5 months a year in Rio before the Pandemic and I’ve not been back in over 4 years.
I met up with Tel, one of my online students who became a friend. We first met in 2016 when I joined a group skate in Salvador, Brazil and he was blown away that his online teacher was in his city and skating with him.
He had reached a pretty high level from using my online courses and he was already doing the backwards inverted mohawk from the advanced course syllabus. On our first 5 minutes together, we managed to tweak it and make it super smooth.
Check out this vid he made on that night.
This time, when we met up, he sheepishly admitted that he’d stopped skating for a while as his new business was taking off and he was in a serious relationship and “there just wasn’t time to do everything”.
I notice that when people tell me they’ve stopped skating, they look a bit nervous like they’re letting me down or worried I might be disappointed.
The opposite is in fact true. I’ve observed so many skaters let up on their skating frequency or stop altogether and my response is always the same.
“You’re doing what’s important to you at the moment and your skates will be ready anytime you want to prioritise skating again. Returning to your previous level will take some time but it’ll be a lot faster than the first time you got there….”
So, if your skating is on hold right now (for whatever reasons), I’m giving you permission to go easy on yourself and not add critical judgement to the equation.
The skating is in you, you can recall memories about it anytime you want to feel that joy, and it’ll return to you whenever you want it back.
I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of people take time off from skating (often many years off) and then return again, for example after moving countries or having children….
Are you on a skate break? Or have you returned from a break? Did the time off produce anything interesting?
Is the process of returning as you’d hoped?