Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
It's no secret that I am not the most graceful or co-ordinated man in the world, as regular GulfWeekly readers will have witnessed with my recent surfing exploits.
I'm clumsy, accident prone and I'm still recovering from an injury I earned during my abysmal attempt at riding the waves last week. However, how could I decline the opportunity of a one-on-one skating lesson with professional ice entertainer Joanie Charron?
Feeling slightly worse for wear following an epic evening out with my lovely cousin Olivia I woke up bright and early to meet Joanie and her father Michel at the mobile ice rink at Seef Mall for a morning of thrills and spills.
I have been rollerblading a few times in the past and, to my credit, I don't suck too badly at it. I assumed that ice-skating would be fairly similar and I would wow the professional with my hidden talent ... ladies and gentlemen, I was wrong!
As I put on the bright orange skates and waddled over to the rink, I got a sinking feeling in my gut that something was about to go horribly wrong. I had visions of myself falling over on the ice - hands first - and having my fingers sliced off by a little child gliding past me.
Luckily that didn't happen, although that might be because I gave all the children on the rink my best 'stay away from me' look and held on to Joanie fairly tightly to prevent any mishaps. And, since Michel was the one who first taught Joanie how to skate, I felt honoured that he was on-hand to keep a watchful eye over me and even help out with the session.
"First thing's first, you need to get your balance right and it's all in your knees," said Michel. I swear he could read my mind because the next words out of his mouth were: "Don't be afraid of falling over, and if you do fall over, just shake it off."
We began with the basics and that involved me keeping my feet shoulder width apart, bending my knees and using my arms to keep straight. 'No problem,' I thought to myself, 'this is going to be a piece of cake'. Once I had mastered the art of standing still, the lesson continued with what Joanie called 'the art of gliding'.
"Just find your balance and slowly use your legs to push, keeping your knees bent and arms out," she said. 'Oh, I've got this down, it's just like rollerblading,' the little voice in my head quipped. Away I went, gliding, admittedly fairly slowly, across the ice with a self-satisfied grin plastered on my face.
Then as soon as I picked up some speed I realised ... I don't know how to stop! I crashed into the side and the stupid grin on my face quickly dissipated.
"Yeah, stopping can be difficult," said Joanie. "Here's what you do," she continued. "Point the skates towards each other at the front and out at the back and you'll do fine."
Michel took the opportunity to have some fun and told me that I was ready to race with Joanie. I almost busted another rib laughing so hard, because after having seen her show, I knew that to win that race I would require rockets attached to my skates. Nonetheless, I took up the challenge and, Michel included, we had a little relay from one end of the rink to the other.
After a few laps I realised just how out of shape I am, and how hard it must be for Joanie to not only skate, but sing and dance at the same time.
"OK, this is easy, how do I go backwards?" I stupidly asked. Michel and Joanie looked at each other with a grin and the rest of the lesson consisted of me ALMOST falling over about a million times! After around 15 minutes of continuous agonising failure, I decided to call it a day. "People were not made to skate backwards," I lamented. "It just takes some practice," Joanie replied with a cheeky grin on her face.
I think I'll leave skating to the professionals (and seven-year-old girls, who were far better than me) and stick with playing the newspaper game.
The rink at Seef Mall's West extension will be available to use free of charge from 10am until 10pm everyday until November 10.
