Recalling Vijay’s facetious suggestion that I should coach, Georgeanne’s story gave me hope that a career on the ice might still await in my future. Georgeanne was twenty years older than me and earned a living giving skating lessons. When I first met her, she appeared slim and graceful, tossing a thick hank of hair over her shoulder as she hung a jacket in her locker. I thought Georgeanne must be a lovely skater, a skater like Willa Blanchard. I asked her if she taught dance or freestyle. When the woman declared that she “did it all”, I was impressed. I had not taken a lesson since February and considered asking her for an appointment. But an impatient parent pushed another child in Georgeanne’s direction. My request would have to wait.
Finally I would see this will o’ the wisp skating on lesson with her instructor.
The woman who supposedly “did it all” could not do a heck of a lot. She embodied the phrase “adult skater”. Georgeanne defined what every self-respecting adult skater strives not to be. She was slow, ploddingly slow, with little grace or ease. She seemed stiff and frightened, too rigid to allow her body to flow through any movement. Georgeanne managed to point her toes. She pointed them all the time, scratching the ice with her picks while skating backward. Even in an extension, her toe point seemed brittle as though the effort might shatter her foot. The classic beginner faux pas of allowing the arms to flail overhead, in an attempt to reach higher or improve balance or simply because the skater had no body control, accentuated each tiny jump. She could only do three jumps: the waltz, toe loop and salchow. All were walk-throughs. I thought she walked through jumps so her students could benefit from a slow motion performance that would assist in their understanding of the skill, but that was how Georgeanne executed the same jump on her own time. Her one-foot spin could not begin to crossover into a classic scratch, nor did her sit spin begin to sit.
Under normal circumstances, I would not have been critical of Georgeanne. Skating is a challenging sport, one that can become more challenging as a participant grows older and perhaps suffers from injuries and physical conditions that limit her potential. I would have respected Georgeanne’s involvement in skating and her willingness to work toward her goals. However, Georgeanne was not a garden-variety adult skater. This woman called herself a professional, a coach who sold her services and supposed expertise to patrons of Hans Koenig’s Ice Chalet. I did not know Hansie but wondered why he condoned this. She may have been suitably qualified to hold a small child’s hand and help the little one stomp around the rink, provided the kid wore a helmet. But I could not fathom a person with Georgeanne’s level of competence instructing even the most fundamental freestyle lesson.
Georgeanne explained that just because she could not do a double salchow or an axel herself, did not preclude her ability to teach those skills. I could partially accept this because many coaches, who competed decades earlier, must teach their advanced protégés triple jumps, elements they were never required to learn. However, these coaches did perform basic doubles and axels and had attained a respectable level of achievement as competitive skaters. They participated in eligible competition, mastered complicated school figures, and passed skating tests. Their resumes outlined a superior understanding of the sport. A person, who is (or was) able to do a double, can translate that knowledge into triples. Georgeanne may have been able to parrot advice for completing axels, but her input was probably not much more valuable to the student than reading the same classic tips from a legitimate instruction manual. Lacking intimate knowledge of advanced skating technique, she might not recognize subtle errors, allowing an unknowing student to propagate bad habits and become stranded at a frustrating plateau. Georgeanne was a rather scary example of “those who can’t teach”.
I was not a good or impressive skater myself, but I was better than Georgeanne. Neither one of us could win a jumping contest, though I may have had a better chance at passing a beginning freestyle test. At least I could spin. I owned a full compliment of forward spins, though I gave myself little credit for this achievement in a sport that values jumps above most everything else. If Georgeanne’s coaching gave me hope before I knew how she skated, doors of possibility flung wide open after she disclosed her skills to the Sunday morning adult crowd. As much as I would have liked to try my hand at coaching, I did not have the nerve to call myself a professional. In my own estimation, I was not good enough to teach others. Maybe my qualifications to teach absolute beginners equaled Georgeanne’s, but I lacked the audacity to hang out a shingle.
This did not stop me from being friendly with Georgeanne; although, I never would have considered paying her for a lesson, either for myself or for a toddler on his first pair of blades. I wondered if Luwanda’s sons received instruction from Georgeanne. Actually, I learned about the realities of coaching from my new friend; some of which Georgeanne undoubtedly brought upon herself by teaching without adequate credentials. Coaching ice skating is a largely unregulated occupation in the United States, requiring no license or minimum level of achievement. Coaches must carry insurance and usually belong to professional organizations. They may be rated based on tests passed and can attend seminars designed to offer new instructional techniques and to further understanding of ice skating pedagogy. Georgeanne held appropriate insurance and joined a suitable organization. She attended seminars and worked toward passing skating proficiency tests. She took her job seriously and may have been a fine teacher, considering.
At the end of the session, Georgeanne took her usual spot on a bench in front of a bank of lockers to unlace her skates. The lockers were painted gray and decorated with a mural of poodle caricatures, which fit in nicely with the carnival theme of the place. Avoiding Georgeanne’s glance, I studied the goofy artwork. I did not want to discuss skating, fearing I might have to comment on the woman’s performance.
“So,” I began cheerfully, “Who here breeds poodles?”
Ordinarily, this question would qualify as a nonsequitor, but given the atmosphere of Hansie’s rink, it was probably asked as often as “when did you start skating?” In addition to the soda shop/circus décor, the walls were adorned with photographs of poodles, some of them quite old and developed on black and white film. Likenesses of professional skaters intermixed with the doggy pictures, most of them equally dated and probably obscure.
“Oh,” Georgeanne began, “Mr. Koenig does, at least he used to before his wife died.”
Hans Koenig was sitting by the cash register, head bobbing and ready to doze off. He spent most of the winter season in Florida with his sister but had returned to Connecticut for the holidays. I had never seen him before that morning but noticed the absence of the dullard who usually manned the front desk. That fellow was actually Hansie’s son, who somehow managed to run the place without his father. Though elderly, Hansie did not seem much brighter than his offspring, but he was undoubtedly imbued with a good deal of common sense. The old man had been a competitive speed skater in Europe before World War II. Following the war, he came to the United States and began to perform in a traveling vaudeville troupe with his trained poodles. He later took his campy act on the ice and toured with skating shows. Hansie had been athletic as a young man and wanted to join the circus, possibly learning the flying trapeze or high wire. Instead, he performed circus routines as a professional entertainer and brought a big-top atmosphere to his own tiny skating rink. According to Georgeanne, who had seen movie reels of Hansie on ice, the old clown had actually been a competent skater and had coached his son to local and regional championships.
I only saw Hansie a few times before he returned to Florida for the remainder of winter. Although I said hello to him and tried to be polite, Hansie basically ignored me. Georgeanne explained he could not hear well and was too proud to wear a hearing aide. This caused some confusion as patrons entered the building, wanting to pay admission and spelling their names for the attendance list. Every time I saw Hansie or his son, I had to spell “Kate” five times, at least for Timothy I did not have to shout.
The Ice Chalet reminded me of Pete’s tacky Arctic Circle, where my adult skating odyssey began behind the Lawrence Shopping Mall. I could not decide which cast of characters was stranger: Pete and his second string ice show brigade or Hansie’s dimwitted poodle circus. Again I wound up in an oddball rink with a substandard ice surface and a bizarre line-up of staff and skaters. This troubled me after skating for two years at the legitimate Martinsville facility with a regulation sized ice sheet and seemingly normal instructors. Leaving Hansie’s for better options would have been a good idea; but the place was convenient, too small for hockey, and open when I needed to skate. Friendship with Georgeanne and a few other Sunday morning regulars had started to make me feel comfortable and provided my first sense of belonging in Connecticut.
Yet, I decided to venture forth after the holiday season and look for a new rink in January.
I had never seen Georgeanne skate, though she was one of the few good friends I made at Hansie’s Ice Chalet. She ordinarily took lessons during the week, while I was at work. However, Georgeanne was often on the ice during evening freestyle sessions, but she was teaching, usually young helmeted beginners who either clung to their teacher or an orange safety cone for support. Occasionally, Georgeanne taught a freestyle lesson, though never at a very high level. She demonstrated moves with abbreviated steps, suggesting proper body position though not actually completing the element herself. Initially, I assumed Georgeanne was an ordinary coach, a fifty-year-old woman who had skated competitively as a child and turned to coaching as a part-time occupation upon reaching maturity. A frail person, injury and medical problems undoubtedly prevented her from continuing to skate for her own pleasure. As I came to know Georgeanne, I realized none of my presumptions were accurate. She had learned to skate in her forties and was asked to teach a group lesson when Hansie’s regular instructor failed to show up. Twice bitten by the adult skating bug, she accepted early retirement and declared herself a professional ice skating instructor.
Chapter 57 posted 8/16/02
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