Skating and skiing lessons

We had a busy week with skating and skiing lessons starting.  Taylor had her first figure skating lesson on Wednesday night, she had to start with the Canskate kids class who are all five and six years old!  The coach spent some time with her to evaluate her skating skills and gave her the level 1 badge, she spent the rest of the lesson with an older girl who taught Taylor how to stop on the ice.  To stop on ice skates you need to press hard on the ice with one foot, Taylor said it was much harder than it sounds as her foot kept slipping and shuddering instead of stopping smoothly plus her other foot went in the opposite direction.  Poor Taylor felt miserable when she finished her first lesson, she wore short socks and the skates had rubbed on her bare ankles plus she felt disheartened being surrounded by young kids who could skate better than her.  Unfortunately TJ's Thursday lesson was cancelled because the Zamboni machine had broken down, the Zamboni is the machine that resurfaces the ice.

Cooper also started figure skating lessons on Friday, he is in the Kidskate class which is three and four year olds, it was so cute.  Cooper was all over the place, he needed one of the class helpers to stay with him the whole time.  The kids did activities like sitting on the ice and then getting back to a standing position, placing markers on the ice and then skating back to the start line as fast as they could and skating around a circle on the ice.  The lesson was half an hour and when Cooper came off the ice he said "I keep falling over Mum".

Saturday was the start of the Jackrabbit cross country skiing program.  Cooper was in the Bunny rabbit class with the other four and five year olds.  I went along with the class too, Cooper did pretty well and didn't fall over too many times, he struggled on the way back as there were a few more uphill sections on the trail and he was getting tired.  Luckily one of the coaches gave him a tow back to the lodge.