My whole life on skates has been spent trying to get used to being on blades - literally - to find my feet and to feel them through the prosthetics we call skates is still my main task after 35 years. In perfect irony, Vitality In Action has asked me to devise programs on ice for people who may very likely have no feet at all, or just one foot. And I am all at once humbled in a way I can’t even express. We wear shoes – those can be considered prosthetics. We have to learn to walk in them and to use them. I get that. By logical extension, skates are no different. But after all these years on the ice, as a scientist, I’m still studying and experiencing how we learn to skate.
As Managing Director of Vitality In Action’s Adaptive Skating Program, I put together the foundational skills curriculum, both on-ice and off-ice for people who could have an artificial foot or leg, people who are aging or are recovering from injury or habilitating from surgery. A Vitality Skater could even be someone who’s been too scared to ever get on the ice…but always wanted to. Something I’ve dreamed of my whole life– my own skating school – has literally been handed to me through Vitality In Action. Vitality Skating is the US Figure Skating Association-registered house of the Adaptive Skating Program. As the director, I develop, formalize and solidify the learning bases that will be individualized for each and every skater based upon his/her own special needs. Vitality Skating programs offer the creative modifications to help those who never thought they’d be able to skate to do so.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
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