The Itchy Guide to The Ice Factor

For most of the year ice-skating is rubbish. The only way to have fun is to ‘accidentally’ elbow children out of your way. But seeing as every child in this country under a certain age skates like a pro, you’ll just end up being tailed by a small child triple-axel-ing in your wake as you lurch around like a knock-kneed foal. At Christmas, however, things are different. What with all the open-air ice-rinks popping up everywhere, at Christmas ice-skating is a thing of beauty. Which is why you need to look good out there.

However, for those of you with all the co-ordination of Pete Doherty after a night on the tiles, fear not. There are ways of ensuring that you don’t show yourself up on the ice. All you need is a bit of creativity…

1. Tie a cushion to your arse – multi-purpose, this one. Firstly it has the practical purpose of being there to cushion your fall for the inevitable visits that your mal-coordinated backside is going to be paying to the floor. However, your cushion can also be used as a prop to demonstrate how comfortable you are on the ice; when you fall over, just sit there for a moment and take in the view. Why not go the whole hog and bring a thermos and lap-tray so you can stop for a leisurely cup of tea. You’re not graceless; you’re just a loafer.

2. Make your skating look better by comparison – Ok, so you can’t skate. But no matter how bad you are, there’s got to be someone you know who’s worse at it than you are. Even if you have an inner ear like a whirlpool, you must have an infantile relative who’s never been skating before. Find this person, and then take them skating. Whilst skating, insist on holding hands with them to “teach” them how to skate. Every time they go down, they’ll take you with them. At which point you should play the role of the concerned companion as loudly as possible. Observe:

‘OH NO! YOU KNOCKED US OVER AGAIN! I’M NOT USED TO ALL THIS FALLING OVER, WHAT WITH BEING SUCH A GREAT SKATER NORMALLY!’

No matter how incompetent your skating, in the absence of someone screaming out your failures as a skater to the rest of the rink, you can’t fail to seem better than your companion. This technique also has the added bonus of the fact that due to you holding hands, every time you go down, you’ll take your companion down too, but due to your previous efforts, everyone will assume that it wasn’t your fault.

3. Pretend to be over-excited – Sooner or later you’re going to end up going over. You can handle this one of two ways: you can either go down like you’ve been shot, thus embarrassing yourself in front of all and sundry, or you can pretend that it was deliberate. How might one do such a thing? Easy. As soon as you can feel yourself start to go, throw yourself forward, bend your legs and tuck your lower legs underneath you so that you end up doing a knee slide on the ice. Whilst sliding, whoop loudly, and either hold your arms aloft above your head in celebratory manner, or if you’d like a bit of added cred, mime some air-guitar and then mutter something about forgetting you’re not on stage with your band. Either way, you’ll just look like you couldn’t resist the power-slide, and not like the poise-less fool that you in fact are.

4. Listen to Ravel’s Bolero on your Ipod – The ultimate ice-skating song. It just doesn’t matter how ineffectual you are on the ice. With this blaring in your ears, you’ll feel like one of Torville and Dean, and when you believe in yourself, who knows what you’re capable of? A word of warning though: you may want to give the triple-axle a miss at first.

5. Pretend to be an Ice-Hockey Player in training – Whilst Ice-Skating might be all about gliding gracefully across the rink, Ice Hockey is a discipline that largely involves the ability to withstand massive impact on the ice, and thus lends itself perfectly to the style of skating undertaken by those who don’t know how to stay upright. Grab yourself a helmet and a stick (if your rink’ll allow the latter – for some reason, a number of proprietors take a dim view of skaters taking to the ice whilst armed), crash into the side as hard as you possibly can, scream “Penalty!” and take yourself off for a sit down for five minutes. Instant professional cred.

NB Itchy takes no responsibility for injuries inflicted during the attempting of these manoeuvres.

For more Itchy articles and guides visit www.itchyyork.co.uk