If You're Afraid to Fall, You Fall Because You're Afraid - Daniel Marcus Ilabaca

Gremlins were over at mine to try out the brand new skates we got them for their 8th birthday. Seabloke has since enrolled them in an inline skating course, and they've attended a few lessons.

So we were at one of the many foyers in the estate and D and I coached little ones separately. I had spared them their knee guards coz 1) I've always hated knee guards; I had never used them when I taught myself to skate almost 2 decades ago (3, actually, I keep forgetting I'm 40, not 30), and 2) they are restrictive and a constant visual reminder that "you will fall". I gave my little darlings their wrist guards though, and told them they had better fall on their hands. Yes I am a vicious aunt.

When we started out, I let little ones have my hands for support, and taught them to unlock and bend their knees. I told them to keep their posture low and look straight, not down. Their posture invited the comment from Seabloke that "the girls at East Coast (skaters' favorite haunt here) don't squat like that". I reminded her that the bikini-clad girls at East Coast are not there to skate, at least not to SPEED skate. Anyone who's into speed On LAND just don't like high CGs. It had slipped my mind for a very brief moment that Seabloke is not a land creature.

Anyways, little ones learned fast and D and I decided to let go of their hands. Every time they claimed they were going to fall and asked for my hands, I would tell them they were NOT going to fall, and like magic, they would break their fall. Soon after, they were skating too fast for the small foyer (we haven't taught them to brake), so I decided to bring them to a bigger one nearby. D had stepped away for a while, so I took the older twin with me first, and told the younger one to stay and wait. The younger one is not the type to wait, and came after us as I had expected. She fell. Sea must have felt really terrible - I returned to find her apologizing profusely to little one. Sea said little one's scratched her knee. I took a look at little one's face. She looked a little upset. Without checking her knee, I told her she's ok, and that falls are good for her.

We called for an intermission though so they could get a drink of water. Seabloke decided to call it a day, and had little ones pestering us for the next hour to let them play some more. That told me that the younger twin's knee was perfectly fine, and I was glad that I didn't have to check it and risk having both girls think I'll make a big fuss over their falling while they are learning to become great at skating (we are not interested in picking up anything unless we know that we are going to become great at it). I have last November's ice-skating episode etched on mind still, but I want little ones to move on, although Seabloke and I will never forgive the school for their negligence and callousness (they left my niece to bleed from a deep cut on her chin - for an hour. Nothing was done to stop her bleeding, and the teachers and principle blatantly ignored Sea's very clear instruction to have little one brought to the nearest clinic while she was making her way out of her home for the skating ring).

After Sea and the girls left in the evening, I sat down in front of my computer and instinctively went searching for a post that Ziad had written that I had not been able to find earlier. I couldn't help but smile (I am gathering evidences that I just might really be psychic, so that if this whole trading thing doesn't work out, I could at least give fortune telling a consideration...) when I finally found it.

The only other post that Ziad has written can be found here.

The video that was mentioned in Ziad's first post: