How Tough Can It Be?

Hanna admits he has come a long way from his own days of "hugging-the-wall."

"[At first,] I thought, 'Oh, figure skating, how tough can it possibly be?" says Hanna. "Once you're into it, you can see you actually have to work at it. It's not as easy as it looks. It's really not!"

"Some of the things they ask you to do in figure skating are just not normal body movements," Hanna continues. "Moving backwards is an example."

Students presently enrolled in the beginner class echo Hanna's initial fears and frustrations. "The control is really really hard," Daniels says.

Roger H. Hauck '61, head of the computing center at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge and a die-hard skater who has been at the sport for 10 years, says his greatest fear is still "falling down."

Brown has had to deal with stumbling adults since her sophomore year, when she began teaching Harvard students and area residents how to skate. She says the fears of falling are common. "Everyone's obviously afraid of falling," she says. Brown now teaches skating approximately five hours a week at Bright, and additional hours at other local rinks.

According to the instructor, injuries are usually the result of too much tension. So the first few days of lessons, Brown has her students gradually slide down on the ice until they fall, to help them realize "they won't hurt themselves if they just relax."

"Right arm in front," Brown yells during a lesson, in order to have her voice heard over the echoes ringing through the arena. But as the group tears away from the wall to practice another skill, another student falls, landing flat on his stomach.

"Stay low on the left foot, okay?" his instructor advises. As her students shakily attempt crossovers with their arms outstretched for balance, Brown bends over in the center of the circle, hands on her knees, to check out their form.

The undergraduate skating instructor knows what she's doing. She has competed in the New England Championships eight times, in which she has won the junior division once and received both second and third place in the seniors division. She has also competed and placed in the Easterns and the Nationals.

The Early Birds

For the less competetive, Bright provides a more laid-back atmosphere.

"I think it's an inherently pleasant activity, gliding along...it makes the rest of my day feel much better," Hauck says of the fresh start skating gives him.

For others, it is more of an effort to make their skating lessons. "I just made myself get up," explains Harman. "You wake up at 7:00 and you're not quite sure if you should come or not."