The 8 a.m. class has begun. Tracie L. Brown '92, a champion ice skater and a Harvard instructor, has her students--approximately 20 of them--line up against the wall. Half of them come forward at the signal and attempt to do backwards turns on two feet.

Somebody falls.

The other half of the class attempts to perform the same feat, but with the security of the wall behind them.

"Good! Good!" Brown shouts, trying to encourage the timid. The scraping of razor-sharp blades on ice continues as Brown reminds the students about that all too important law of gravity: "Don't get too far forward, alright? Otherwise it's kissing-the-ice time."

Not Quite Hockey Gods

While most Harvard students are savoring that last hour or two of peaceful slumber at this time of morning, a handful of dedicated individuals bundle up twice a week and head across the river to the Bright Hockey Center. The adventurers are not varsity hockey gods or Olympic skaters. These daring few head for the frosty ice of Bright to slide around, but more often, to simply fall down--hard.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the Bright Hockey rink opens at the menacingly early hour of 7 a.m. for free skating. On Mondays and Wednesdays, free lessons for beginner to intermediate skaters are given from 8 to 8:30 a.m., and lessons for advanced beginners and advanced intermediates are held from 8:30 to 9 a.m.

"It's sort of an offbeat thing you can impress everybody with," says Danna Z. Harman '93, who takes both the beginner and advanced classes twice a week.

"It's an outlet," says Maria Daniels, who works in the Classics department. "I think recreation is as important an element in anyone's life as academic pursuits."

Before the first lessons of the morning begin, around 7:45 a.m., there are various levels of ability represented on the ice. A few skaters glide across the rink effortlessly--some of whom actually are hockey gods--while others inch along with their arms out at their sides, staying close to the walls.

"I just want to learn how to skate," says Guenter J. Meyer '92, lacing up his skates. Meyers says his roommate, a varsity hockey player, took him to Bright for an "open skate" during intersession, and the experience convinced him to take lessons.

But, Meyer laments, "I've skated five days of my life now and I still suck."

Others who started out like Meyer are now feeling a little more confident about their performance on the ice.

"If you don't make ice skating in itself stressful, it's wonderful. Just moving on the ice--it's a weird sensation," says Scott A. Hanna '92, a skating enthusiast who began his new hobby at Bright last year. Since then, Hanna has moved up through the ranks, graduating from both the beginner and the advanced classes.

Now that he is a full-fledged skater, Hanna still goes down to Bright most mornings, to hang out on the ice and hone his newly acquired skills, he says. Presently, he is working on speed, to help in his intramural hockey games.

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."

"But it's my week to be active," she says.

"Having your neural connections work this early in the morning" is extremely difficult, says Daniels.

And Meyer laughingly admits, "I've never seen 7:30."

Indeed, Hanna says a skater must be really committed to take a course--across the river--at 8 a.m. "The hours are a little daunting. [That] really trips up a lot of people," he says.

Brown says that for her, ice skating is a way to relax. "It's a pretty good way to start the day once I get down [to Bright]."

The solitude of the rink is one of the things she appreciates most, she says. "It's great to be skating there alone. It's almost like a spiritual experience because it's so dark and quiet. You can hear every step you take in the ice."

"It's definitely an escape," she says. "It doesn't feel like you're at Harvard."