Well after a break for a couple of weeks I thought I should post an update.
I went for another 'Learn to play' Ice Hockey session a couple of weeks ago, and it totally killed my confidence. For the warm up, we had to skate around the 5 face of circles (yep, so far so good), and then pivot between each pair and change direction (so, forwards around one, then pivot, skate backwards around the next, pivot, skate forwards etc). I was totally incapable of skating backwards around them (even my backwards lemons wouldn't have done the job), and they wanted crossovers to boot, and so I just smiled and skated forwards around the lot, still slower than anyone else.
Next came drills, and again, it was a confidence killer. They set out 3 cones, and we had to race to each cone, hockey stop, back to the line, on to the next cone, stop, and so on. The first to the pile of pucks at the end became the attacker, and the loser was the defender. I looked at the rec team player next to me, and instantly knew it was futile. And when he inevitably beat me, I had no chance in defence. I truly wondered what the hell I was doing even being there. Then at the scrimmage in the end (15 mins of scrimmage, about 3 minutes of ice time), I felt like I'd just wasted my time.
However, after chatting to the other guys, I had the usual supportive comments and felt a little better, but I am seriously wondering whether to hold off of returning until my skill set is a little higher.
I have now passed my NISA level 2, and on the level three am battling with slaloms, backwards 'C' cuts, moving turns (transitions) etc. Still loving it, still enjoying chatting with others in my class, and hope some day that I may improve.
My son has now pretty much mastered hockey stops, and does his best to intimidate me on the ice at every opportunity, but I still have the weight advantage ;-)