Oh, that's really great! I was terrified when I first went on a patch session, even when it was actual figure patches and I had my own space on the ice. To be honest, I'd be fairly uncomfortable going on a patch session now, with lots of new people!
I've never actually been that scared by the prospect of going on a patch session as they're mostly populated by girls under 15, many not even close to that age, and, as a male in his late 20s, I'm not that worried about being judged by them in the slightest. From a practical point, they're a bit speedy, but I don't exactly crawl around myself!
I can avoid them if I need to as long as I'm keeping an eye on the rink.
The intimidation factor for me really stepped up a level when the senior free skater guy and the senior ice dance guy started using the same session (they started using it not long after I had so I'd only just started settling in when they joined in). With the girls I can always rationalise any judgement they make by remembering that they've lived a different life to mine, got started at the rink young and the fact they're female somehow distances their learning experience from my own, even though it's likely no different in reality.
Even though the story for the senior guys is identical to the girls, I feel that somehow it is different because I'm actually not that much older than any of them (compared to the girls where I'm frequently over 10 years older), but here I am, plodding away at the basics and my single jumps when they're so much further ahead. I know that they've been doing it for literally 15-20 odd years and I'm never reaching their standard no matter how much I'd like to (something I knew would be the case before I even started skating and I've never deluded myself otherwise!), but I somehow feel like they would judge me by the standards of the male skater of their own age. Which is insane to think, they obviously know I'm learning as an adult and can't expect me to be doing what they do, but I think I suffer from the feeling that as a guy I want to feel accepted and appreciated as a male skater by the other male skaters and I worry about the standards being applied, even though it's insane to think they'd use the same metre stick. And all this is exactly why it meant so much to me that one of them told me they both were impressed I was putting some speed behind my jumps even though I'm learning as an adult with less "lives" to burn if I crash out and break something.
It's ironic that I even worry about all this really because I'm always super excited to see other male learners on the ice when I'm watching the new intakes to the learn to skate lessons, I'm never judgemental about their ability or speed of learning, just excited that they're there and I'm sure the senior male skaters feel similar about me. I guess I was just afraid the male seniors would be more snobby or something?
Well, if I didn't already feel better about my patch participation then writing all this has certainly been very cathartic!
That sounds so nice! I can't wait until I get good enough to skate with other skaters outside of public sessions.
My rink always exaggerates how good you need to be to go on patch, but their primary interest is that people are able to keep an eye on what's going on around them and can move out of the way if they need to - being able to stop reasonably is quite desirable too, but I'm mostly doing stuff going backwards so I don't even need to know a proper stop (my stops are all terrible) when I can just dig my toe picks in hard to skid to a stop
(my coach has described this as her pet hate!
) The rink's just trying to create an environment that minimises collisions so they don't have accidents all the time. You just need some confidence in your skating skills and remember to rink hug often before choosing your space or moment wisely and patch is fine for the most part.
