A friend tells me that he habitually looks at the ground while walking. I usually look up and around. The trade-off seems to be between the rate at which you run into people and poles, versus the rate of tripping over footpath cracks and small dogs.
Since the start of this week, though, I have spent nearly all my walking time looking at the ground.
Don’t worry, I haven’t turned into an introverted mathematician. Rather, I’m dreaming of a day I can use my inline skates as a form of transport. In anticipation of that day, I’m inspecting the condition of the pavement along my normal walking routes.
It’s surprising how easy it was to change my habits. Today, I kept forgetting to look up and around me while I walked. I’ve become accustomed to seeing pavement rush by underneath my black Mary Janes.
One day, I hope to see the pavement pass by even faster. One day, I will feel confident skating in the real world.
I’ve booked myself in for inline hockey lessons next week. My rationale? There’s nothing like fear of letting the team down to motivate me to learn how to turn and stop in a hurry.
Phwoarrrrr!
Inline hockey, wow. I’m not sure if that will teach you how to stop ‘properly’. Back when I used to play, my preferred method of stopping quickly was to enlist the assistance of another player, preferrably one from the other team. It was a very ‘newton’s cradle’ sort of thing really. You will learn how to accelerate and turn quickly though.
I generally prefer skating on the road to the footpath. Anywhere where there is a bike path is usually ok. Trouble with people is that they have no concept of how much it might hurt if an inline skater travelling at speed were to hit them. Cars on the other hand, tend to try to avoid any collision with anything at all costs.