2009 turned out to be a busy year, particularly with the addition of BBC’s Skate Nation in my timetable, which took up much of the first half of the year. I am overjoyed to be lucky enough again to be holidaying in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the next month. This time my trip will include teaching and examining a Level 2 ICP instructor course as well as my personal continued training in skate dance which I started to specialise in during 2009.
I have been in Rio just over a week and it has been an unusual start, mainly because for the last week it has been raining pretty constantly. It is unusual for it to rain so hard and for so long, although the odd tropical shower is really common. However, this didn’t deter me from skating and I’ve had some incredible stormy skates, enjoying the feeling of warm rain on my soaked skin. I am still wearing the same bearings and wheels which got trashed at the Lord Mayor’s Show in early November. I am desperate to put on my new ones, but I wanted to wait until it stopped raining so much. From the sound coming from my bearings, I’d say that was long overdue!

I have a slight frustration of not being 100% fit and some small injuries have reappeared since I’ve arrived in Brazil and went on a fairly intense holiday ritual of yoga, fast dog walking, skating and swimming – everyday. My groin injury which is souvenir from training in Spain in September is now asking me to slow down so the dog walking is much slower, I have stopped the yoga for now and the swimming continues when the sea and tide allows.

So far I haven’t taught any part of the instructor course yet, nor have I had any dance classes yet. However, I recently met up with my friend and fellow skate instructor Erika Cordeiro. Erika (like me) has been a full time skating instructor for over 10 years and our lives are very similar in that respect (we are also the same age). We always enjoy meeting up and talking about our work, skating in our locations and the various different challenges we both face and how we are overcoming them. She is a great source of inspiration for me (and she says the same of me) so the friendship is very symbiotic.

Erika hardly ever teaches outdoors here in Rio and she has reduced her workload of private lessons in response to her being employed more in private gyms where she uses aerobics/dance studio spaces for all her classes. Whenever I come to Rio it is their summer time and many of her classes stop for the holidays so I have not yet been able to watch her teaching in such a small space except for one kids class yesterday. Class handling in such a small space is obviously essential and like all things there are advantages and disadvantages to teaching in such a space. Advantages; gorgeous varnished, smooth surface (which isn’t damaged after years of use by skaters), a mirrored wall to help skaters see their body position, tight turns are learned very quickly as is manouverability and response tie to collisions and overall space awareness. Disadvantages; speed is restricted due to the space size so skills may only be developed at lower speed, less rolling time as with large groups skaters have to line up before they can try the exercise, increased potential for skater collisions. The class I observed had 6 children in it and I thought it worked very well and was an excellent class. However usually that class is 22 children, and I would really have liked to see that, as I have a belief that this would be a ‘no learning’ situation, and perhaps this belief of mine can be deconstructed by watching ‘the impossible be made possible’. This is what I learn when I travel for skate related things. I learn how others operate outside my box, because their locations (constraints and opportunities) are different from mine in the UK. This is fascinating to me.

Skating back from the class around the Lagoon is one of my favourite skates in the world. From which ever vantage point you look, the city is beautiful because of the huge mountains in the distance and the massive rocks that the city is built around. The combination of so much water, mountains, rocks and forest is truly spectacular and I never tire from this very urban but very nature-filled city. As Erika and I talked about our year since we last saw each other, I felt a deep sense of gratitude for my life, my work and the people I am close to both at work and in my personal life. I was smiling so much my face muscles started to ache. We finished off our skate with a visit to Erika’s favourite juice bar where we had an avocado and papaya smoothie. No words can describe how good that tasted after an hour hot skate. I’m staying in Ipanema with my best friend from school who lives here and Erika lives in Copacabana, just around the corner in skating terms, so we headed home along the gorgeous smooth cycle path of Ipanema. It was ‘exercise time’ (end of the afternoon) when all the Brazilians head out to the beach to walk, run, cycle, skate, swim, surf, play beach volleyball and football. This joie de vivre is another compelling quality about Rio and it brings all the generations together in the same space. I was surprised to see so few skaters but Erika says many people don’t skate outdoors here because of the sun, unpredictable rain storms, fear of robbery and availability of skating at their gyms. If I was Brazilian and lived here, nothing would keep me from being outdoors on my wheels, enojoying the sights and feeling fabulous while doing so.

The only downer to the week has been my friend Dani’s injuries she sustained last weekend while swimming with her dog in the sea. She was swept into a rock and bashed her knee which now has 6 stitches and she has small cuts and bruises all over. I am trying to be a good nurse, giving her shiatsu where she can be touched and trying to help her relax. It’s making me relax more too…