C
Chris
Guest
I thought since we're lacking content due to starting yesterday, i'd post another experience i had with Willow here.
This time, its about a time we went ice skating.
I first went ice skating on my 14th birthday (I'd always wanted to try it, and the rink happened to be opposite where we had our meal/went to the cinema) - Willow was with me, woo. So my parents took us, it was in the evening, so it was a 'disco' kind of session (pitch black darkness, loud music, disco lights... possibly the best learning conditions ever![/sarcasm]) I wasn't very good, i think Willow had been a few times before (or at least once) and had a look of 'told you so' all over her face if i remember correctly - and she was right. It is/was harder than it looked. We didn't stay the full session since it was busy, but i really enjoyed it, and went 3 more times over the course of my 'birthday weekend'. Over the next couple years i went fairly often until i stopped going due to getting some trouble from some.. erm.. well, plainly put, chavs. I left it about a year, and since then i've been twice - once with another friend to see if i could still do it, and once with Willow.
Willow has always wanted to be able to ice skate and we happened to be near the rink one night and though we'd give it a try since i had my skates in the car. It was another disco session, so we knew it would be busy and fairly crap conditions for someone as inconfident as Willow on the ice (in terms of skating). I think we both lost our enthusiasm by the time we'd changed into our skates. Willow could hardly walk on the normal surface, nevermind getting mobile on the ice. I tried to help as much i could, since i'm a competent skater, but theres only so much you can do. After about 20 minutes, it was starting to become a bit.. I don't know; dull? Willow finds skating and that kind of thing particularly hard due to her dyspraxia, which is understandable. So the discomfort brought by the inability to remove herself from the situation by not being able to skate off the ice started to make her panic. The loud music, the flashing lights, all that were really starting to get to her. She wasn't really responsive when i was asking her if she wanted to get off the ice, so i just helped her off and we sat down for a few minutes and talked (or i tried to get her to talk). She was reluctant to say she wanted to go, because she knows how much i enjoy skating (bless her), but i decided we should just go, I didn't really want to be there either, the disco sessions arent really all that enjoyable - full of the wrong company. We left and she gradually felt better. Next morning she was fine.
It's definite that the best course of action to stop somebody panicking is to completely remove them from the situation thats causing the discomfort. I've had numerous other experiences with Willow where this has been the case. Might post a couple more in here at some point.
~Chris.
This time, its about a time we went ice skating.
I first went ice skating on my 14th birthday (I'd always wanted to try it, and the rink happened to be opposite where we had our meal/went to the cinema) - Willow was with me, woo. So my parents took us, it was in the evening, so it was a 'disco' kind of session (pitch black darkness, loud music, disco lights... possibly the best learning conditions ever![/sarcasm]) I wasn't very good, i think Willow had been a few times before (or at least once) and had a look of 'told you so' all over her face if i remember correctly - and she was right. It is/was harder than it looked. We didn't stay the full session since it was busy, but i really enjoyed it, and went 3 more times over the course of my 'birthday weekend'. Over the next couple years i went fairly often until i stopped going due to getting some trouble from some.. erm.. well, plainly put, chavs. I left it about a year, and since then i've been twice - once with another friend to see if i could still do it, and once with Willow.
Willow has always wanted to be able to ice skate and we happened to be near the rink one night and though we'd give it a try since i had my skates in the car. It was another disco session, so we knew it would be busy and fairly crap conditions for someone as inconfident as Willow on the ice (in terms of skating). I think we both lost our enthusiasm by the time we'd changed into our skates. Willow could hardly walk on the normal surface, nevermind getting mobile on the ice. I tried to help as much i could, since i'm a competent skater, but theres only so much you can do. After about 20 minutes, it was starting to become a bit.. I don't know; dull? Willow finds skating and that kind of thing particularly hard due to her dyspraxia, which is understandable. So the discomfort brought by the inability to remove herself from the situation by not being able to skate off the ice started to make her panic. The loud music, the flashing lights, all that were really starting to get to her. She wasn't really responsive when i was asking her if she wanted to get off the ice, so i just helped her off and we sat down for a few minutes and talked (or i tried to get her to talk). She was reluctant to say she wanted to go, because she knows how much i enjoy skating (bless her), but i decided we should just go, I didn't really want to be there either, the disco sessions arent really all that enjoyable - full of the wrong company. We left and she gradually felt better. Next morning she was fine.
It's definite that the best course of action to stop somebody panicking is to completely remove them from the situation thats causing the discomfort. I've had numerous other experiences with Willow where this has been the case. Might post a couple more in here at some point.
~Chris.