Anarchy on Ice
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

“I think the easiest way to do a stop.” Gabby gasped for air, misjudging the length of her sentence. “Is when you’re standing still.”
I paused, not sure how to respond to this assertion.
“Yes,” I finally said. “I guess you’re right.” She smiled triumphantly, skated off, and slammed into a wall.
It was another Sunday morning at the outdoor ice rink in Manhattan where I taught group figure skating lessons to children ages 5 through 8. As I stood in the center of the rink, breath steaming in the cold, some of the more serious girls practiced sit spins and toe loops in beige tights and skating skirts. My students, on the other hand, careened around the ice in snow pants and helmets in games of “bumper kids” and amused themselves by hitting each other, seeing who could blow the best snot rockets, and making their classmates cry.
This wasn’t my fault, or the rink’s, but rather a function of the sport itself. My group lessons were filled with dazed children swirling around on the ice, suffering from a kind of physical incontinence in which they’d lost all control of their legs. As a result, my class of 5-year-olds was a one-way ticket to anarchy – a lesson I learned the hard way every Sunday as I watched my eight proteges glide aimlessly around me, drifting in circles like so many free-floating amoebae. Unlike kids playing land sports such as soccer or baseball, these children did not have the option of doing what they were told. Their runaway limbs would have made it impossible for them to focus on the lesson even if they’d wanted to.
Luckily for them, they had no such desire. My students concentrated instead on making one another as miserable as possible, their feelings for their classmates just as cold as the ice that they fell on. Lei sought revenge against Jennifer for calling her “blind” by using her leg in a Tonya Harding-esque maneuver to trip Jennifer during backward one-foot glides. Gilbert, on the other hand, spent the majority of the lesson stuffing snow down Lily’s pants, while Gabby, a pacifist, amused herself by trying to freeze her own spit.
This wasn’t my first job teaching ice skating; during college I taught lessons in New Haven, Conn., to children looking for a sport to bridge the gap between soccer and lacrosse. In New Haven, parents dropped students off in station wagons and then sat in the stands in down-jacketed clumps, peering at me through the scratched Plexiglas as I tried to control their offspring. In Manhattan, my students arrived by taxi, not station wagon, and were accompanied by nannies or mothers who air-kissed them goodbye, snapped pictures of their pastel skating outfits, and then went inside to sip hot chocolate. But the two rinks did have one thing in common: they’d hired me to teach children to skate, but thanks to the children’s ages and the sharpness of their skates, my real job was damage control.
“Ramesh, stop skating into the hockey barrier,” I said during the first of my four back-to-back Friday group lessons, abandoning my class to scoop up Ramesh and carry him back to his classmates as he kicked his hockey-skated feet against my shins. “Stay here. No. Stop hitting Sulaiman. I don’t care if you hate him. Ramesh! Wait until you’re off the ice.” I have little doubt that Ramesh and Sulaiman would have ganged up against me instead of each other if they’d been tall enough to reach my stomach.
My all-girls class was a different story. Diana, Catalina, Liliana, Desiree, and Britannica loved me. They loved me so much that they had competitions to see who could love me more. This involved clinging to my leg, like hot pink-clad koala bears and nearly bursting into tears every time I suggested that we skate on our own instead of standing at the side of the rink in a fluffy, loving clump. In fact, we didn’t do much at all besides hug one another, but the girls’ mothers seemed content to stand at the edge of the rink taking pictures of our embraces, and I appreciated the affection. The difficulty lay in preventing the girls from using our hugs as opportunities for crime: Obsessed with the idea of drawing butterflies on the ice, they liked to sneak their hands into my pocket and steal the red marker that I used to draw heart-adorned obstacle courses for them to skate over.
One day at the end of the season, I pried myself away from their outstretched arms and watched my boys race and hit one another with mittened fists while my girls wobbled around holding hands. I couldn’t help but wonder, as my students bounced off the rink’s walls like snowsuited pinballs, what steps in my life had led me to that moment. While other recent college graduates I knew were studying for their Series 7 exams or preparing for graduate school, I was freezing my feet off at an outdoor rink, teaching backward swizzles to the children of New York’s elite. Was this what I wanted to be doing? My contemplation ended swiftly when I felt a small hand in my pocket and turned around to see Emily, a frisky 7-year-old with missing front teeth and a lilac pantsuit, skate away with my marker. “Emily, may I have my marker back?” I asked when I’d caught up with her.
“No.” “Please?”
“No.”
“What if we play ‘What time is it, Mr. Fox?'” I suggested, tempting her with her favorite skating game.
“No. I want to draw butterflies.” She uncapped the marker, swiftly dodging when I tried to grab it from her.
“What if I let you call me Mr. Stinky Fox?” Emily paused. She had been trying to get me to let her call me “stinky” for weeks.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.” She skated to the edge of the rink and turned back around to face me.
“What time is it, Mr. Stinky Fox?”
“Four o’clock.” She took four wobbly strides toward me, then stopped.
“What time is it, Mr. Stinky String Bean Fox?” Five more steps.
“What time is it, Mr. Stinky String Bean Fox Who’s So Stinky That You Can Put Him Through The Washing Machine And He Still Smells Bad?”
Three more strokes and she reached me, giggled, handed me the marker, then skated away. I slipped it back into my pocket and retreated inside for some hot chocolate, thinking to myself that perhaps this wasn’t all bad. My office was outside. My clients liked to hug me. And, if not my pride, at least I had my marker back.
WHERE TO SKATE
THE ICE RINK AT ROCKEFELLER CENTER Rockefeller Center between 49th and 50th streets, off of Fifth Avenue, 212-332-7654 (general information); 212-332-7655 (lesson or group reservations), www.therinkatrockcenter.com. Admission (per session): Adults, $13-$17, depending on date; children, $9-$12; skate rental, $8. Lessons: $30-$32 for a 30-minute private lesson.
WOLLMAN RINK Central Park, north of the park entrance at 59th Street and Sixth Avenue, 212-439-6900, www.wollmanskatingrink.com. Admission (per day): Adults, $8.50-$11; children (under 12), $4.25-$4.50; seniors (over 60), $4.25-$7.50; skate rental, $4.75. Lessons: $45 plus admission for a one-hour private lesson; prices for group lessons vary based on number of sessions and class level.
LASKER RINK North end of Central Park, near 110th Street and Lenox Avenue, 917-492-3856; www.wollmanskatingrink.com ;Admission (per day): Adults, $4.50; children, $2.25; seniors, $2.25; skate rental, $4.75. Lessons: $35 for a private lesson; prices for group lessons vary based on number of sessions and class level.
SKY RINK AT CHELSEA PIERS Pier 61 (23rd Street and the Hudson River), 212-336-6100, www.chelseapiers.com/sr01.htm. Admission (per day): Adults, $13.50 (10-pass, $110.00); children, $10 (10-pass, $90); skate rental, $6.25 (10-pass, $55). Lessons: Group lessons $23-$55 per class, depending on age and class level.
KATE WOLLMAN RINK (IN PROSPECT PARK, BROOKLYN) Prospect Park, near the Parkside Avenue/Ocean Avenue park entrance, 718-287-6413 (hours and weather information), 718-287-6215 (ice skating parties or rink rental), www.prospectpark.org. Admission (per day): Adults, $5; children (14 and under), $3; seniors, $3; skate rental, $5. Lessons: $180 for six 30-minute group lessons.