I used to dream about figure skating when I was a kid.

That effortless elegance gliding across the ice as if gravity had loosened its grip — felt like something forever out of reach.

It wasn’t until I grew up that I realized many things we think are “impossible” aren’t actually locked. The door is open. Stepping inside is easy.

Letting it reach your heart is not. Once you’re in, everything becomes its own discipline.

Lacing skates properly. Choosing the right boots. Understanding the curve of the blade. No one hands you a clean, complete system. You gather fragments from different people, listen to your own body, and slowly stitch together a method that works for you.

Ironically, when you finally become skilled, those early clumsy days start to fade from memory, almost as if they never mattered. But that phase is the most precious part.

Beginners don’t quit see because they lack perseverance. They quit because, in the space between true ignorance and raw fear, no one can quite understand how lonely it feels.

When I first stepped onto the ice, simply standing on one foot felt like combat. Yet instructors would casually ask me to do things they considered “simple.” And I’d quietly wonder: Simple… according to whom?

Only later did I understand, nothing is simple until you’ve already mastered the complexity beneath it.

Beginners are the most awkward, the most sensitive, and the most likely to magnify fear. Falling on the ice isn’t what hurts most. What hurts is falling inside confusion that no one seems to recognize.

Looking back now, I realize this: people don’t give up because the work is too hard. They give up because, walking in the dark, they believe they’re the only idiot who can’t see.

But they’re not.

Every expert has walked that path, they’ve just forgotten what it felt like.



—— XC Scribbles · 拾捌 XVIII ⛸