ESTERO — In the heat of a Southwest Florida summer, it's hard to keep your cool.

Especially when you fall down. Repeatedly.

But if it's all in the name of fun, education and athletic enjoyment, the concept of cool may not be especially important.

As part of a community outreach effort by the Florida Everblades Figure Skating Club, students from a Redlands Christian Migrant Association summer program in Immokalee are attending a learn to skate program at Germain Arena. The first clinic was held on Aug. 3; the second will be today. At the Aug. 3 event, 53 students from grades kindergarten to sixth took to the ice, coached by 14 teachers and volunteers from the skate club. A different group will attend today.

The majority of the Immokalee children had never skated on ice before, a state of inexperience that left them preoccupied with one activity: falling down. Even the bus ride from Immokalee to Estero was a nervous one, explained Latasha Radford, an RCMA kindergarten teaching assistant.

"They were anxious," Radford said. "They didn't know what to expect. And then, when they saw the hockey players (practicing in a different rink), they thought it was awesome."

"They were in awe," echoed Leticia Aveler, a volunteer with RCMA.

After an hour of off-ice instruction and time spent lacing up their skates, the students headed to the ice. They waited with excitement — and some trepidation — to step onto the rink.

"Stop saying you're going to fall," one student counseled another. "If you say you're going to fall, you'll fall."

Depending on their ages, the skaters were divided into small groups and led by an instructor who gave them an introduction to the basics. While many of the children initially clung to the rink's edge, they soon took tentative strides further out onto the ice.

The first thing to learn was how to march in place on skates, said teacher Jennifer Gentile. Gentile teaches the learn-to-skate program as a junior coach and has been skating for 10 years.

"It actually shows them how to use their balance," she said. "It's the only way you can learn how to skate. You have to march." Seven-year-old Carolyn Frazier described her first experience on the ice as being a combination of three things: "skating, practicing, mostly falling."

"My bottom hurts," she added.

Maribel Tomas, 9, had slightly better luck. The skate club's event was her first time on their ice, too, "but I'm getting good at it."

Other skate basics included learning how to swizzle, a back-and-forth, in-and-out foot maneuver, and playing red light, green light so the students would learn how to stop.

By the end of the lesson, some of the children had also learned how to perform a spiral, a move where one of their legs was lifted up behind them in a balance pose, and how to jump up briefly in the air on their skates.

And, yes, they learned the safe way to fall.

Teacher Kitty Whaley has been figure skating for 11 years; she taught a group of 9-year-olds. She was pleased with the progress of her small class.

"There's one girl in my group that's amazing," she said. "She's really good."

The learn-to-skate event is a culmination of about a year's worth of planning on the part of the club, said Robin Gentile, the skate club's past president. Part of the problem was finding a group who had their own transportation to the rink, Gentile said.

The skate club provides many paid learn-to-skate programs, but offering something as a community outreach is new to the club, Gentile explained.

After their lessons, the students learned the rules of free skate time — no making snowballs, to racing around and no tag – and enjoyed an opportunity to put into practice all they had just learned. Much of the earlier fear of falling disappeared as students skated, tumbled and just as easily got up to do it all again.

For friends Kaleigh Garza, Bianca Juarez and Donna Vega, all 12, and Clarissa Rios, 11, the verdict on skating was still out. On one hand, it was fun; on the other, it was scary.

"I kept falling a lot," Kaleigh said.

"It was scary a lot," Bianca said. "It feels like you're going to break your leg."

"I was freezing out there," Kaleigh added.

Many of the students, including Kaleigh and Clarissa had been roller skating before, an activity that may — or may not — have given them an advantage on the ice. Kaleigh felt it helped. Clarissa wasn't so sure.

"I'm good at that," Kaleigh said of roller skating.

"I'm not so good at that," Clarissa admitted.

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The thrill of ice skating has not diminished since childhood for Bob Mock, skating director at Center Ice Arena in Delmont and a former national ice dancing bronze medalist.

"It's the endless excitement of being in the middle of all this energy and creativity," he explained.

"I'm still there, and it's still exciting."

Mr. Mock, 59, of Turtle Creek, said he learned to skate as a boy at the outdoor Turtle Creek Community Skating Rink on Larimer Avenue, which was operated by his late father, Fred Mock.

While honing his skating skills, Bob Mock taught fellow students there, and taught and operated the ice resurfacing machines at the indoor Alpine Ice Arena in Swissvale and the Monroeville Mall Ice Palace.

It was at the Monroeville site that he met his mentor, George Lipchick of Plum, who connected him with a number of coaches and associations, and from whom he learned about the business end of skating, which would later prove invaluable.

While he primarily was a figure skater, he also was a speed skater and hockey player.

In his mid-teens, Mr. Mock began competing. In 1973, he and ice dancing partner Carolyn Fortuna Hawley finished third in the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships in Hartford, Conn.

"I grew up in a factory town, but through skating, a new world unfolded where I could perform and be creative and travel. It was the most amazing opportunity," he said.

In 1975 at age 25, an on-ice accident caused him to re-evaluate his future in the sport.

"I either was skated out, or I accepted the reality it was time to move on and give back to skating," he said.

He said his love of skating is boundless.

"There is an absolute joy of developing athletes and guiding them through the sport and into success," he said of his passion for coaching.

In 1980, Mr. Mock co-founded (and edited for the next 20 years) the monthly "American Skating World," the first skating publication in the country to provide a public forum on the sport.

At the same time, he coached at Monroeville Mall -- managing the rink its last five years, until it closed in 1984 during a national recession.

Out of work, he started skating schools at Rostraver Ice Garden, Kirk S. Nevin Ice Arena in Greensburg and Connellsville Ice Mine.

In 1987, he coached U.S. National Junior Ice Dance champions Jeffrey and Jennifer Benz of Export.

In 1991-1993, he was named a Top 26 instructor by the Ice Skating Institute of America.

He coached U.S. national juvenile dance champions David and Melissa Gratta of Belle Vernon in 1992, and eighth-ranked Senior Ice Dance team of Jason and Shannon Simon of Scott in 1999.

"My job is to take something really hard and make it look very easy so someone will say, 'I can do that,' " he said of coaching at every level.

"The challenge is finding people who have the focus and internal drive when there are so many other activities today that they can be involved in," he said.

Over the past 25 years, his regional, sectional, national and international competitors led him to events throughout the United States and beyond, such as the Goodwill Games in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Junior World Championships in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina; and the Blue Swords in Chemnitz, Germany.

He served as chair of the U.S. Figure Skating Association, Coaches Committee, 1992-95, and president of the Professional Skaters Association, 1994-98.

In 2009, he was named recipient of the Jimmy Disbrow Award for, among other qualities, being "an inspiration to others" and one who "unites the skating community."

A typical weekday finds him at the Center Ice Arena from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., coaching and managing the facility's 23-instructor skating school.

His office overlooks the one rink, of three rinks, that is used primarily for skating lessons "so I can watch my skaters all day long and run out onto the ice if I have to."

His daily attire of parka and hat, despite a room-temperature office, enables him to run "out on the ice anytime," he said.

Mr. Mock said what makes a champion "is the 'X' factor of the right combination of physical ability and the mental toughness."

To those aspiring to such heights, or simply recreational skaters, he offers this advice:

"Everyone experiences skating in their own way. Set your goals and let your motivation and desire and love of skating take you as far as you can go. That is how you measure success."

First published on July 29, 2010 at 5:43 am

China's golden Olympic figure skating pair Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, pictured, fell in love on the ice and next month, they will throw a long-delayed wedding party on ice, with several of the sport's biggest stars expected to attend.

AFP - China's golden Olympic figure skating pair Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo fell in love on the ice. Next month, they will throw a long-delayed wedding party on ice, with several of the sport's biggest stars.

Shen and Zhao capped a 18-year storybook partnership with China's first Olympic figure skating title in Vancouver in February. They then announced their retirement from the sport, and said they wanted to start a family.

Though they have been officially husband and wife since 2007, when they won a third world title, they never threw a wedding celebration.

That party will take place along with a gala performance in a Beijing gymnasium on September 4.

"Artistry on Ice" will feature Russia's Olympic champions Yevgeny Plushenko and Alexei Yagudin, three-time US men's champion Johnny Weir and two-time Japanese women's world champion Mao Asada.

"Xue and I have always wanted to marry on the ice. It's her dream, and now we have an opportunity," Zhao was quoted as saying in the Global Times on Thursday.

"I hope we can give something back to the skating community now that we are retired," he said. For every ticket sold, 10 yuan (1.50 dollars) will be donated to skating training programmes.