from SkatefreshAsha on 24 Jan 2022
Tony learned to skate with me when he was in his mid 60s. He came on a Skatefresh Paris Trip in around 2007. He stopped skating at 70 and had a 13 year break. He returned in Oct 2021 saying he missed skating and wanted to get back into it as he was planning a 2022 trip to Miami to waterski and skate in the sunshine. Today was Tonys funeral (24th January 2022)I shall miss his humour, his nothing is impossible attitude and his positivity. It was a privilege to spend time with him and I enjoyed watching passers-by stop in their tracks and marvel. It just takes one person to plant a new idea in someones head. Every time I taught Tony Id have a new student (over the age of 50) who finally realised they werent too old to learn #howtoskate. Tony also invented an ingenious simple solution to helping him bend his knees so that his weight was in the balls of his feet and never on his heels. He taped a metal nut into the heel area of this skate so that if he shifted his weight back into his heels, hed know it immediately. He never fell backwards so he concluded that it worked. Genius!Life is precious. We will never do all the things we hope and plan to. May we all be skating into our 80s and making adventurous plans. Music: Touching moment by Bensound.comVideo @skaterstu_brightonskate