“The ice is fresh, so it’s going to be extra-slippy,” warned Maria Filippov as I took my first tentative steps onto the newly-opened Selfridges Ice Rink.
Hardly music to the ears of someone who needed help getting the skates on their feet.
“Have you ever used these kind of skates before?” she asked me.
“I don’t know, what’s the difference between this type and any others?”
“Oh not much, just that there’s nothing on the front of the boot, so you it’s harder to stop yourself.”
Brilliant.
Still, it’s not every day you get a masterclass from a performer at the top of their profession, so I had no choice but to throw myself into it with full gusto.
CAREFUL NOW! MM’s Paddy Dinham on the ice with Maria Filippov
Maria, 40, is a former Bulgarian champion and competed at 1991 World Figure Skating Championships.
She has been a part of Dancing on Ice since its second series in 2007 and will once again star in the show’s final edition, due to air in the new year.
The likes of Duncan James, Gareth Gates and Shayne Ward have all had the pleasure of skating with her, and now it was my turn.
When you take to the ice for the first time in a while you are instantly plunged back to a toddler-like state, unable to maintain a steady balance for more than a few steps without mummy or daddy holding your hand.
Fortunately, it was clear that Maria had dealt with my level of clumsiness before and having her palm to cling to meant I soon making big boy steps.
Having regained my ice legs it was time to begin what I had really come here for: a basic introduction to tricks.
First, a simple dip. Straighten the arms, come down, come back up. Easy, right?
Wrong. Come up too quickly and your body weight goes backwards and your coccyx is ice fodder.
Maria swooped in for the first of umpteen times to save me from a bruising.
Having corrected that slight flaw and truly mastered the move it was time to move onto ‘lemons’ – moving your skates inwards and outwards to create beautiful figures of eight in the ice.
As a man I have a trained instinct that my legs drifting further apart on a skiddy surface is a danger to my well-being, so it took a few attempts to overcome this mental barrier.
Like the dips though, I quickly nailed it and my meteoric rise to ice dancing super-stardom was starting to take shape.
“Okay, so now we’re going to try going backwards.”
Ah, maybe not.
The trick to going backwards like a pro is to use the inside of the skate and make small, sideways steps.
The trick to going backwards like me is using the wall to give yourself momentum and making your legs look like they are doing as they have been instructed.
We finished with slaloming, which was made a lot easier by several years skiing experience and after the lesson I was eager to talk to Maria about, among other things, my performance.
Well, I don’t mean to brag but her response was: “You had no fear, great balance so I was really impressed; you were the best of the day.”
Any delusions of how good I actually was were soon put to bed when she and her fellow Dancing on Ice star Matt Evers treated the audience a breath-taking three minute performance.
A word of praise must go to Selfridges for the layout of the rink and the way in which its launch was run.
The domed tent tucked away in a corner of the Trafford Centre may not look like much from the outside but the interior decoration was a beautiful blend of sophistication and spirit.
Everything was designed perfectly to a tee: the giant bauble-discoballs hanging over the rink, the string quartet reciting carols, the retro-skates boxed under the Christmas trees like presents.
I’m usually one who detests premature holiday celebrations but all of this, combined with the complimentary wine and mince pies, made it impossible not to feel like you had just been in a head-on collision with Santa’s sleigh and the Coca-Cola truck.
The only challenge now is keeping up this Christmas spirit for more than a month.
Image courtesy of Dave Nelson and Ben Blackall, with thanks
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