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“Okay, Mettaton, let’s try that again. Point your toes outward, then inward. But don’t roll your ankles.”
“I’m trying!” Mettaton said. He was pretty frustrated by this point. He’d thought figure skating would be easy for him of all people to learn. But even after several weekly lessons, he was still having trouble doing just a forward swizzle. “I can’t get myself to move!” He shoved one of his feet forward and nearly fell.
Mettaton’s coach, Bridget, caught him and held him upright. “Mettaton, it’s okay. You’re not the first person to have trouble with this.”
“That’s exactly the problem! I’m not anyone else. I’m Mettaton, and I should be amazing at this already.”
Bridget suppressed a smile. “I’m afraid that’s not how this works. You have to learn just like everyone else.”
Mettaton huffed.
“Well, do you want to continue?”
“I’m not leaving today until I get this right.”
“You know I’ll have to charge extra…”
“That’s not a problem.”
Bridget laughed. “Of course it isn’t. Well, you’re my last lesson of the day. I suppose if you want to go longer, you can, but I’m going to have to put my foot down sometime.”
“I’ll have it before then,” Mettaton said confidently.
It took another half-hour, and several breaks…
“I think I just did it!” Mettaton cried, standing on the ice with his toes together. He looked behind him and saw trails in the shape of an oval behind him.
“That’s great! Think you can replicate it?”
“I think… I think I figured it out!” Mettaton closed his eyes, turned his feet outward, and pushed. “Yes! I did it again!”
“Awesome!” Bridget clapped as she watched Mettaton start to swizzle his way across the rink. “Why don’t you keep doing that for a while to make sure you’ve got the hang of it? Then we can try backwards skating.”
“I’ve got it fine, let’s just do the backwards skating now!” Mettaton said.
“I think it’d be better if you kept practicing this.”
“I’m paying you, you know.”
“Yes, because I’m the professional and I know what I’m doing.”
“Fine,” Mettaton sighed. For the rest of his time on the ice, he practiced the forward swizzles, Bridget skating beside him and occasionally fixing his posture or giving him tips on how to perform them more smoothly.
“I think I’m going to have to call it now, Mettaton,” she said eventually. “Our time on the ice is up. If you want, you should come back here during free skate hours and practice more.”
“Do you think backwards skating will be easier now that I’ve got forward skating down?” Mettaton asked hopefully as they stepped off the ice.
“Maybe. The swizzles, at least, probably—it’s a similar movement as the forward ones. But you need to get down moving backwards at all first.”
“I don’t understand why this is so hard for me. I’m good at everything… or at least I’m supposed to be.” Mettaton sat on the bench in the warm front room and started removing his skates.
“You’re a cool guy, Mettaton, but I think you’re putting too much pressure on yourself. Hold yourself to the same standard as everyone else.”
“I do.”
“I mean hold yourself to the standards they set for themselves, not the ones you set for them.”
“Ugh.” Mettaton refused to look at her as he scrubbed the ice bits off the blades of his skates.
Bridget suppressed a smile again. “Hey, maybe it took you a while to get the hang of some of these things, but now you’ve got a better idea of how to move on the ice. Things may be a little easier from now on. Keep at it, and we’ll get you ready for competitions in no time.”
Mettaton sighed. “Well… thank you, Bridget. I know I’m not the easiest person to put up with,” he admitted. “I appreciate your patience.”
“Hey, you’re not so bad.”
Mettaton slung his skating bag over his shoulder. “See you next week?”
“Sure thing.”
Mettaton left the rink that day feeling conflicted. He still thought he should be better at this than everyone else, but thinking that way, and then struggling so much… all it did was make him angry. Maybe Bridget was right. Maybe it was better if he didn’t hold himself (and everyone else) to such a high standard. After all, he’d started off his career just like everyone else—a nobody. There wasn’t any reason he wouldn’t start out the same way with any other project he undertook.
Well, he’d just keep working hard, and he’d be a somebody in figure skating, just like he was a somebody on the stage.