Reminds me of this fella I used to volunteer with asking a fellow volunteer one day. Talking about interests, she mentioned how she almost entered the Olympics some years prior as a figure skater but busted her ankle and that was that.
So what does dinglebert do? He suggests going to Rockefeller Center after telling her he was never that good and hadn't skated since he was a kid.
So he convinces me to go with him a few days before to practice so he won't look like a total idiot on the ice even though I told him it won't matter, because she hadn't skated in a while either.. After scraping up ice with our sideways ankles, he got better after a couple hours.
So they go that weekend, and he amazes her by hopping on the ice and skating away like he's been, well, doing this. She even mentioned how impressive he was, considering how he told her he was an amateur who hadn't skated in years. After a bit, she got past her rustiness and was doing circles around him.
So I nearly smack him upside the head when he told me, asking him if he couldn't ease it a bit, like be a little awkward and slow instead of zipping away once through the gate.
The moral of the story? Don't use flashing neon lights to show you're faking it when you enter the rink for the 'first time.'