I can skate, both roller and ice, as long as I don't need to stop. I can move and keep my balance under my own power, but stopping has generally involved steering myself towards a wall and grabbing hold. If I have a lot of room I can stop using the dragging one foot method. Never was able to do the hockey stop on ice skates and I haven't rollerskated since I was a kid. Never tried rollerblading.

Tried to learn how to skateboard as a teenager and best I managed was staying on while the dog pulled me when I took him for a walk (which he absolutely loved since he could run. Without the skateboard it was me constantly fighting to keep him reined in.)

Like, can you ride a bike? Do a cartwheel? Catch, throw, hit a ball? Jump rope? Skate?

I can bike. I can skate a little, but only forwards, and no fancy footwork. I used to be a kickass softball player, but my throwing arm is for shit these days. I've never been able to do a cartwheel.

I wanna learn how to skateboard. Dancing? I'm like Jesse, I like to dance, I'm okay at it, but I don't do any formal stuff. Alibelle is a ballroom dancer though and I'd love to learn.

The formal lessons I had as a kid were ballet, tap and jazz. I took ballet FOREVER and was decent. I sucked at jazz because I had a hard time with not being turned out. Tap was too noisy and not enough arm stuff.

Heh. All the skills I learned as a child were, for the most part, because I saw someone else either do them, or do them poorly.

For example- I was a little too young for my waterbabies class, but mom needed one time convienient, so we took that one. The first day I screamed so loud and so much, even after being dunked that people were asking mom how long I could do that.

Next day, some other little kid was scared and I told him it was easy, held my breath and went under.

Getting my training wheels off my bike was pretty much the same. I screamed bloody murder until some little boy down the street was riding two wheeled, so I told dad to take mine off.

I can't hit with anything smaller than a tennis racket, and I can't throw anything other than a football. I have no depth perception. I can however drive a tackling dummy a considerable distance for my size.

Can you play any instrument? Hold a tune when singing?

No and no. I barely managed to croak out "Mary Had A Little Lamb" on the recorder in grade school and trying to read music mystified me. I wish I could sing, but I sadly can't.

how many people can dance, and what styles do you do well?

Can't dance. At all. Chronic case of white boy-itis.

A new question: how many people can dance, and what styles do you do well? I've just started taking salsa and swing lessons, and I think I'm picking them up pretty well. And it's so much fun!

I did some ballroom and swing in college, and enjoyed it, though I'm sure most of my memory of it is gone by now. Wouldn't mind picking it up again if I had a partner, though. I also did modern dance all through my childhood, though I SUCKED at it.

Outside of school, I learnt piano, singing, and steel drums. I learnt sewing, tennis, chemistry experiments, and crochet.

In school they taught us how to cook, farm, play recorder, field hockey, track and field and basic gymnastics.

Such a well-rounded girl am I.

DJ, I was just going to say that there seems to be two separate skill sets of childhood. What we were taught explicitly (dance lessons, music lessons etc) and what we learned by a novice/expert relationship with other kids not necessarily with adults. And you've succinctly described an aspect of the latter.

Every thursday in elementary school, PE was dance. Or if the weather sucked too much outside. Square dance, mainly. I don't remember the rest. It was CRUEL CRUEL TORTURE. I hated thursdays. That dread lasted years past elementary school. And no, I've never learned any dance since. Though that is more my general horror at group instruction than elementary trauma.

Like, can you ride a bike? Do a cartwheel? Catch, throw, hit a ball? Jump rope? Skate? Any other skill I didn't mention?

yes, yes*, yes, yes, eys, yes, yes. can't think of any.

*in my childhood, I could do cartwheels. However, I have not attempted a cartwheel since the gymnastics unit in high school, so I can't say for sure.