I remember the teacher saying at one point "since you're all gymnasts, none of you should have trouble with the arm strength required for this..." but like... the class was a general class. Yes, some of the people in the class were on the gymnastics team, because getting class credit for basically an extra practice session and an easy A appealed, but the class was supposed to be open to complete beginners. It only struck me much later that the instructor should have known what to do with a complete beginner, and that part of that "beginner"ness was that I had noodle arms.

Ah, I can see what you mean in terms of the difference of blade to ice vs. wheel to concrete and how it works. (Building up momentum to help push through things like uneven patches also explains both the times I succeeded in at least moving forward vs. the times I was stuck shuffling in place.)