Music

On Monday, my coach brought me some music to listen to and pick something out for my program. It's a CD of Spanish guitar music, and I love it. Hopefully we can piece something good together that will work.

What did I do at practice on Monday? After a bit of a warmup with stroking and power pulls and two-foot turns, etc. I did some 3-turns down the line and took a quick look at my new Jr. Bronze Skills patterns. After a lot of searching I finally found them on the Skate Canada website, so I printed them out. But, it was too crowded to have my nose buried in a sheet of paper while skating around so I will try them another time.

As usual I put a large fraction of my session into spins. I have quite a number of them to practice now! The upright, sit, and camel version on both feet makes six. Then there are combinations and variations and the occasional layback or attitude making quite a significant number of spins that I like to practice. And now I have my new flying camel to add to the mix! I tried to focus on the ones that we were experimenting with for my program. Sit-broken leg is not too bad as long as I don't screw up the entry (sometimes my free blade scrapes the ice). I did one of them that felt really good and solid and then I saw the trace and it had traveled badly, sigh. It hadn't even felt like it was traveling! Then I experimented with camel-layback-backsit, and it is a mess. The layback is hard to centre, and I get up onto my toe, yuck. If I can get it down this will be a cool, and probably less common, combination, but it might be wise to pick something I can actually do well. If I can get a bunch of time to practice it, we'll see where it goes.

I always get in a few spirals and leg pulls before I get to camel spins for a bit of a stretch, and they were alright. I tried my catchfoot spiral again, but my balance gets messed up and my free arm ends up sort of desperately reaching out to the side which must look ridiculous. I tried doing something with it like bringing the hand up to my face or taking the hand back to my free knee, but it threw my balance off. This is going to take some practice! I tried a leg pull going backward but was too frazzled trying to watch for traffic that it didn't go so well. Will have to wait until Friday.

After that I started working on jumps but I felt a sharp pain in my left knee during the takeoff of a Salchow. I've had issues with my knees for years and it's exactly this type of thing that sets them off, but this time it didn't just shake off right away. I went and sat on the bench for a minute and it felt ok so we went ahead with my lesson, but we focused on elements that keep the weight on my right foot like backspins, loops, and flips. I had one terrific backspin and my coach was really impressed with the newfound height in the free leg. Unfortunately I couldn't repeat it but that's the way with skating, sometimes you do something cool and you don't know how you pulled it off! For loops she had me try doing 4 in a row after I mentioned having accomplished this the other day. My first attempt was ok but she says not to jump again immediately after landing, but hold the landing edge for a few moments before doing the next one. And to try making those edges less curvy, haha. I did better the next time but the upper body was a bit wild, so that's something to aim for improving. For my flip it was the same old story about needing to check the 3-turn better, and a new bit of advice about keeping my arms still for longer. I tend to sort of pull them in as I initiate the jump, instead of waiting until I have already left the ice. That's going to take some time to get into that new habit!

In our group lesson we ran through our number for the Christmas show again. It was not too shabby. I have to remember to ask on Friday what I am supposed to wear to it. I am guessing I shouldn't wear my silly elf hat :)

Channeling Bobby Orr

I was so tired on Sunday that I didn't blog after my hockey game! We lost our game and were quite badly outplayed, but it was very memorable for me because I scored a goal! When I played back in the day I might have had a garbage goal or two, but this one was pretty. My teammate sent me a nice pass as we were breaking out of our zone and somehow there were only two defenders between me and the goal. They didn't challenge me at all. Somehow I managed to hang on to the puck and fire off a wrist shot from the slot. I wasn't aiming for any place in particular just generally toward the goal on an angle, but it beat the goalie on the opposite side. Whee! Good thing those defenders just stood and watched :) I hope to practice this type of thing more frequently.

Beware of Flying Camels

Yesterday was my last Saturday practice of the year. It was very eventful!

My coach had a good idea. I have a 1/2 hour timeslot each week to practice Skills, but she has other students during that time. Another coach teaches two students who are at my level in that timeslot, so my coach suggested that I join them and then we can learn the next level together in a group lesson. Everybody wins! I think that usually you're not supposed to get lessons from another coach once you have your own coach, but my own coach suggested the whole arrangement so if she is happy, I am happy. Group lessons are cheaper and my coach admits that she's not super excited about teaching skills anyway.

• Skating Skills: So we started in on learning the Junior Bronze Skills level. One of the girls was away so it was just two of us. The pattern we learned is a series of crossovers around two hockey circles that get progressively faster. So the first two pushes are held for a count of four, the next four held for a count of two, then the last eight are one count each. After going around one circle forwards, we switch to the other circle and go backwards. The transition is just a Mohawk but I get going very fast and it's scary! The backward circles aren't quite crossovers though. They are a push-and-lift, and underpush instead of push-and-crossover. The feel a bit like figures for the four-count hold, but the others just feel like weird crossovers. Anyway the pattern goes backward in each direction and then one more transition back to forwards for the other forwards circle. After that, two steps takes you toward the blue line and then a T-stop is supposed to end the whole thing. These are not easy and by this point I am going ridiculously fast so I'm going to have to practice those.
• CanSkate: It was our last lesson of the year and I got into the spirit with a cheesy elf hat from the dollar store. I also got out my lightbulb earrings and necklace. The kids loved them! All my kids got their badges for the next level. I think I will kinda miss them...sniff sniff. The coaches gave me a Christmas card and a chocolate shaped like a skate as a thank-you for helping out in the lessons :)
• Group lesson: More practice for the Christmas show. We didn't do too badly. Still need to pick a good spin and jump....eh. I noticed that like 5 other girls did flips so I changed it to my new Sal-toe combination like my coach suggested.
  
• Spin lesson

1. Backsits- I asked to work on these because they are just not there for me anymore. My coach says it's a matter of a 'snap and square'. Snap into the the spin and square up the body position. She says I've got the hang of that generally, I think it's still a matter of balance or something.
2. Sit-change-sit - the next natural thing to work on after backsits. I dunno, I used to be able to do this spin a couple of months ago but it's just not working for me right now. The change is tough, it's important to step down with the weight overtop of the new foot, and not with it out to the side. Meh.
   
3. Back camel - my coach was really into the backspins today. She said that you go into a back camel the same way as the other backspins. But unlike the other backspins, the free leg doesn't come in toard the midline of the body, so it is much harder to really get the spin going. My first attempt was extremely poor, but my second attempt was surprisingly good. I might have pulled off two revolutions. Clearly more practice is needed. I have only tried these a couple of times before, it was fun to learn something new.
4. Flying camel! - this was a bit of a surprise, but my lesson-mates are now working on their Jr. Bronze freeskate elements so it shouldn't have been a surprise really. Coach says that for the entry, you start like you are going to do a forward camel. Then at the moment when you would initiate the spin, jump and scissor the legs to land in a back camel. We tried it at the boards and I watched the others try theirs a few times before trying it myself. I actually did not too badly! I tried it a few times. Coach says that I have the right timing and snap/pivot action into the jump, which is cool. But she says my back camel position actually looks like a camel, and that sent all four of us into a giggle fit :P

• Freeskate - Fresh off the flying camel lesson, I wanted to practice my new element. I had a few that were about the same as my attempts in the lesson. Then, I had one where I didn't really get my foot underneath me enough and I sort of crumpled forwards onto the ice. I landed on my right chest and shoulder with my right arm underneath me. I could have landed on my face! One of the coaches asked if I was ok and one of the girls too. It's nice, this other coach is always looking out for me :) Again I was surprised that the fall didn't actually hurt. But today my arm and shoulder were sore, and that is probably why. After that I took a break from flying spins! I worked on my other spins and even my jumps. Forward camels are still going decently well. They're not always strong, but when I fight for them I can usually complete the spin instead of falling.
• Lesson - we spent some more time talking about elements to put in my program. This time we focused on spins. Coach likes my sit-broken leg spin, especially (as she says every time) if I can get into a deeper position. For a combination spin we experimented with some new combinations. Coach surprised me by suggesting camel-layback-backsit! I was working on this combination a couple of months ago with some success but stopped for a while because my layback just didn't seem to be going anywhere and it's a more advanced element anyway. I tried her suggestion which was to transition from camel into an upright position with the leg in front, then take the leg back into the attitude position. Before I had been doing it directly from the camel into attitude, but this way we think that I pick up a bit more speed. Attitudes are definitely easier once you already have a centred spin going on, so I will make sure to practice this. The way my backsits are going though, I'm not sure I want to have it in my program yet. But I still have a couple of months.
  

Sudden Rush

I check the web frequently for competition postings, hoping that a local competition with adult categories will come up. Well one finally did! It's in February, yikes! That's pretty soon considering that I don't even have a program and have real consistency problems in many of my elements. But I mentioned it to my coach anyway. I wasn't sure how she would react, but she is into it and wants to help me find music and get a program. There are not a lot of adult competitions and if I miss this one it might be six months or even a year until the next one, so we figured I should just go for it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my coach is interested, this is more what she does than teaching Skating Skills.

We spent some time today talking about what kind of elements we could put in my program. She likes my spirals and leg pulls and wants to put them in as a spiral sequence. I tried a catch-foot spiral but it's a bit wobbly. I'll need to practice it to get my balance. I know I said that I hate leg pulls, but I can actually do them, and I don't think they look so awful in a backward glide. But they are more difficult going backward! Two jump combinations are allowed in my category so my coach had me try out some Salchow-toe loop and loop-loop combinations. They didn't go too badly considering that I've never done loop-loop (that I can recall) and it's certainly been a long time since I did any combination in fact. My coach was relatively pleased with my efforts. Then her charity ran out when she took a look at my flip, and decided that I need more control on the 3-turn; that's a shocker :) So now I am supposed to practice them and make sure they are not too curvy. It's surprisingly difficult!

I spent the rest of the time going back to fundamentals mostly. I put in a good chunk of time on edges and even forward circle eights. The forward edges are getting a bit better and I am on the edge for more like 3/4 of the lobe instead of only 1/2. But the circle eights are still on the flat from about the halfway mark. Figures are all about balance and lean, which are obviously going to take me some time to develop. On the bright side, the size and shape of my circles were quite good.

I managed to get in several laps of stroking both forward/backward, and CW/CCW. I haven't done that in a while. Also worked on crossovers in all directions, feeling motivated knowing that they are in the next Skills level!

I put in some good practice on my spins probably managing at least 5-10 of each type. Backsits and forward uprights are still a bit crappy which means I should be doing more of them, but I did fewer oops! Camels were going well for me, I had several that were quite good and I didn't fall out of any of them. Some of them did not really come together, but I didn't fall out or have to give up on them. I tried to reach back for a catchfoot position, but while I can reach my blade I can't quite reach far enough to grab the part that you can hold on to. It takes a surprising amount of hamstring strength. Other than that, I didn't try any wild positions, just trying to get the basics down a little more. Consistency is key!

I Survived!

My test, that is!

It went pretty much the way I remember them being. Except my last test left me in tears and I wouldn't put my figure skates back on for sixteen years. Not this time! It went pretty well all things considered and I passed it. Just like my coach expected, duh. I expected to be nervous but I was surprised how much it impacted my performance. I had a lot of toe-scratching and general shakiness. However I didn't forget any of the moves or lose track of the music, and held it together pretty well. One of my arabesques was pretty sucky and some of my 3-turns jiggled a bit but otherwise I was generally happy with it. Two of the girls were a bit frazzled by nerves and made some small mistakes but myself and an older girl did a bit better. She didn't even have any toe-scratching! Jealous. Heh. The judge said I have a nice flow on the ice, she didn't say much else but I guess when I get the test paper I'll see if there is some constructive criticism. My coach sounded a bit peeved that she didn't really tear into me!

After that I stuck around to watch some of the other tests. I saw two teenagers do the Junior Bronze Skating Skills test, which is what I will be learning next. It has some backward 3-turns, changes of edge, and T-stops, so I know it will not be as easy as the Preliminary level was. Also there is a pattern with some fast crossovers that will be challenging, the girl had to reskate it.

The following test was the Preliminary Freeskate test for two of the girls that skate under my coach. They are very cute girls and have very solid elements, but nerves also got the better of them a little bit as well. In spite of their nerves they fought for every element and didn't have to re-skate a single thing. I feel a bit of a special attachment to them because we take spin lessons together and have the same coach. I was proud! I passed this test once back in the day but I would need some more consistency in my spins, especially when nervous, to be able to do it now.

The final test was a combined Jr. Bronze/Sr. Bronze Freeskate test. I skate with one of the girls that was testing and I recognized another girl from the rink I was training at in the summer. They all did quite well for a while and nailed their axels. Unfortunately one of the girls was having an off-day for flying camels and had to repeat hers quite a number of times to get the required number of rotations. She also struggled in her program after falling on some crossovers, the poor thing. I think that nerves were bothering this group as well. Generally though I was very impressed and saw them complete a number of elements that are a long way off from being in my repertoire.

I learned a lot on test day, both about skating and myself.

Last Chance to Practice

On Monday I had my last practice before my skills test. I ran through all the patterns and they are mostly fine. My coach didn't even really have too much feedback. Maybe she just doesn't want me to overthink it. She does want me to lift and extend more in the two arabesques that come at the end of the 3-turns pattern. For three months I have been practicing this sequence and she never mentioned anything about the stupid arabesques! Now I'm worried about my arabesques and spirals instead of sloppy three-turns and following the timing of the music. Ha.

Other than that I did the usual 25 minutes of freeskating practice that I get on Mondays. I worked on some of the stuff that we usually do in the group lessons like 2-foot turns, power pulls, etc. Also I practiced some spins and had some luck with camels when I really paid attention to thinking about leaning to the left. Lately I am having a terrible time with back-sits, not sure what's up with that. Just the same balance problem I'm having with my upright backspin I guess. Oh and I practiced spirals and leg pulls!

Something cool that I have learned at physiotherapy is a balancing exercise that should help with my spins and glides. My physiotherapist got me standing on a Bosu with the flat side up, first on two feet; then on one foot holding on to a support; then not holding on; then adding a one-leg squat; then doing a one-foot squat and throwing a small ball at the wall and catching it. This progression took place over about two weeks. The first time I got on the Bosu it would wobble back and forth like crazy! This morning I got up to the part where I throw and catch the ball and it's fun. I can use the Bosu like this to practice my position changes in spins. If I feel it wobbling, I know that I would have travel in my spin at that point. Kinda cool!

Tomorrow is my test. Apparently I can come a bit early and get a little bit warmed up but not too much. Nobody will make a big deal about it but me so it's just up to me to stay calm.

Still Chasing Camels

Yesterday I had a good skate. I was excited to get to the rink and practice my moves for my test, which is coming up on the 9th.

• Skating skills: This is what I will be tested on. I had half an hour to practice it all. I tried them all cold, just stepping out on to the ice and doing them (essentially what the test will be like). That part went ok, but of course everything got better after practicing it for a while. I made sure to practice lots of spirals so they won't be so "bad" for the test! Generally I feel good about my test material. When I start getting all perfectionist about it, I remind myself to just look forward to the next level.
• Group lesson: These are now practices for the Christmas Show (still don't have a date for it). It was a bit sloppy as the coaches tried to remember/change the choreography. I attempted a camel spin for when we all do a spin, but I fell out of it, haha. Maybe I should just do an upright spin. A big scratch spin would look good even if it travels.
• Spin lesson: We practiced all our basic spins but I didn't get a lot of feedback. Surprisingly though, I had the most centred upright spin out of the four of us. That was a shocker. Bet I can't repeat it on demand! Coach reminded us that the centring comes from a long inward spiraling entry edge, and 'pressure on the ball of the foot'. She has said this about a hundred times to me already, and I think that it means you have to keep your centre of mass overtop of the ball of the foot. This is especially hard in the first part of an upright spin when the leg is way out to the side, and during changes of position.
• Private lesson:
  

1. For my private lesson I wanted to work on my spins. My coach really wants to work on my backspin position, and after seeing them on video, I know why now. The first part of the spin is really muddy looking, just sort of undefined positions as I struggle to get my balance. After that it is usually not too bad. We got down to the nitty gritty of balancing on the start of the spin. I practiced the change of position (the 'snap' that initiates the spin after the spiraling edge) at the boards while my coach got down on the ice and wiggled my foot back and forth. This was to find where my balance point was. We found that when I snap the spin from 'hips open, foot behind' to 'hips closed, foot in front' my weight shifts too much into my toe and I get up onto the picks. When it feels like my weight is more in my heel, then it's actually in the ball of my foot. So I need to think more about my heel. We didn't have any big breakthroughs on it but it's certainly food for thought. I just need to practice them some more.
   
2. We also worked on the sit-spin and discovered that my weight rocks back and forth on the blade during the spin. When it rocks back too much I feel the blade scraping and I lose my balance. Also for the hundredth time she told me that I will have to squat down lower. This is hard for me because I have knee problems but I tried a bit harder in the next spin and was rewarded with 'Amazing!'
3. Camel spin is still a very inconsistent spin for me. It is the spin I work on the most though because it is the one that has the worst failure mode. A bit of a crappy-looking sit or upright spin is not great, but a crappy camel = falling over and not even being a spin. I showed her what is happening and I got the predictable advice to lean more onto my left side. This makes sense because I fall over to the right side, but I just can't seem to get it through my head and actually DO it! It seems silly but what helps me get this a bit is to be looking to the left and thinking of my left side. You almost have to aggressively attack the spin and think left, left, left. I did do a couple of better ones after that. Something she said in group lesson stuck with me too which is that the timing of straightening the skating knee is very important. When everything goes well, I feel my toe hook into the ice and the knee slowly straighten when I pay attention to being patient. The camel can't be rushed. Unfortunately I tend to rush it and things go downhill. Coach gave me a new piece of 'icework' which is to do 5 spirals on each leg every practice, focusing on getting into the full expression of the position as quickly as possible.

• For freeskate I dedicated (even more) practice time to spinning. To improve at spins you really have to put a big contiguous chunk of practice into them. I pulled off some decent combination spins and broken-leg sit spins. They travel massively, but they are fun :) I kind of want to see how mine looks, but kind of not in case they look awful, haha. Also I tried some leg-pull spins and figured out why the are so hard. When I go to stand up into the position my balance gets all out of whack. I tried them just on a curving glide and confirmed that I am wobbly getting into the stretch. Once I'm in the stretch I'm ok. So again the key is to not rush it. I don't need a coach, I just need a tape player that says "Don't rush, keep the weight in the ball of your foot, and point your toe". Sheesh.
• Oh I also did my jumps. I probably scrimped a bit with the exercises but there's only so much practice time. For my flip I tried to think about keeping my right knee straight even as I pick into the ice and stay up on my toe. For the others I wasn't really focused on any one thing too much, just trying to get it all into my muscles. I didn't do any Lutzes, oops.
• Did my 5 spirals a side and some leg pulls to round out the session. I'm getting more comfortable with the right-foot spirals and the pulls. Also they are making us do a leg pull in the Christmas show >:( so I better practice them.

There just isn't enough practice time to do all the things I want. I didn't even get to doing footwork or any of those moves they teach us in enhancement class. The coaches are always screaming at us that we aren't practicing them enough and we look shitty. Well duh, we are too busy practicing jump exercises and camel spins, aren't we? :D

Bad Spirals

This morning I ran through all my test sequences again with my coach. We spent a bit of time cleaning up the circles, otherwise she thinks the only thing worth improving right now are my 'bad spirals' at the end of the mohawk pattern, haha. I think I will be fine on the test as long as I don't get too nervous or have a big wipe out. It's not an important test, but it's important to me, and I don't want to look like a chump :) Only six more days then I get to learn some new stuff. My coach asked me if I have a skating dress to wear for the test, but I don't really feel like spending money on that right now, and I would just be putting a sweater on over it anyway. Fortunately she agrees that my skating skirt will be fine. It would be nice to get a pretty dress but not just for a silly skills test...

Other than that, I practiced my edges, power pulls, two-foot turns, spins, spirals, and leg pulls. My spins were just so-so. I find that I have to practice them every time I skate to just keep them at the so-so level, to keep the movement in my muscle memory. To actually improve at them I have to dedicate an extended, focused effort, and I haven't had time for that in a while. I always have a few good spins in each skate though, even if I struggle with consistency. Today I had several spins that were perfectly centred. I don't know how I did it, but it's cool that it's within my abilities. I just have to figure out what I did differently on those ones (the others travel madly). I finished the session with one really solid backspin and one solid combination spin. It's always nice to end on a high note!

I feel very tired this evening after getting up early this morning at the end of a busy week. I can't wait to go to bed and go skating in the morning.

Another Week in Skating

I had a pretty good week!

On Friday I put in a lot of solid work on basic skating skills and spins. No jumps.
My coach seems to think I'm ready for my skating skills test which is coming up, whee! That's exciting. I'm a little worried about it but generally I'm feeling more confident about it now.

On Saturday I had a good time in my long morning on the ice. I learned that there is going to be a Christmas show! We started practicing a group number for it which should be fun. I have to choose a jump and a spin to do in the show. Probably I will pick a flip jump but my spins are all inconsistent so I will have a hard time choosing something that will not look like total crap. We don't have very much time to practice, I wish we had started earlier.

In spin lesson we had a fun time trying to do some sit spin variations holding the blade, and then standing up into a leg pull. I can't do them but I did better than I expected. I can do the leg pulls in a glide but doing them in a spin is much harder! After the lesson I practiced them from both forward and backward sit-spins. I think that is why my outer hip muscles were ridiculously sore the next day! I have a new appreciation for Alissa Czisny's amazing leg-pull spin.
For private lesson we worked on jumps for the first time in a while. I am still not jazzed about the toe loop but my coach actually thought most of my jumps were looking basically not so terrible as they used to. She wanted to start with loop for the next lesson and get to flip and Lutz. Wow!
I had a major wipe-out on Saturday too, the worst one I've had since getting back on the ice 4 months ago. I was just skating along practicing my Waltzing Mohawks and my blades clinked together ominously. Suddenly I was sliding along the ice on my belly! The first time I've landed that way instead of on my butt, at least this time around. It was a shock to fall like that and also the way the ice stung my skin but it actually didn't hurt at all. That is a relief because I am afraid of falling especially when(if?) I get to doing bigger jumps but each time I fall I am reminded that it's not too bad.

So on Monday we did get to flip and Lutz. This time coach brought her video camera. It's very effective. She pointed out how my arms are sort of staying out at shoulder height in the flip, but instead the right arm should pump under and upwards. Seeing it on video made it easy to fix. Then we tried to fix how I bend my right knee before picking (it should stay straight, then bend after picking) but with less success. Also I need to keep my toe pointed in the picking foot to stay on the pick instead of falling back onto the blade. I need to channel my inner ballerina I guess. For the Lutz she had me going at a crawl around the circle before going slo-mo through picking and counter-rotating on the ice. Then she insisted that I try actually jumping and I squeeked one out. She filmed a couple of them and they are sad, but it's a start. The Lutz freaks me out a bit but I am pleased I can go through my bunny-hill version of it without panicking. After the lesson I tried a couple going a bit faster and screwed them up so I am going to keep it slow for now :)

Almost forgot to mention that I got my skates sharpened. I have been having a lot of skidding in three-turns and spin entries. I mentioned it to my coach and she suggested getting a sharper...uh...sharpening job. So I had long chat with my sharpening guy (apparently a former Novice-level Canadian champion!) and he agreed to decrease the radius of the hollow. My blades felt really grabby at first after that but my edges were so much more secure, I think it was a good move. I was hoping it would magically fix my spin entries too but alas, good edges cannot make up for bad technique ;) He also pointed out that I could have an alignment problem with the blades that can cause skidding. When I told him about how easily I end up on the flats in my figures he considered it even more of a possibility. After my test, I may investigate this some more. It's actually quite fascinating.

3 for 1

3 skates, 1 post:

Friday:

On Friday I had a bit of an off day, although not as bad as Monday. My skates felt a bit dull, I was skidding and sliding a lot on 3-turns and spin entries. I did my usual warmup of edges down the line, three-turns, and scrimped on stroking a bit. I practiced crossovers although only going forwards because my knees were bothering me a bit. No jumps today. Anyway not a particularly good or bad skate, just some practice. For my lesson, we worked on my skating skills test material. On the 3-turns pattern I was skidding on some of my turns and when I finished the pattern my coach said I looked totally dejected. She reminded me the importance of presentation in skating and to just fake it 'til I make it. After that I ran through the mohawks pattern and we were both pretty happy with it so it's funny having that juxtaposition. We spent some time on the circles too just cleaning up some sloppiness, what to do with arms, etc.

Saturday:

I always like to skate on Saturdays, I get two hours of practice and 45 minutes of teaching the kids which is fun. Some of the kids that I've been teaching for a while are really into it and seem to like me. They say cute stuff too :P

• Skating skills: The usual run-throughs of my test material, with music. In this time slot one of the other coaches teaches some other participants so sometimes the music doesn't always line up with what I want to do but I usually get a couple run-throughs of everything and some good practice time. One of the girls has been working on the preliminary dances, so I should print out the patterns for them so I can follow along. I already know the Dutch Waltz, and I've been following her on the Canasta Tango to learn it, but it would probably be good to have them in my head! Strangely, my blades weren't feeling quite as dull/slippery today and I did a decent job on my 3-turns.
• Group lesson: We practiced some good solid stuff like edges down the ice (at speed, definitely more fun than patch-style), 3-turns down the ice, a forward 3-turn followed by a backward 3-turn (fun and challenging), stuff like that. I really need to write them down sooner because sometimes I learn something new but then I forget to record it :P
• Spin lesson: One of the girls was away and with only 3 of us we seemed to get through more material, almost all the basic spins and a combination spin. We also tried experimenting with cannonball position sit-spins. I got to try a catch-foot camel and it felt like I pulled my hamstring! And I didn't even manage to grab on! Good stuff.
• Freeskate: I usually continue with spins after the lesson and seemed to be having a better spinning day that I expected after the way I skated on Friday. I didn't have any amazing combination spins or anything but was generally having some decent spins. Then I practiced my jumps, including a whole bunch of toe loops from a standstill, the one I totally hate, hehe. They still feel awkward but occasionally I have one that flows more. Those are the ones that feel close to being a toe-waltz, so I have to remember only about a quarter turn happens on the ice. Strangely I was a little spooked doing flips (usually fun) and more confident doing loops. Must have been opposite day:)
• Lesson: My coach brought her videocamera again and we had a very productive session with my backspin. It's very informative being able to see the spin right after you do it so you can connect sensation with appearance; also to see the result of what was wrong and what was corrected. Then we got some footage of my sit-spin and camel spin. I wasn't too surprised to see how wobbly my camel spin is, but it has potential. On the other hand my sit-spin is not very 'sit' at all and my free leg is somewhat bent, bleh. Getting a deeper squat will take some time because I have problems with my knees, but straightening the free leg should just require some extra strength in the quads. Essentially, if your muscles aren't burning, you're not doing it right!

Monday:


I had a much better skate compared to the previous Monday. My skates were tied perfectly the first time and felt fine the whole time. The ice was a bit 'furry' which seemed to actually help somehow. Amazingly I forgot to get my skates sharpened over the weekend, and I think a little texture to the ice helps prevent the skidding a little bit.

I'm always short for time on Mondays and it's busy so I did a bare minimum of stroking, and noodled around a bit with 3-turn sequences and power pulls. I practiced spins, and now there are so many of them to practice it can take quite a while to get through them all. Sit-spins were giving me trouble, forward and backward, so I blamed it on needing a sharpening and moved on. I practiced my jumps, except for toe loops (tsk tsk). My knees were bothering me on the jumps so I didn't go crazy with them.

For my lesson I asked to work on skating skills again, because they moved up the test day! It was going to be Dec 18 but they moved it to Dec 9 to accommodate some sort of qualifying deadline. We worked on some of the circles that we had run out of time for on Friday, and the three-turns again. Some of those were a wash because it was a bit too crowded to do the pattern exactly as dictated and I got a bit confused trying to avoid two girls doing synchronized Axels. Anyway it was good practice; my coach things I'll be fine, I think I'll be fine, and even one of the other coaches thinks I'll be fine. Fake it 'til I make it!

Group lesson was a bit better I think because there were slightly fewer girls out there today. Still it is lame only getting to practice each skill once, I need to practice them sometime (when?). I finally (?) I think got the sequence down for this Choctaw exercise they have been trying to teach us:

• RFI3
• LFO3
• step into a backward crossover, hold the underpush with R foot under, weight on L foot
• change the backward edge from inside to outside, keeping free foot close
• step forward with R foot, L foot comes in front
  
• step backward onto L foot, R foot stays close behind
• these two steps, not sure if they are on edges or flats. I'm doing them on flats for now.
• repeat those two steps
• step forward again, should be on R foot
• repeat whole thing on other foot

I hope to practice this sequence on Friday, it has potential. I like learning new things!

Recruited!

Alright, not really. But I've been asked to play on a hockey team! Last night we had a hockey game and afterwards one of the women from the opposing team tracked me down and asked if I had time to play with her other team that plays in a higher division. Clearly she didn't notice the seventeen times that the puck came toward me and I missed it! I'm not sure if I'll have the time to play for two teams but it is still cool to be wanted on a team. If I can find the time to fill in when they are short handed a couple of times it would be fun to get some experience with a higher-calibre team. This woman also told me about some of the programs that the rink offers to develop skills and strategy. It would be great to get in some skills practice, I'll have to see if I have the time and money to sign up for a session. There's also the logistical issue of getting my gear to the rink on days when I can't drive (most of them).....hmmm. There need to be more days in the week!!

As for the game, it was not very good. The other team was substantially better than us, which begs the question, 'why are we in the same division?' We were scrambling just to keep up. I had another mixed evening; in addition to missing/fanning on the puck, there were two goals against us that I really should have been able to prevent and just didn't try hard enough or something. But on the bright side I had a couple of rushes and even got to carry the puck around the opposing team's net (ok big deal for a defenceman). Then I lost my balance and almost fell down, lol! Sometimes the rockered hockey blades throw me off. I also kept the puck inside the blue line a few times and had one wrist shot (was intercepted, too weak). I had a couple of incidents that almost cost me penalties but the refs seemed to be pretty lenient. Although they showed no mercy giving the other team a too-many-men penalty, which they fully deserved. Ha. Needless to say we lost the game having been fully outmatched for the whole game and if it wasn't for our amazing goalie the damage would have been much worse. I get sort of bummed out when we lose and then I have to remind myself that I'm doing this for FUN.

When I was on the bus home tonight I had my nose buried in my book. I was shocked to look up at my stop and see snow on the ground and more of it coming down in thick and furious flakes! It's early for snow and to have such a decisive first snowfall is surprising. Usually the first one is basically slush. That's what I get for living on a hill! To make matters worse I was completely unprepared and wasn't dressed warmly enough so I had an uncomfortable walk home. Time to get some winter boots! I've somehow managed to get to the age of thirty without owning any winter boots. Well, because it usually snows about twice all winter.


Tomorrow morning I have my early skate so I hope the buses can make it up the hill to pick me up....!

Good weekend ice and stupid toe loops

Another multiple day post, yeesh.

On Saturday my regular session was cancelled for a ringette tournament. I paid extra money to go to the national training rink and it was wonderful. I skated for over 2 hours with only about 4 other skaters on the ice! I tried to work on just about everything but I definitely practice camel spins and combination spins the most. I had some fun with spin variations that travelled wildly but were fun. When I left I had blisters on both heels but it was totally worth it!

On Sunday I made it to a women's drop-in hockey scrimmage at yet another rink. It was pretty fun and I got in some good practice. It would be nice to get in some skills practice but there aren't any ice times for that that suit my schedule. Fun to meet some new friends too!

On Monday I had one of those throwaway practices where things just didn't go well. The ice felt crowded after the empty session I had on Saturday, and it was hard to even find enough space for a spin or a waltz jump. My blades felt like they were wobbling and my boots were too tight or loose no matter how many times I adjusted them. In my lesson I got flustered attempting my stupid toe loops and was downgraded to practicing them from a standstill again. Actually even through I was frustrated it was a bit funny when my coach asked me "Are you practicing these?" LOL!

Also I got a bit confused with the loop. It's a four step process: bend the knee, pivot on the ball of the foot/blade, push onto the toepick, pivot more and jump. I was combining everything into a big scratchy mess instead. I don't know how I will be able to do all that in the actual splitsecond of the real jump, blah. The real demoralizing moment happened when my coach said "I want you to get up to Lutz feeling all the jumps as being a natural motion. Then we will go back and do another round of fixing stuff." Gah, like we're not already doing them properly? Yuck.

At one point my coach made yet another reference to double jumps and it's making me wonder what I really want to do with my skating. I don't really like jumps and I don't learn them quickly. I'm afraid of falling and have zero kinesthetic awareness for skating. Even good single jumps don't seem to be in the cards for me, so where do I want to go with all this? I mentioned the 'artistic' category of competition to my coach once and she was not too jazzed about it but I wonder if it might be a better fit for me. Seriously persuing ice dance is out of the question not only because of the difficulty of finding an adult male partner but also because I'm ticklish. So while I'm going to continue with freestyle for a while yet I'm going to try to really focus on my basic skating skills and maybe try to make it onto the adult synchro team next year. With enough practice there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to do all the skating skills levels and there's nothing more fun to me than actual skating to music.

The group lesson on Monday was also a bit of a wash, partly because we spend probably less than half of the time actually practicing the skills. The other part was that the coach would show us something complicated very quickly and then expect us all to know it. It's probably a technique for teaching kids but I don't appreciate being talked down to so it can be a bit annoying at times. On the bright side, I worked up the courage to ask the other coach to list the steps again and she spent a couple of minutes teaching me the steps and correcting me, which was very nice of her. Then instead of getting in line to practice the sequence I just did it by myself, to the side out of the way and nobody seemed to mind. I like this better than waiting in line to practice it down the ice and then running over little girls. I have tried to go ahead of them but they all bunch up in front of me! Next season I will probably skip the group lessons. The ice time is better spent when I can dictate my own practice routine.

Caught on Video

This morning my coach remembered to bring her video camera! But she was still learning how to use it :P She recorded two of my sequences that will be tested for Skating Skills. They did not look too great but the Mohawks pattern actually looked better than I thought. Aside from a lot of skidding in my three turns the most obvious issue is that my free leg is usually quite bent and they are both a bit bent in the spirals that end the sequence. Losing a bit of weight would help everything look a bit better too >:/

Anywhoo, it was overall a decent skills session. I actually missed my alarm for the first time and had to blast my way out of the house to make the bus in time. It left me feeling a bit groggy but there is nothing like edges down the line to bring my focus back. After that I did some stroking and crossovers and practiced my sequences a couple of times through. I actually never made it to jumps or spins. Good thing I got to do lots of them yesterday.

This evening I rushed home to watch Skate America. I wish I had known about it earlier because it is not so far away in Portland. And plenty of empty seats apparently :( I just about had a fit when SkateBuzz didn't seem to be working properly but was so relieved when it came back on. I missed the first pairs performance but I can always go back and watch it later. The Canadians are in a surprising second place. Unfortunately Shawn Sawyer had a lot of problems in his short program and is in second last place. I saw him at Stars on Ice, wow! Great presence and personality. It just doesn't show through in this program.

Tomorrow there is no skating because of a ringette tournament. (Aside: I watched a bit of it this morning after my skate and wow, I would be amazing at ringette. ) So instead I'm planning to shell out the extra cash to skate at the national training centre. There is an Adult session that I'm looking forward to checking out. Maybe I will meet some other adult skaters? A dance partner? Wishful thinking perhaps.

Bonus Ice

I had the day off today for the Remembrance Day holiday and took advantage of it by hitting the rink! I looked up the schedule for the national training centre and found an open session that I could go to (no accreditation required). They were also offering public skating on another surface so I used that to get warmed up. It was actually not too terribly busy but still too crowded to practice anything much more than stroking exercises and some turns. Also this facility has recently prohibited figure skating at public sessions so I didn't even try spins >:( So I used the public ice for about 40 minutes and then went and paid for the open session. What a difference! At its peak there were probably only about 10 skaters on the ice, most of them just little kids so not too intimidating. Of course they were all much more skilled than me but only a couple of taller girls working on doubles skated fast enough to bother me. One girl showed some alarming confidence as she whizzed past me as I was clearly winding up for a spin. What she might not have bargained for is that I was winding up for a camel spin and she nearly got smacked by my blade! It would have been really cool if it had been one of my better camels, but alas I sort of fell out of that particular one. Oh well.
Mostly I worked on spins, especially camels and combination spins starting with camels. My consistency with the camel is improving a bit but still not what it used to be. But I did have a couple of fast, centred ones. I even had one half-decent layback, of all things. I wish I had it on video so I could see if it was as good as it felt! I had some fun with sit-spin variations, so far the broken leg one is not too shabby but any other type of positional change throws my balance way off. They make them look so easy on TV grrr!!
I did practice all my jumps and found some new confidence in the waltz and loop jumps. In the waltz I am working on what my coach recently suggested which is to bend the takeoff knee more before jumping. I am taking that to mean that I should bend it LESS on the initial step forward, then increase the bend. For some reason I was kind of stepping into a very bent knee to begin with. This way, I feel something about it feeling more smooth - kind of a snapping action as the free leg swings though. I like it, I hope it is correct :P I did scrimp a bit on the toe loop, was feeling kind of self-conscious or something as I tried to carve out a bit of ice to practice them amid the axels and double lutzes, meh. For a jump that is supposed to be one of the easiest I sure struggle with it! On the flip side (pun intended) I find the flip a very easy fun jump and had a good time practicing them with a bit of speed.

I wish I could make it to ice like this every day >:|

Catching up on the Weekend

I just can't seem to blog on the days I actually skate....need to do something about that! Another post covering multiple skates, here we go:

Friday

On Fridays I have to get up early which can be a bit of a struggle. I was a bit behind schedule when I left the house and I started running to catch the bus. As I jogged through the foggy darkness and drizzle I realized that I must really LOVE skating!

• Edges: worked on these going down the hockey lines. Had some real wobbliness going on but started to get the feel for them after about four lines. Forward insides were especially wobbly and noticed that I need to put the weight slightly further back on the blade as the free leg comes through. Also focusing helps a lot.. :S
• Figures: skipped them! :O Was a bit late getting on the ice and finding the half-lobes of edges enough of a challenge.
• Crossovers: I really need to work on these every time I skate. I practiced them going around the circles and worked up a good sweat. They always feel clumsy at first and then feel better as I get used to the movement.
• Perimeter stroking: did sort of a bare minimum of this in the interest of time but it's always fun to skate really fast on a nearly-empty rink.
• Spins: I didn't have a great spin day but practiced them nonetheless. I wanted to work on my combination spin but was falling out of the camel again >:( Good practice though. I noticed that some of the kids look outside the circle on their 'windup' glide so I decided to try it and it produced a couple of well-centred spins. It also produced some real wild ones too so I'm not sure if it's any better, so I will keep trying it for a while.
  
• Skating skills: my coach and I worked on the three patterns that I will be tested on next month. She thinks that in general they are decent but could use a lot of cleaning up. We focused on getting proper coverage of the ice and really checking those FO3's like crazy. She wasn't too happy with my circles though and tried to contort me into the gliding position that she would like to see. The forward position is much more painful than the backward one so my backward circles are actual better than my forward ones which is apparently unusual. I am looking forward to testing these patterns and moving on to something more interesting!
• Jumps: didn't get to them, no tears shed over that.

Saturday

• Skating skills: as usual I got to practice these to the music during the first time slot. Also some Dutch Waltz, whee! Practiced a bunch of the circles especially backward inside (blech). Trying to make each stroke smooth and deliberate because I get a bit sloppy/awkward on the forward crossovers from a standstill. This 1/2 hour of skills always gets my temperature up! Good thing because CanSkate is right after that.
• Group lesson: We got to practice some fun things like those quick turns where you go forward-backward-forward really fast. I guess it would be a bracket followed by a 3-turn if it was on a curve. I did them two-footed :) Another new thing for me was to forward crossovers interspersed with changes of edge. Fun! And the group lesson coach seems to think I am a "Senior" level skater (i.e. passed the first freeskating test). Ha!
• Spin lesson (small group): This lesson can be a mixed bag because the kids in the group are so much better than me, but this time I had a lot of fun. We reviewed the basic spins and then we even worked on some fun variations like the broken-leg sit-spin. I had never learned this one before and my first attempts were sad but after the lesson I worked on it for a while and had a few good ones. I don't know how my position looks but I was able to keep my balance at least.
• Freeskate: I always enjoy this freeskate session because I have already warmed up and done a ton of skills practice so I have lots of time to practice jumps, spins, footwork, and stuff like spirals. I didn't make any big breakthroughs or anything but it was some good solid practice.
  
• Private lesson: We covered spins in more depth because it had been a while. The biggest change that coach suggested is to swing the free leg around sort of bigger and higher going into the sit spin. I tried this and it seemed to help a lot! Sometimes I just feel my inner thighs screaming though so obviously I need more power in those muscles to get the leg around quicker. Coach wants me to squat down lower, but I know that it will take time. She also noticed that my knee is falling inwards which is making me lose my balance. My physiotherapist noticed this too! OH and I had one fabulous backspin. We both wished that it had been captured on tape >:(
  
• Field moves competition: I'm not registered in this but because I missed skating last Monday I decided to stay and nobody seemed to mind. We did leg-pulls, where you grab the blade and pull your leg up and out to the side. I hate these things but I really tried to stretch out and "sell" them with good presentation. A cute little girl won the competition but they told me I was a close second! The others are all better but the coaches have higher expectations from them, so ha :P Maybe I should actually practice these things since I'm apparently not as terrible at them as I thought. But there is no way one of those is going into my program! :O

Sunday

Sunday was a hockey day! I actually had a great game and our team played well too. We were very even for the first half of the game and the score was also tied 1-1. Then one of our players went out with a knee injury and we had only 3 defence for the rest of the game :( I was totally sucking wind! THEN another woman got thrown out of the game (!) for apparently having some words with the ref so even the forwards had a short bench. We only had three players on the bench at a time after that. So, for the rest of the game I was just concentrating on surviving rather than channeling Bobby Orr but I did still get 2 shots on goal! When the final buzzer rang I was stoked to go home until I realized that we would have a 3-on-3 overtime period for 5 minutes. I was lucky enough to get the first shift and discovered that 3-on-3 sucks! Constant sprinting! But because it was so open I had a chance to go on the attack and had another shot on goal and had another sequence of trying to pass the puck but it somehow kept hitting a skate or something and coming back to me so I had quite a few chances to make some moves. We were playing so well in the overtime I was really hoping we could win it, and in fact our captain/star player managed to end the torture with a nice goal with about a minute left. That was exciting and it was fun to win again. Also no goals were scored against us while I was on the ice!

Monday

After the long ice time I have on Saturday it feels like such a rip-off to skate for only an hour on Mondays :P I only get 25-30 minutes to practice before private and group lesson. So I scrimped on quantity but tried to practice as many things as possible.

• Perimeter stroking: Again did sort of a requisite 3-4 laps going forward and backward (but not both CW and CCW, for shame) and then some laps doing 2-foot slalom and 1-foot power pulls. For a while I thought I was decent at the power pulls but lately I have been really sucking at them, especially backwards.
• Crossovers: on the circle, all 4 varieties. A bit tough with so many skaters on the ice though. Same thing with stroking.
• Spins: Wow I had an amazing day for spins! I had a couple of centred one-foot upright spins but I don't know what I did differently. Some of them also traveled ridiculously. Eh. Also practiced making a higher swing-around on the sit spin with some success. Backspins mediocre but camels were amazing! Combination spins were also coming easily to me today and I practiced camel-sit-change-sit, and camel-sit-broken leg sit. Worked on just the sit-broken leg too, it's fun and a nice challenge that's not outrageously frustrating.
• Private lesson: I started by showing off my combination spin to my coach and she was suitably impressed. BUT she had to point out that my camel position is still not perfect, haha. Then we moved on to jumps.
  

1. Waltz: need more knee bend just before the jump and kick the free leg straight through and not across the midline of the body. Timing still needs work.
   
2. Salchow: need more "pressing down" with the arms and check/control after the 3-turn. Otherwise pretty good, my best jump.
3. Toe loop: need more pressing down with the arms, standing up straight, and pulling the right foot in close to the left. Why does she have to tell me this stuff EVERY time? This jump just makes no sense to me. Was relegated to practicing the nasty do-them-from-a-standstill exercise. We moved on to the loop probably because my coach was going to gouge her eyes out rather than any actual progress :S
4. Loop: more blechiness here, this one is in a contest with toe loop for worst technique. It's all about getting a timing and confidence. A snap of the hips and a deep knee bend initiates the jump, arms only move after leaving the ice. I want to initiate the jump with my arms though. Not long ago my coach said this jump looked "natural", not sure what happened??

Well working on jumps always brings me back to the reality that I have a long way to go before I can create a program for testing and competition etc. but it usually seems that while some days they regress, other days they improve greatly and over time there is a net improvement. I'm feeling less impatient than I used to and have a little more confidence that I will eventually be able to do all the preliminary elements with consistency and decent technique.

"Soon I'll be thirty; I don't want to be thirty"

Yup, that's a line from the Moxy Fruvous song, "Stuck in the '90's again". The fact that I know it probably gives away my age as well! I turned thirty years old today and while I had some moments of sadness/regret I have generally been making the most of it. The best thing about a birthday is how you can drag it out into a week-long affair :D

So far I've done 2 things out of the ordinary:

• Monday: normally I skate on Mondays but my husband insisted that I had to skip it for some unknown event that we would be attending downtown. I asked somewhat dubiously if it would be better than skating, and he was sure that it would be. Well in fact he was right! He took me to a Vancouver Canucks game :) the first NHL game I have ever been to in fact. When we started walking down the steps to our seat I looked at my ticket and it said ROW: 1 on the bottom but I didn't realize we were really sitting in the front row until we got there! We were sitting in the corner right at the front which made for excellent viewing of some battles and collisions. My observations?

1. NHL players are HUGE!
2. You can see their FACES.
3. They skate really fast
4. Their edges are so deep they spray up snow
5. Their pants are dirty
6. They shoot the puck faster than the speed of light
7. When it hits the glass, it runs around the corner and sounds like a train
8. It also scared the shit out of me!

Anyway we had a great time and the Canucks even won, 3-0. Really fun! Can't wait to go to another one. But I have to sit in the front row from now on.

• Today (Thursday): My husband took me to public skate after my aerobics class at the new rink. I looked forward to it all day! Unfortunately the ice was not too great and I actually fell down several times just doing regular things but I somehow managed to pull off my BEST camel-sit-change-sit combination spin in 16 years >:D And my husband saw it too. When he got tired I didn't mind leaving early because of the ice anyway. Besides, it was just to have some fun right?! On the way home we picked up some birthday cake. AND he had some flowers sent to me at work. Who could ask for anything more?

On Saturday we are going out to a friend's place for an unrelated party but I'm using the birthday as an excuse to sub out my Sunday morning aerobics class and really live it up!

Halloween Skating

We had a Halloween theme at CanSkate today. There were some great costumes! One kid was dressed like a zombie and looked horrendous. Another kid was dressed as an Incredible and there was a ninja, superwoman, and about sixty princesses *roll eyes*. Two of the program assistants had cool wings. My coach was an angel with a vertical halo and another coach wore a snorkel. What did I wear? Just my usual figure skating clothes, blah. I had a couple of fun ideas for costumes but ran out of time/money/energy for them. Lame excuse, but true. One idea was to make a Rainbow Brite costume that I could also wear as a skating dress, but I scratched that when I saw the price of spandex. I probably could have bought a blue skirt at the thrift store but I was too lazy. My other idea was to go to American Apparel and buy an 80's aerobics instructor outfit. But when I was there I discovered how much it would cost and it was more than I wanted for a one-time gag.

Ok, lame excuses aside, I had fun even though I didn't dress up, loser that I am.

Here is how my practice went:

• Skating skills: They always play the music for my three Preliminary patterns during this time slot so I got to practice them all. I brought my printouts this time and noticed a couple of errors I had been making yesterday so I tried to fix them. Also noticed how another skater really covered the ice in her 3-turn pattern, need to figure out what she is doing in order to achieve that. We also worked on these during my private lesson with my coach, and one of the other coaches agreed that the Mohawk music is too fast and not to worry about it. My coach thinks both the 3-turns and Mohawks patterns are looking decent but to make it look easier/less stiff (i.e. practice a whole bunch). I practiced the preliminary circles too (long held edges on circle) but didn't get any feedback from my coach because it was right at the transition to the next session, oh well. They are fine just a bit wobbly and not sure what to do with my arms.
• Group lesson: We practiced doing edges down the ice and back. But not quite figures-style, the free leg is to be held in one position until the next push instead of passing the skating leg halfway through. My coach had to shout this at me a couple of times as well as reminders to extend the free leg, hehe. Since a couple of the younger girls didn't seem to know this exercise they got a bit of a primer while the rest of us practiced them in laps around the rink. Of course the top two skaters decided to turn it into a race and barreled around the rink rushing their edges so everyone lapped me and another girl and it got quite messy and dangerous with blades flying about. Then the silly thing is that the coaches cued us to change direction when the fastest skaters finished their laps, which meant that I had to skip the backward inside edges, which are the ones that need the MOST practice. The second time around I was lapped again but I still completed the last lap after everyone else was called in. I need the practice, and they were just saying the same old stuff anyway ;) This might be considered impolite or disrespectful to the coaches I suppose, but I don't like to skip an exercise just because someone else was able to do it faster. Well, group lessons aren't perfect, it's the nature of things.
• Spin lesson (small group): We started with backspins and mine have improved a lot. I still feel that I fall too much on the outside edge but I don't fall right out of the spin as much anymore. We also practiced sits and camels. The other girls practiced their combination spins and I told my coach that my old combo spin had been camel-sit-change-sit, so she got me to work on just the sit for now. It sucks, I lose the inward lean as soon as I try to bring the free leg around. After the lesson I put some quality time into it and tweaked my inner thigh a bit *roll eyes*. But the key seems to be to bring the leg around quickly, then there is less time for it to pull the centre of mass away from over top of the spinning foot. Of course, this means developing some power in my inner thigh muscles! :) I did notice though that it's easier to get into the sit position from camel.
• Spin practice: After lesson I got to practice stuff on my own. I started with my spins since we had just been doing them. My sits and uprights still don't centre but I'm trying not to overthink it. Sometimes a spin feels like it's centring but I check the tracing and it turns out that it traveled more than one that felt unbalanced. This makes it hard for me to really tell what to do differently and indicates that I still can't detect when I properly have my weight over top of the spinning point. Anyway, I tried not to worry about it too much and practiced upright, sit, camel, and attitude. I have been practicing the attitude position off-ice but it's much more difficult on skates *furrow brow*. I'm trying to lean back a bit more since I get very toe-scratchy in this position. I think I did a bit better today but the spin really slows down. This is harder than I expected! Then I practiced some backspins, upright and sitting. And, I worked on my old combination spin. I am still having some trouble with falling out of my camels about half the time but the other half the time they feel fast and balanced on the sweet spot of the blade. On those occasions, I tried the full combination and then I screw up the spin on the backsit because I get going so fast, I can't control it. And because they freak me out! Before I put my right foot down I have a moment of doubt and that probably doesn't help.
• Jumps:
  

1. Waltz - did the obligitory exercise of holding the forward edge without jumping, probably about 5-7 times. I tend to automatically curve to avoid someone, need to think more clearly about stepping onto a shallower curve. Then I did a bunch of the actual jump. Not sure how it looks but they feel klunky at first until I have done a few of them then I start to actually get some height and feel more comfortable.
2. Salchow - also did the exercise for THIS jump of 3-turn, HOLD, bring free leg around, HOLD. Trying to lean back more, to get off of the toepicks. Then practiced the jump, starting to get some height. Not sure if it is any good.
3. Toe loop - exercise involves doing them from a standstill. Also made myself do about 5-7 of them. Noticed that it really doesn't work if I try to jump while my weight is still mostly over the non-picking foot; that's not a shocker but I was trying to do it anyway, by jumping with my shoulders, heheh. Practiced the actual jump and sometimes it feels smooth. Would like to know if the ones that feel good actually look good!
4. Loop - didn't do the exercise (slo-mo at boards) but did try doing them slow on the circle like last time. When I can remember everything, this jump is actually fun!
5. Flip - I like to warm these up with some split jumps and then do them at low speed, then at higher speed. They still get a bit scary which causes me to hesitate a bit. I wonder how long I will have the luxury of not having to practice a dreaded exercise for the flip??!
6. Lutz - since I'm still afraid of these I don't mind just doing the exercise. From a left backward outside edge, I pick and do a little hop and land on two feet without rotating. It probably looks ridiculous, but I don't care. I was working up the nerve to do the whole jump when my coach called me for my lesson. Saved by the bell! :)
   

Well that's about it. I had a fair bit of fun today even if I didn't get to practice footwork or improvising to whatever is playing on the stereo. And I got to take home a Halloween cookie!

Good old-fashioned hard work

Yesterday morning I had an good skate focusing mostly on basics. I decided to start my figures work with edges on a line because the circle eights are giving me a lot more trouble than I had been expecting originally. After building a bit of confidence with all 4 varieties, I did do some forward circle eights. This time instead of focusing on the size and shape of the circles I was paying more attention to my edges. I think that I end up falling onto the flat of the blade when my free leg passes in front. Probably the movement is not smooth enough and it's erasing the nice inward lean that I keep on the first half of the circle. I asked my coach about it and she agreed that the lean has to be maintained as well as a "pressing" on the edge. Again that magic word that I'm still trying to interpret, heh.

After that I did some work on my crossovers. I practiced them with holding the edges for a long time in an exercise my coach taught me, then gradually speeding them up. I do them on a hockey circle but I get going so fast that I have to make my circle a lot bigger, I also start to get a little freaked out, especially when going backwards!

Then a little work on spins, but they were not so great. Falling out of my camel again! Never take a vacation, it will break half your elements!!

I can't exactly remember if I worked on my jumps, hmm. It was only yesterday, but I can't remember. I think I did some spirals, but not jumps.

For my lesson we worked on the stuff for my skating skills test. We worked on getting the Mohawks program to the proper rhythm of the music, but it still feels rushed. My coach decided that she didn't like the free leg position on the backward edges, so that was a bit of an adjustment to change it. She agreed that the music seems fast and let me know that performing it to the music is not actually required in the test. So, if I can't seem to get it to the music I can just skip the music, but I would prefer to be able to get it as prescribed.
My coach also took a look at my 3-turns pattern and thinks it is pretty good but I need to cover more ice. She says that someone "my size" should be able to do that, and it will be expected from the judges. In fact, according to her, it is my "strong, deep edges" that make the patterns curve so much and why they are giving me some problems. The Preliminary level is designed with little kids in mind, they aren't going to be very skilled and most of their steps will be more straight than curvy, my coach says. So maybe the best thing is just to get the test over with and move on to the more interesting levels anyway.

I noticed that I was skidding a lot on my three turns and spin entries so I went and got my skates sharpened in the afternoon. Whee! I hope it helps :)

Catching up

I was on vacation last week so I haven't updated for a while.  But in fact I've skated four times since I returned, I've just been too lazy to blog, oops!  Actually I will blame it on the NHK trophy taking up all my time this weekend :)

Friday Morning

I had my usual early morning skate on Friday (Oct  22nd).  Since it is only for one hour I opted to skip figures in favour of having enough time to practice everything else.  After about two weeks off most of my elements were predictably rusty but I wanted to practice everything and get it over with!  I did a whole bunch of stroking exercises including crossovers and power pulls (these really suck).  I worked on all my spins, most of them were not very good and the consistent camel spin I briefly owned was gone (no surprise).  With my coach we ran through all my jumps up to loop. She thinks they are all progressing especially the loop.  She thinks it looks "natural".  But it still feels strange!

Friday Afternoon

Because I missed four sessions I was allowed to make them up so I started by coming to the afternoon session that day.  I had the day off so why not?!  This time there were a bunch of different sessions going on for several hours.  It started with a skating skills time slot that was supposed to last half an hour but the CanSkate coaches started coming in early for the skating lessons and they started laying out cones and drawing on the ice and generally getting in my way so I left a bit early to go across the hall to the other rink where a freeskate was starting.  It was somewhat busy but mostly with small kids so it wasn't too much of a problem. After that the seniors joined us and we had a spin 'competition'.  Since all my spins were still rusty I just worked on a simple upright spin and trying to 'sell' it with good presentation.  Then there was another freeskate session and I worked on more or less everything until I started running out of ideas. I probably could have worked more on spirals an spread eagles and stuff but I'm a bit embarrassed to practice them, hehe.  Also with seniors there I was concentrating a lot on staying out of their way and ended up doing a lot of just skating around at top speed.  I like to skate fast :)  Too bad I can't even do a 3-turn at such speeds.  Eventually I got tired enough to leave even though the session wasn't over, but it was time to go home and my feet were hurting by then. I probably skated for about three hours that afternoon.

Saturday

On Saturday morning I was ridiculously sore from four hours of skating the previous day.  After two weeks off.  But once I am on the ice I usually don't notice it so much.  During skating skills I got to practice my three patterns to the appropriate music.  The 3-turns pattern is feeling more smooth and the choctaws are not as awkward as they used to be. The Mohawks pattern sucks the most because I can't seem to figure out the timing of the music; also I am not as good at doing the pattern with the left foot leading, it's a lot less controlled.  I also got to practice the Dutch Waltz to the music and even though I forgot some of the steps it mostly came back to me.  I still haven't had a dance lesson, something I'd like to rectify. 

For our group lesson we practiced a bunch of straight stroking and Russian stroking  just going down the ice and back in a big line.  I liked this lesson format because less time is wasted waiting for your turn to skate.  We even tried racing down the ice, both forwards and backwards.   I did not do as well as I expected going forwards but was second going backwards!

For my private lesson we worked on my spins.  We worked some more on fixing the travel in my forward upright spin and I was able to centre a couple of them.  But, I don't know how I did it.  My coach says that on the ones that were centred, I was 'pressing down through the ball of the foot' more.  I'm not really sure what this means.  My sit-spin was really not working and I even fell on one of them when I leaned too deeply on the spiraling edge.  I know that I need to spiral into a tighter curve before spinning but I just can't seem to do it. At this point I was getting too frustrated for it to really be productive so we moved on to the camel spin.  It still wasn't as good as it had been before my vacation.  My coach wants me to make a tighter spiraling edge and immediately straighten the free knee.  To practice this I tried skating a spiral down the blue line.  It takes me about halfway across the rink to get into the proper position, it needs to be much quicker than that.  Also need to think about getting both knees absolutely locked as soon as possible or it looks "horrendous". Oh snap!  On the bright side my upright backspin has improved drastically, Coach was surprised, even shocked! So was I!

The rest of the freeskate I mostly spent working on going into my jumps with more speed.  Not top speed, because I get out of control, but usually I practice them at a crawl so I tried to pick it up a bit.  The one this is hardest for is the toe loop.  For some reason this jump is confusing me lately.  Anyway it wasn't all about skating fast, I did do my dreaded jumping exercises including my least favourite one, the toe loop from a standstill.  AND I even got to doing some of the Lutz prep exercises.  Whee!  I did manage to practice some spirals and spread eagles toward the end this time, and got more comfortable with my right foot spiral.

No surprise, I was again ridiculously sore for the rest of the day and Sunday. 

Monday

On Monday I skate for only an hour and it's somewhat crowded, so it's not always the most productive day.  This time my feet were killing me so I had to adjust my skates a couple of times but it can't account for the way the time just flew by.  I worked on crossovers and power pulls a bit, ran through my spins saving the most time for camel, did some spirals, and suddenly it was time for my lesson.  We worked on jumps this time.  Some days my coach seems happy with them and sometimes she just picks them apart, and this time she picked them apart.  She would fix one thing, and something else would go wrong.  I think I was a bit distracted by all the other skaters or something, I wasn't focusing enough.  But we did manage to get each jump to a point where I could do one or two that was ok.  I hate it when my coach has to say the same things over and over, it's a waste of her breath and we both waste time and energy, but there is so much to think about at once it's really tough to get them all right at once.

The group lesson on Mondays is also kind of a wash because there are so many of us and they choose exercises where we sort of cross paths and it gets chaotic.  We practiced cross rolls and skiing and skiing with a turn.  One exercise that I just didn't get involved some kind of backward cross-in-front step followed by a double three-turn.  When I tried it I was told that I had turned the wrong way but I couldn't really figure out what I was supposed to do.  Sometimes this sort of thing happens in a group lesson.  They did finally split us up into 2 groups toward the end and we practiced doing a BO 3-turn followed by FI Mohawk.  We practiced them CCW but ran out of time for doing them CW.  And the coaches wonder why we don't practice everything in both directions! LOL!

Epic Lesson

I had a fantastic skate on Saturday :D
It started with skating skills, which was relatively empty due to the Thanksgiving holiday. I practiced my three routines to the appropriate music (a three-turn sequence, a mohawk sequence, and held edges on a circle in all 8 flavours). The music for the mohawk sequence seems a bit fast and I'm having a hard time hearing the beat so I don't have the hang of the timing yet. I'll have to get some help with that.

Then we had skating lessons for kids as usual (CanSkate). I taught my own group again, and it is getting easier now that I have taught this level a few times. As long as I stay with this level I'm good! They were having trouble with their two-foot turns, so I got them to practice "doing the twist" by just standing and swiveling their hips back and forth and it helped a whole lot. It's also a good chance to practice spinning in the opposite direction.

For the group lesson we did an intense crossovers workshop, ugh. My coach wants us to be able to hold the underpush without bending forward, but it's just so hard on my old knees and back. I started going to a physiotherapist recently though so I am hoping he can help me get into these awkward poses that my coach keeps trying to contort me into.

After that it was time for group spin lesson, but all my coach's other students were away so I got to have a private lesson for that plus the duration of freeskate :) We weren't really planning to use the entire 75 minutes for a private lesson but we were having such a great time that we just kept going. Next week I am away on vacation so it is just lesson time that I would have had later anyway. Plus I think my coach was happy to be employed that whole time!

I did in fact have a terrific lesson. We covered just about everything. We talked about testing and competing. We even got to three new jumps. Whee!

• One-foot upright spin: for the test, the want the free leg brought in beside the skating leg, not crossed in front like a scratch spin. I practiced one of these and was told "that was a really nice spin". Currently I'm holding the knee bend for quite a long time and was rewarded with one well-centred spin to boot.
• Sit-spin: more work on pointing the free foot forwards and up, not out to the side. The position coach likes feels like my toe is pointing to the left, but it's actually pointing forward. To centre them I need to spiral in farther on the entry and get more lean over the left foot; feel the blade really biting the ice. I feel the lean on the entry but once I get spinning I sort of fall inward. We made some progress on this including keeping the free leg straight on the swing around. Coach says they look more appealing now when I get everything right. Still need to work on deeper sit position off-ice.
• Camel spin: need to make the entry more smooth and really extend, almost lock both knees. I practiced two. The second one really felt good and coach says it's perfect, she doesn't want to mess with it. Only suggestion is to not lift the free leg so high, think more of getting an outward or even upward turn of the free foot/toe. And fold more forwards and square the shoulders. Pretty nice considering how awful this spin was two months ago.
• Backspin: bleah. I fall to the outside edge and scrape the ice; also have a real comfort zone problem with the free leg being in any other position except crossed in front of my skating leg. I told coach that I'm not thinking of my body position because I'm trying to find the right spot on my blade, but she thinks it should be more the other way around; a proper body position will naturally lead to balancing on the proper part of the blade. Aim for keeping the hips level, free thigh parallel to the ice, free foot directly in front of skating knee. Toe pointed. Duh.
• Attitude spin: didn't get too far with this, I'm having trouble figuring out if the free knee has to move behind the line of the body. We seem to be having a communications disconnect on this one. Anyway, idea is to work on a regular upright spin entry with free leg about 45 degrees out from the midline of the body. Then bend the free knee and try to make the free ankle point to the ceiling. Haha. One good exercise is to try this just gliding down the ice. This is hard. Did I mention the toe should be pointed?
• Waltz jump: we worked on the dreaded exercise and she claims it shows that I've been practicing it. No comment on the step forward, so I'm not sure if I'm doing it right yet. I've been trying to think about pivoting on the ball of the foot instead of deepening the curve. We had a bit of a discussion about how I can't absorb all of her great feedback at once, and I'm better at thinking about one thing at a time. She told me to try a jump without thinking about it; apparently that one was quite good. *shrug*. Also tried setting it up from backward crossovers. Scary fast!
  
• Salchow: coach thinks it looks quite nice, not too much feedback here. Remember to BEND the knees, and jump from the deepest knee bend without hesitation. Practice holding the check after the three-turn more.
  
• Toe loop: one thing I noticed on Friday is that when I look at my toe-loop tracing the toe-pick mark is at an outward angle to the direction of the glide. I think this means I am opening the hip of the picking foot before picking, which is probably a cheat. I focused on keeping the hips more square and coach thinks it looks much better. I still need to consciously sweep the skating foot toward the picking foot more closely before jumping.
• Loop: some serious improvement here. We are pleased that I am over my mental block on entering the jump from a backward two-foot glide and am managing something better than a bent-over hop. Need to get the timing of arms and legs more co-ordinated (this is true for all the jumps). One neat bit of advice was to turn the ankle of the jumping (right) foot so that the toepick is pointing down and to the right. So the ankle is flopping in a bit to the left side, and try to jump outwards not just upwards.
• Flip: After all this coach mused that I am almost ready to move on to the flip, so why not try it? I told her it is my favourite jump and I'm worried she will take the fun out of it, haha. So she had me show her my flip and she said "Wow, I don't want to take the fun out of that for you!" She thinks the jump is pretty good. :D But I am rotating too much on the ice, need to think about pick, jump, rotate in that order. She also showed me her preferred method to set up the jump.
• Lutz: since we are on a roll we moved on to the dreaded Lutz. I told her I have been too afraid to try it. She had me practice the setup from a clockwise glide on the hockey circle, same as waltz but without looking back and going the other direction (feels very strange). Then practice reaching back with the right foot, and move right arm back even farther. Then we tried the pick and jump in two ways: pick and jump but don't rotate; and try the pick and jump and rotate from a standstill. Then pick, jump, and rotate from the gliding setup. I managed to squeak out a couple of crappy ones. Whee!
• Bunny hop: We had not talked about these a lot but they are on the first freeskate test so I got to practice them a bit. Learned what to do with my arms, LOL.
  
• Mazurka: I had never learned these before but they are pretty easy. It's not easy to make them look really amazing though. Especially in my non-dominant direction.
  
• Footwork: we talked about it a bit and I showed her some of the stuff I had been experimenting with last Saturday. Then she tried to teach me how to do a bracket which was pretty much "do this" and "your way sucks" LOL! Well we were out of time so I'm sure next time she will bombard me with her usual plethora of technical tidbits.

I had a lot of fun in this lesson and was pleased we got to talking about programs, testing, and competing. Coach wants me to suggest some music. Too bad all my favourite tunes have vocals! I guess I could stand to skate to the Star Wars soundtrack. But it would be a bit goofy, especially at my age.

All alone

On Friday morning I had the ice all to myself! We had a holiday this weekend and I guess everybody was away. My coach arranged to double up our lesson on Saturday so she could sleep in, lucky her :) It was pretty nice to be alone on the ice. I only wish I had had more time. By the time I got through all my "icework" there was no time left to do fun stuff like improvise at top speed. Oh well!

I practiced pretty much everything, wasn't having an amazing skating day but pretty good nonetheless. I worked on my forward inside figure eights for the first time in a while. They are pretty sucky, but why would they not be? Still struggling with being on an actual edge for the second half of the circle. It seems like I can only hold an edge when going relatively fast. Huh.

Losers

We lost our hockey game tonight >:( 3-1. I had some moments of playing well and some moments of playing fantastically badly. I sure got winded too! Need to do some more cardio conditioning. Good fun anyhow, super good time to be back at hockey. My confidence grows with each game! Oh, this was the first team that could actually outskate me. Need to figure out which teams I can be lazy with, and which teams I can't slack off against!

One woman saw me doing a three-turn during the warmup and asked (as a joke) if I could do a triple toe loop. I told her that if I could, she would already know my name!

I had about two seconds to watch the synchro team practicing on my way out. They were doing some snazzy turns and skating in a circle holding hands. Also wearing very long skirts, almost knee-length. Strange.

"Excellent"

I wanted to name this post "More dreaded jump exercises" or something but decided to take a more positive tone. One of my salchows elicited an "Excellent" from my coach today! So I suppose it is not really my ugly duckling jump, that title squarely belongs to my loop.

I had been sort of avoiding doing jump work with my coach so I bit the bullet today and asked to work on them. Of course I got more of the hated slow-mo walkthroughs; you know, the ones that require patience, edge control, perfect body position from head to toe, blah blah blah. I admitted that I have not been doing them as much as I should, so I will make a better effort to do them now. We worked on all four of the jumps that we have been studying. I was a bit disappointed that the loops I did for my coach were sad little hops, when I had pulled off some more inspiring versions earlier in the hour. The main bit of advice on that one is to stand up taller and not bend forward.

I am not particularly enjoying working on jumps. The preparation going into the jump requires concentration and edge control. The jump itself happens so fast that it's hard to tell exactly what all your body parts are doing. There are so many little bits to remember, it's overwhelming. Jumping wasn't taught to me in this way when I was a kid, so it's rather jarring to spend so much time nitpicking them now. Of course I want to have nice jumps so I have to suffer through it. I think the key will just be not to overdo it, to make sure my lessons over the course of the week are balanced across all types of elements. Otherwise it's just too frustrating.

I spent the rest of the freeskate practicing all my elements. My camel spin was not as effortless as it was yesterday, but it was still not too bad, I don't fall out of it as much anymore. I tried some more back camels and still get about one revolution. I had some decent backspins too. Yesterday I probably did some thirty or forty camels; it can really take time to warm them up. So with only about ten minutes to practice them today, I was not really expecting them to be at the same place. I practiced my layback too and while it is probably all wrong, I am having some success with feeling less dizzy when looking up at the ceiling.

I practiced spirals on both legs, both edges. My right foot spirals feel extremely awkward. I need to make a point of practicing about ten times as many of these than left foot spirals. My left footers get plenty of practice doing camel spins. In the group lesson they made us try those awful forward spirals (aka "leg pulls"). I surprised myself by managing to pull off a sloppy, bent-knee, but not so bad version on each side. My coaches seemed surprised too! I had been griping about these things on Saturday and swore up and down I couldn't do them. They also noted that I had held them for as long as they had instructed, when hardly anyone else did. Still, I don't think I will ever put them in a program if I can avoid them. Let's just say they are a bit, um, suggestive.

After that there was public skating, so I decided to stay but after about 20 minutes it was just too crowded to do much of anything really. I managed to do some laps of two-foot and one-foot slalom/skiing, and a two-foot turn exercise that has been baffling me. I think I made some progress in combining the turn with the required change of edge and smoothness. I did some opposite direction spinning while helping a little girl practice her spins and turns. I stuck it out to the 40-minute mark when there was a Zamboni break, then I called it a night. I couldn't even practice three-turns in this environment.

Good news, the ice conditions were much better today. I wonder if it is because of the drier weather, or because of the complaint I made last week?

Wow!

I almost didn't go to public skating tonight, but I'm sure glad I did. When I arrived there was only ONE other person on the ice. I couldn't believe it! Usually Sunday night is well attended. Some more people did eventually show up but it was never more than ten of us or so on the ice at once. Under such conditions it was so terrific I stayed for the second session, even though they turn the lights out and put on disco lights which make skating a bit more disorienting. I think the ice is in better condition too, it was much smoother than usual.

I practiced just about everything I could think of and had trouble of thinking of stuff to work on sometimes because I had already tried everything. I was having a fabulous day for camels! I could get used to this. I practiced my camel-layback-change-sit combination with some success. I even tried camel-change-camel and managed about one revolution of the back camel. I did about a thousand backspins and my problem with them currently is that I am leaning so much into my outside edge that my blade scrapes deeply and I lose my balance. This was difficult to correct however. Sometimes I manage a decent back spin but I can't exit them properly, this will take some work.

All in all, it was about 2 hours of skating, really fun. I hope my camel stays with me when I get on the ice tomorrow.

After the skating I noticed some ladies filing into the changeroom and suspected they might be with the synchro club. I asked them and indeed, they were synchro skaters. I talked to a couple of them for a while, they are really nice ladies and I love the idea of skating with other women my age. Unfortunately they usually practice at another arena on another night when I am busy >:( There just aren't enough hours in the week to do all the activities I want to do!

Yawn

I have been very busy! To summarize, I accumulated about four more hours of skating in the last two days. I am skating well and having fun!

Friday

Morning skate:

• Figures: FO8. This time I got the first quarter of the circles to be in the right spot, when going without markings. But, the left circle is too large and the right circle is too small. Also after inspecting the tracings, the second half of the circles are being traced mostly on a flat instead of an edge >:( I never checked this before.
• Skating skills: Learned the new 'Watzing Mohawks' pattern with my coach and practiced both it and the three-turns pattern. She thinks they are almost testable; I want them to be breathtaking to watch.
• Freeskate elements: A bit of a blur now, but I mostly concentrated on spins I think. Also spirals, I practiced forward spirals on each foot, on flat, inside, and outside edges. Discovered that change-edge spirals are not as easy as regular change-edge glides.

Physiotherapy Appointment:

• I finally decided to go see a physio about my chronic knee and back problems. He says I have too much of an anterior pelvic tilt (i.e. I stick my butt and tummy out); this was not news to me. But I actually learned a lot at the appointment, he did a very thorough assessment of the flexibility in my legs and hips.
  
• Punchline: stretch quadriceps and psoas muscles, strengthen left gluteus medius, improve posture.

Evening skate:

• With my husband out of town and me being an ice-aholic, I went to public skate at the rink where I already have a pass. For about half an hour I had a wonderful time spinning and it was not too crowded to boot. I practiced backspins in upright and sit positions and found it helpful to keep the skating knee bent. I also practiced forward upright spins trying to reduce travel and found that keeping a deep knee bend helped some of the time. I experimented with attitudes and camels with some success.
• After that they announced over the PA that figure skating was not allowed! I threw my hands in the air and muttered 'Since when?' I have been skating at this rink's public sessions for over two months and always there is a collection of us figure skating in the centre of the rink. We don't cause trouble. And yet when I went a couple of weeks ago there were two boys kicking a puck around and teenagers pushing eachother around while sitting on those useless plastic contraptions for beginners, but I didn't hear any announcements about that. I had to speak to these kids myself. Who's more of a danger?
• After the ridiculous ban on figure skating I decided to buck up and practice my basic skating skills like stroking, power pulls, two-foot slaloms, two-foot slalom turns, FO and FI three-turns, Mohawks, swing rolls, cross rolls, etc. It's tough to practice crossovers in that environment except forwards CCW going around the ends. I wish they would have us at least change directions at this rink. I had originally planned to stay for the second hour but with freestyle banned I just wasn't into it, and anyway my knees were sore.

Saturday

• Skills lesson: we ran through the last pattern on the first skills test, which essentially consist of doing several crossovers then holding an edge for 12 counts going around a hockey circle. There are variants for each of the eight edges of course. My coach watched me do each of them and said these are a piece of cake for me because I did figures. After the backward outside edge, she said "Do you know how long it takes me to teach my students how to get into that gliding position that you just did?!" She seemed relieved! The only one I had to do-over was my LBI edge. Not a strong edge for me. Coach thinks I could test these next week. Whee! After that I asked her to look at my crossovers and we got through 3/4 types before running out of time. She did not have a lot of corrections except to keep the free outside leg straight when bringing it around on forward crossovers.
• Group lesson: we practiced some fun new moves like a change-edge with three-turn tacked on, and two backward cross-steps with three toe-steps (not sure of proper names for these moves). I was surprised that the coach running the lesson (not my private coach) put me at the front of one of the lines. There were more advanced skaters there that should have been at the front of the line. I suppose it was some kind of vote of confidence :)
• Spin group lesson: we started with camels and I was having a good camel day. I even pulled off one of my best ones with everyone watching! I almost cheered! Then we practiced backspins and I had less success >:( I hate those things. Coach wanted us to practice Biellmans next and I just laughed, so she said I could just watch. I was dreading getting to the extreme flexibility stuff, but they can't make me do it. None of that Gumby stuff is technically required, and falls more into the sport of gymnastics in my opinion.
• Freeskate: I dutifully practiced everything including all my jumps that I have been working on. Even my loop is a bit less embryonic. They all feel more solid but my coach hasn't watched them in a while, so I'm not sure how they are looking. Guess I should stop putting off another jump lesson. My favourite jump is the flip, but my coach hasn't worked on that one with me yet; I'm sure she will pick it apart when it's time. I noodled around with fun spin combinations like camel-layback-backsit, of course they're all very much in the developmental stages. But I had fun and even managed to look up at the ceiling in one of my proto-laybacks and didn't fall over! It left me pretty dizzy though. I had a fabulous day for camels. Then I had a blast making up footwork building on he stuff we did in group lesson. One of the moves just begged to have a spin tacked onto the end so I had fun doing that and also throwing in some split jumps and split jump followed by a toe loop. I used to be very bad at making up footwork, I am pleased to be improving in that area as well.
• I checked with a staff member if freestyle is allowed at this rink's imminent public skate, and she assured me that it is not, not even backwards skating. I gave her a bit of a hard time about it and she acknowledged that I must know how to control myself on the ice and not cause trouble, but freestyle is not allowed for anyone nonetheless. I left it at that. All the better for it, I saved my money and was tired and ready for lunch anyway.
  
• Stretching: It was a beautiful day today (weird for October) so I took my yoga mat outside and did some stretches, including the stuff from physio. I had some good progress with my left foot forward splits, my front calf is almost grazing my mat. Splits in the other direction still have a long way to go.