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.