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.
  

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!

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!

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.

Whirlwind Weekend

Wow, I had a busy three days!

Friday

Got up early to skate at 7am and skate at the foggy arena with the stalactites. Actually they were not too bad this time, but still not quite ideal. I got to work on my figures again. They are still atrocious. I had these dreams of trying some of the advanced figures involving brackets and loops and such but my basic circle eights have a long way to go before I am ready for that. But I am lucky to have so much ice to myself to practice them! If I spend 15 minutes on them every Friday morning, they make be back to some kind of testable condition by the end of the season (not that you can test them anymore).

After my figures I spent some time warming up and going through some skills. My coach worked on some jumps with me, we have finally moved on to salchow and toe loop jumps. I was swinging my free leg wildly in my salchow, which my coach is trying to fix. Apparently it should stay close as it comes around and cross in front before bending both knees and driving the free knee up. Also the free foot is supposed to bend awkardly at the ankle so that the toes point toward the midline of the body and the heel pointing outward. Good times!

Saturday

I woke up with a sore throat but I dragged myself out of bed for an epic 3 hour morning at yet another arena. This one is the best one yet so far! Really good ice and even seating for spectators. The first half hours was called 'skating skills' which is what has replaced school figures here in Canada. Also dance can be practiced at this time. We spent the time working on stroking, crossovers, a mohawk drill and three-turns. Mostly we focused on fixing my bad posture. I enjoyed this session because good skating skills and poise between elements can really lift an average skater to someone that stands out.

After the lesson there was skating lessons for little children, due to a strange ordering of the schedule. They told me I could help out so I stuck around; I ended up teaching groups of kids all by myself :O Fortunately they were not learning anything too complicated. Since I don't really know how to teach I just adopted a 'watch me' type of instruction but it seemed to go alright.

Once the little kids went off the ice we had another group lesson like the one on Monday. We practiced edges down the ice, three turns, mohawks, etc. After that was a smaller group lesson on spins. I thought we would be working on our spins individually, but I saw my coach teaching a group of girls and asked if I can join them. I suppose she will charge me some kind of group lesson rate for that one. Anyway we worked on laybacks (something I have been wanting to learn!) and back sit spins out of a pivot on the toepick. I was not able to do the back sit at all in front of the group, I just immediately fell out of it. My coach says that on Friday nights there is a spin competition, and next week it is sit-change-sit. Even though I am not in this competition, I practiced the back sit and then the whole sit-change-sit combination until I was able to pull a few off! Too bad my coach didn't see them :P

The rest of the time was open freeskate so I worked on all my jumps trying to incorporate all the new things I learned this week. I finally feel a joy in pulling off a good waltz jump, a jump I used to find very uninteresting. I even experimented with split jumps in each direction and the half loop. I experimented with camel-change-camel, which did not get far because I cannot get into the back camel position. I experimented with coming into a back spin from a long RBO edge, which is seriously harder than it looks. I tried a bunch of consecutive three-turns as some kind of precursor to twizzles, but so far I can only do them on one foot in one direction. We capped off the morning by practicing spirals as the coaches contorted me into painful positions at the boards. Practicing these awful things makes my outer hips really sore! They were sore for three days after Monday's practice and they are still sore this evening from yesterday morning.

Sunday

Today I was still not feeling well and slept most of the day but I was foolish enough to play hockey anyway! Our game did not start well and we were down 4-2 before long. But somehow we got a fire lit under us after that and bounced back for an 8-4 win! I made a few good plays. I even managed to fire off a wrist shot from the point. My new goal is to try not to make any bad mistakes that directly lead to a goal against us. It's not as easy as it sounds!

Well it's been a busy weekend, I can't wait to have some tea and go to bed.