This week in ice sports

I had another busy week, just the way I like it!

• Saturday: Figure skating practice, including skills lesson. I had a decent skate and my bracket turns might be getting a teensy bit better. They are seriously hard. And I haven't even learned the backward ones yet! Otherwise my test routines have not really improved all that much. Why? Uhm, lack of practice. You bet.
• Saturday: Hockey game! We played a team with a lot of beginners so I tried to focus on taking my time to make a smart decision with the puck instead of panicking and throwing it away.
• Sunday: Another hockey game, usually I don't play 2 days in a row but they moved one of our games that would have overlapped with the Stanley Cup (how nice!). This time we played a much better team and as usual we were short-handed so this game was a little more ugly. One good moment for me was when I got a half-decent backhand shot on goal from the high slot. Another one was when I did a cool stop-and-turn-around move to lose a check and got away a nice pass.
• Monday: More hockey! Usually I figure skate on Mondays but there was no ice this week, and my team is always shorthanded so I played for the 3rd time in a little over 2 days. These 3 games were like a 'Goldilocks Series'. The first opponent was 'too easy'. The second opponent was 'too hard'. But the third opponent on Monday was 'just right'. We lost 1-0 because I screened my own goalie. Oops!
• Tuesday: Personal training. Sweat was rolling down my nose. Also, my husband has a sudden interest in hockey so we went to public skating and looked in on some games to see if there is a beginner's division for men. I wore my hockey skates and tried to do some backspins. On the first one I fell on my butt because I apparently rely on my toepicks waaay too much. After that I tried to balance more on the ball of my foot the whole time, but the best I could manage was to not fall down. On the bright side, I have pretty decent twizzles in my hockey skates, which I attribute to the lack of toepick. Then I tried a forward spin and fell again. Crap! Kurt Browning can do an Axel in hockey skates.
• Thursday: I found a store that was open late today and ran out there after work to pick up a couple of street hockey pucks. I bought the 'Green Biscuit' puck and the 'Proshot' puck. I also grabbed another stick for home use only. I wanted to try them outside on the road but it started pouring rain as soon as I got home (!). I found a piece of cardboard and put it down on the carpet in the spare room and practiced a little stickhandling, probably for 30 or 40 minutes. I definitely need a bigger piece of something slippery to practice on indoors. My forearms are already sore and that was just a couple of hours ago!
  

Shockingly good public ice

I don't have any freestyle ice until Saturday, but it's spring break this week and there are extra public skate times on at one of the private rinks all week. I dropped in after work today and for only $2 I skated for almost an hour with only about 20-30 other people on the ice. It was pretty roomy! I did do some spinning but 'figure skating' isn't technically allowed so I didn't spend the whole time spinning in case someone complained. What I did do was practice my bracket turns a LOT. I just learned them a little over a week ago. The inside ones are not so bad but the outside ones are pretty tricky. Last Monday I fell pretty hard on a left outside bracket and I am a little spooked on those ones now. The inside ones are actually decent and I worked up the nerve to do them with a little speed. They're almost fun! But not nearly as effortless as 3-turns. Anyway I checked the tracings and some of them really look bracket-shaped. I'm amazed! I never learned these before and figured that it was a distinct possibility that they would just be too hard to learn.

I also practiced back outside pivots because they are also in the Sr. Bronze Skills patterns. The RBO pivot is not too bad probably because of more familiarity with the RBO edge because of jumps. The LBO pivot is much harder but I found that deeper knee bend and patience were very helpful. I have learned some bits and piece of the Sr. Bronze patterns and worked on what I could remember. I should be learning the patterns in full soon especially once I get the hang of the brackets and the pivots.

No skating until Saturday - which is probably good for my knees.

Just more good Saturday ice

Yesterday morning I had a good skate. I always like Saturdays :) I arrived early enough to warm up a bit and do my jumps on the floor.

• Skills lesson: We did run-throughs of all 3 patterns with the music and did some fine tuning especially of the pattern with all the 3-turns. My coach fixed a spot where I was keeping the free foot behind instead of bringing it in front. On the LBO 3-turn I am on too deep of a forward edge after the turn and have a hard time holding it for the required 4 counts without falling over! I need to practice that one. My coach says the power circles are a lot better but I should probably make the circles a bit bigger, there was one time I got too far around and messed up the transition to the next circle. She also fixed another problem with my free leg in this one. The change 3's pattern is pretty good I just need to clean up the first backward change edge a bit, and I think it will be ok.
• Group lesson: My toes are always frozen when we start this from the 45-minute CanSkate lessons we run between these two segments. We practiced the routine we are going to run for the year-end show in March. So far it's not nearly as long as the one we did at Christmas, I'm not sure if we're going to make it longer or what. The coaches weren't too happy with our spirals and leg pulls from the routine so we practiced them after that a bit more.
• Spin patch: My toes were still frozen so spinning was hard! Sometimes in spin patch we focus on one spin and other times we practice a lot of spins. Today we did a lot of different ones but because we kept moving on I didn't really get to practice making corrections. We did upright backspins and backsits. I had 2 bad falls on the backsits. Too much attack and when I hook the spin I can't control the spin with so much energy involved. After that I didn't much feel like doing any more of them. We also did sit-change-sit, back camels, and flying camels. My coach says that I have the timing right on when to 'fly' the camel, but the rest of it is not very good yet.
• Freeskate: I didn't get a private lesson today because my coach is prepping her other skaters for a competition coming soon. This was fine because I had a long jump lesson the previous day (usually my lessons are only 20 minutes). That meant I had a whole hour to practice anything I wanted, and my toes were finally thawed! I practiced my jumps just like Coach wants. She insists that I just need to get in more repetitions and then I will be able to make the nanosecond corrections that she wants. So I did at least 5 of each jump although I probably scrimped on the toe loop, I prefer to do them in combination. I even practiced my Lutz. It's hard to do the jump without disrupting the flow of momentum from the original direction. What an awkward jump, blech. After jumps I did a whole lot of spins, including going back to that backsit and they are tentative but ok. I practiced really whipping into my camel spin with a tight spiraling edge and it is really working for me! Sometimes it is just ok but other times I really get everything right and when I hook the spin I can also feel that it's centred and then it's much easier to hold the spin. It's also faster, I think I had a couple that were 3 revolutions. That used to be extremely rare! I didn't fall out of any of them :) After that I practiced some spirals and leg pulls, power pulls and cross rolls. Nobody was using the music so I practiced 2 of my Skills patterns again but I had to modify them a bit to keep from crashing into other skaters.
• Spin competition: today's spin was....dum dum dum, the stupid backsit. We practiced them a bit more and I had a couple of good ones, but I also fell some more. When it was time to do them one at a time, mine was pretty good but Coach pointed out that it's not low enough, and the free leg is too bent. After that we practiced them again so she could pick a winner. I did one really good one right off the bat! I tried to get lower and straighten the free leg and it felt like it must have looked fantastic. Then after that I fell about 3 times in a row. I probably fell 10 times today on that stupid backsit! After 3 hours on the ice I think I was just getting tired and losing focus that's all. Anyway I didn't get picked as the winner although the coach said that I had had some good ones. For next week we will do the flying camel spin and we had a 5-minute tutorial on it. The coach drew a diagram on the ice and showed us that the jump has to keep spinning, you can't jump straight out. She had a Sr. Bronze girl show us her flying camel (it is beautiful). She whips around on her toepick on the jump so that when she lands she is still spinning. Then it was our turn. My parents happened to be in town and came to watch part of my skate, and my fabulous Dad captured a nice piece of learning that went on. When I tried my flying camel, I jumped straight out instead of around. The coach saw it and pointed out my mistake. Then she encouraged me to try it again with more whipping action. The one I did after that is my best one ever and I partially corrected the mistake. Awesome! Unfortunately we were out of time after that but I can't wait to practice them again.

30 minutes of annoying jump exercises

So I've been on a bit of a cloud with all the excitement and positive vibes in the last week. This morning my coach burst my bubble a bit by reminding me that my jumps are still crummy and put me through 30 minutes of those dreaded jump exercises. I hate to get all negative but I really despise doing annoying jump exercises. No matter how many times I do slo-mo jumps at the boards, I just can't translate them into the nanosecond movements that need to be made in the actual jump. Maybe you just can't teach an old dog new tricks? We didn't even get to my new Lutz in 30 minutes which was a bit of a drag. After that I didn't even feel like practicing any more jumps on my own. >:(

Once my lesson was over I cleared my head a bit with some skills practice. My 3-turns are really skidding a lot lately which doesn't bother me anymore because I'm getting used to it but I should probably try to fix that for my test which includes copious amounts of 3-turns. Two of my skills patterns are fine. The third one (Power Circles) is still a dog's breakfast so I made sure to practice it several times this morning. I figured out how hard I have to push on the first circle to make it all the way around the required 2 times. Then I figured out that after that I hardly need to push at all. Furthermore, I learned that the worst part now is the single count back crossovers. They build speed ridiculously quickly, and it's spooky when you come close to the boards. It doesn't help that I get more into my toes when I get spooked, then the crossovers get even scratchier and it will drive the judge crazy for sure. The tempo is so quick there isn't really time to fully extend each one and point the toe. That would drive my group enhancement coach crazy too! Despite these problems, I feel much more confident in the pattern and have the hang of how hard to push, the freaky swing Choctaw at top speed, and the light-speed tango stop. I figured out that I have to stay into my knees and get my weight balanced properly as soon as possible at the start of each new circle. Now I just need more confidence on those back crossovers and I'll be ready to conquer this test and move on to some delicious bracket turns.

Next I worked on my spins and spirals, focusing on more 'attack' in the spins. I'm definitely attacking more and occasionally it's rewarding; I get a really fast (for me) spin out of it. However I noticed today that my centring really goes to hell when I do this, and it had been getting better so I don't want to undo everything I've achieved in that department. So I need to remember that 'attack' doesn't mean 'rush'. IT'S NEVER OK TO RUSH. Right? Then I attacked the crap out of a backsit and fell down hard. Oops! I think that I didn't get enough 'snap and square' on that one, my right arm was still out in la-la land and it threw off my balance. Well it was good to have a fall, it means that I'm pushing myself out of my comfort zone and I haven't had that many falls lately doing freestyle elements. They've all been from dumb stuff like trying to show off doing a tango stop from top speed.

Getting ready to compete

I have been really busy time lately, and haven't made the commitment to blog about my adventures. Overall the main focus on my skating in the last 6 weeks has been on my program for the upcoming Adult Regional competition next week. I'm skating to a selection from "Mario takes a walk" by Jesse Cook. Armin Mahbanoozadeh has used it in his short program this season and I really like it. Unfortunately, I can't skate as well as he can, but I think my coach and I have done a decent job of drafting a nice program to it that showcases my better elements. It has taken us a long time to fully choreograph it (and it's still not 100% complete) but it's more complex than the programs she usually puts together (almost 1 minute longer, but fewer elements, so it's got lots of transitions, etc.) Some days I do a decent run-through and other days it's a big ol' mess, but the good run-throughs get better each time, so that's positive. Right now the biggest issues are working out the timing of some of the sections and sloppiness in transitions, along with getting 2 full rotations in the camel position for my combination spin. My sit-spin is better than ever by a mile. But I'm a little spooked that there is so little prep time left. My dress is almost finished, I'm just sewing on the last bit of trim around the hem.

While my good days on the ice are getting better and better, the bad ones still occasionally happen and are starting to worry me a bit. Lately I have been getting chicken about jumps and getting sloppy when I try to do them with more speed. The most irritating situation is with my flip; sometimes I just get a mental block and simply can't execute the jump. This especially bothers me because it used to be my favourite jump, just pure fun; then we tried to improve it and now I think about it too much and try to bail out if I don't set it up just so. I've had a couple of frustrating practices as well where nothing seemed to go right and then the next day I have a wonderful skate so it can be really baffling. Yesterday I had a crappy skate, just a big waste of time. So this morning before I got on the ice I practiced my jumps in my shoes, in the lobby, and that gave me a lot of confidence. Once it was time to warm up my jumps on the ice they were stronger and better than they usually are at first. I was kicking out further in my waltz jump, more confident in my Salchow and loop, and didn't have any aborted flips. I was better about not pre-rotating my shoulders. I didn't give up on any of my jumps. This was great for my confidence so I plan to warm up my jumps off the ice before I skate from now on. Especially at competition next week. Yikes! After my skate yesterday morning I was considering withdrawing. But after a great skate today with 2 acceptable run-throughs, I feel more optimistic about it. Skating can be so weird.

Aside from my program, I have been dabbling a bit in Skating Skills for 30 minutes a week, just one lesson a week. For the Jr. Bronze level there are again three patterns to learn:

• "Threes & Power Mohawks"
• "Power Circles 1"
• "Change Threes"

The moves at this level that were not in the Preliminary level are backward 3-turns, swing rolls, changes of edge, and tango stops (T-stops, foot in front, on outside edge). Also speed, power and control are more important.

For the first pattern I mostly struggle with checking the backward 3-turns and getting the right timing on the Mohawk/Choctaw section, but I can get through it without any major mistakes. The third pattern is my favourite, the swing roll/edge change combination is fun and I can really lean into my edges. Aside from the tango stop, it's my best of the lot. My worst is the power circles pattern. It's not complicated, just a pattern of crossovers around the hockey circles. But, it's done at full speed and the circles are tight enough that I am really deep on my edges so they are difficult to control. Last week I had a huge wipeout when I leaned too far into my backward crossovers, fell onto my hip and slid full speed across the ice. There was nothing I could do but put my feet out to let them hit the boards first and hope that the collision wouldn't damage my blades. Everyone came rushing to see if I was ok! It was a bit unnerving not to mention that it was within 5 minutes of stepping on the ice and not really the way I wanted to start the day. This morning's practice was a bit better, I didn't wipe out but I made my circles too large and couldn't get all the way around them in the prescribed number of steps. We didn't even complete a full run-through and it's been a while now since I have done one. Fortunately, I'm not too concerned about these at the moment because I'm distracted by my competition. It's definitely going to take longer before I'm able to test at this level than it did for the previous level. But if I can say it without sounding stuck-up, I am better at the other 2 patterns than the other 2 girls in my lesson, heheh. And I think they get 2 lessons a week!

In other news my foot is feeling better and ballet class has been a little bit more fun lately. It's not exactly what I expected but to practice good posture for 75 minutes once a week is not such a bad thing really.

Well, time to sign off for now. I hope to go back to more regular posting soon.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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 :)

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.
  

Waltzing Threes

I had a better session today. We began with something fun and new! My coach taught me a dance-like pattern that is on the first skating skills test. It is a clockwise pattern of three-turns, crossovers and steps that covers the whole ice surface, called 'Waltzing Threes'. It is actually quite fun and I am looking forward to practicing it again. My coach is going to photocopy the pattern for me, because I am still a bit fuzzy about how the pattern goes in the corners of the rink. Strangely, I have not been able to find information about the Skate Canada test content online, even though all of the USFSA test content is available online. So I will have to rely on my coach for now. I hate not being able to find things online!

After the skills session was the CanSkate class (learn to skate). This time I did not have to teach by myself, whew! I helped out with organizing the kids and mostly shouting gems of wisdom like 'Arms up! Feet together!'.

In the group lesson we practiced some weird pattern of edge changes I had never done before. I did not really get to see what the whole thing was, and I was so far back in the line that by the time it was my turn, the other students were doing the pattern back toward me and we had to swerve out of eachothers' way. So that was a bit of an annoying waste of time. After that we switched to more useful drills in a better format. I like the group lessons, but sometimes we try to practice so many moves that I only get to do each one once or twice. I will have to practice them more on my own.

We had another group spin lesson too and my backspin seems to be progressing. My coach doesn't like my free leg position, but this is an improvement over not being able to do the spin at all. Then, she broke my sit-spin!! I have a toe-out, heel-in, foot-on-an-angle position with my free foot in my sit-spin that my coach does not like. Now when I try to have the foot vertical (but pointed), I get even more unbalanced in the spin and travel/fall out. So I am a bit irked that now I can't do a sit-spin. I need to find out which is the more serious offense, an "ugly" foot position or gross traveling. In my opinion traveling is worse but I will ask my coach's opinion. I know that I also don't squat down enough but she seems willing to let that slide for the moment. That is a relief, because I have knee problems and it will take some time at physiotherapy to improve my range of motion in the knee.

Then it was time for freeskate and I spent twenty minutes on my camel spin. I don't normally spend so much time on it but it was taking forever to really warm up. I did spirals and stretches, but it took quite some time to get comfortable. I did manage several respectable if slow camels, but the rest of them all failed in a fall/lean to the inside. I know I need to lean to the outside of my supporting foot, but somehow it's just not translating into actually doing it.

During this experience I began to get frustrated, again. It is hard when you have a good skate (like I did last Saturday) and then the next time or two, or seven, you suck. It is easy to be fooled into thinking that each practice, you will do the same or better as the last. This is completely untrue in figure skating, at least in my experiences both as a child and as an adult. Memories of frustration and exasperation started coming back to me. This became worse as I discovered my broken sit-spin when trying to fix the free foot position, and then when an elite skater commandeered the ice. I had to keep forcing myself to continue for the rest of the session.

I would like to bitch and moan about this elite skater for a moment. Today he spent about twenty minutes working on a triple toe loop. This meant that he would be skating at full blast across two-thirds of the rink surface. At one point I realized that most of us were crammed into the other third of the ice, working on our elements at low speed because there was no room. Then, when he practiced his program I made sure to stand at the boards when he came by, but he still skated WITHIN ONE INCH OF ME. Sorry, I cannot move back any more! It is not reasonable to expect me to sit in the penalty box for the entire duration of his program when I have paid for the ice too. Then, to make it even more disgusting, his run-through mostly featured popped jumps that were poorly landed, so it felt even more so like wasted time. I wish this fellow was in a different session! Our session is labelled Intermediate/Senior so I suppose he is entitled to attend it. However it is also the session with all the new freeskaters like me working on bad waltz jumps and shaky backspins. The next most elite skater is powerful and has an axel and is working on doubles, but I have not had any problems with her. Probably there is nothing I can do about it though, and in general all the other time slots I am in are full of the same level skaters so I had not even had a single problem until today.

Anyway, speaking of bad waltz jumps, I diligently practiced my waltz jump prep over and over today. I even did the jump this time, but I have lost the sense of joy in it that I briefly experienced. As soon as I jump, I know that my step forward was not executed correctly, so that kind of takes the fun out of it. So mostly I focused on the prep and the step. Through repetition, each piece of technique is slowly absorbed so it is very important. I have the backward push, feet together, and change of arms down pat. Now for the rest of it!

I spent a bit of time working on my other jumps, but I am not feeling too jazzed about them right now. I would rather do them while my coach is watching because I know they are flawed. Since my coach fixed my swinging Salchow free leg, the jump feels like a wretched little thing and I'm not much inclined to inflict its ugliness on whomever might be watching me. However it is better than my loop which has been reduced to a weak hop when I try it with the new entrance. From a three-turn, I have more confidence and the jump is stronger (but probably still flawed). At least it is a jump though! Ah well I will never be a big jumper so I don't feel too bad about slacking off on them.

This week there was a spirals competition, which I am not signed up for (i.e. haven't payed for the time slot). I had entertained the idea of doing it anyway, for the practice, but by the end of the morning my confidence was not that high and I just wanted to go home. When I walked by on my way out of the building I saw them practicing front catch-foot spirals, and was glad of my decision. This ugly spiral is new since I was a child skater, so I never learned how to do it. But I know from yoga classes that I am not flexible enough to do even a passable Level 1 version of it. No need to advertise this in front of a group of 12-year old Gumbies!

This afternoon I spent two hours stretching.

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.