Caught on Video

So on Monday I had a terrible session. Like some kind of bad joke, my stellar session on Friday was followed up by a stinker. I was annoyed, but I tried to take Gary Beacom's advice to focus on what was positive about the session and put it behind me. I thought hard and came up with one positive: that I went.
After a day off, I went back today with a good attitude, and managed to do a quick off-ice warmup this time (I like to do 20 minutes, but on Monday I didn't have time for any). I didn't land my Axel out of the gate, but I was feeling good and eventually worked up the courage to just go for it, in spite of how strange it feels. I even managed to do an OK Axel for the camera, so now you know it's not a Unicorn or a Dragon or Snuffalupagus!

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.

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!

Good weekend ice and stupid toe loops

Another multiple day post, yeesh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disappointment

After looking forward to skating this morning so much, I was thoroughly disappointed today with a wasted lesson and crappy skating. The whole 20 minute lesson was spent on the step forward into the waltz jump. At first this was ok, then I started getting frustrated because my coach kept offering useless tidbits like "You look awkward". Well, duh. That's not helpful! Then I started analyzing it in my typical fashion and was also getting frustrated that maybe I'm just too old, inflexible, and injured to be any good at this sport. This attitude did not help.

After the lesson I worked dutifully on the waltz jump prep for another ten minutes or so and then tried some spins. I did not even feel like doing other jumps. All my spins were crap except for the back sit, surprisingly. They traveled pitifully and involved much toe-pick scratching and loss of balance.

This is not the first time I have experienced this type of two steps forward, one step back progress. Figure skating is filled with it and I had much frustration in skating as a child. I tried not to let this one incident get me down, after all I have been having many good sessions lately so one bad one is no big deal. But I still have a sense of wasted time and money, and general disgust with myself. What was extra lame about the whole morning was that I did not have fun, which is the whole point of doing this.

The session was not an entire writeoff because I actually made progress with my figures, of all things. I found this great reference on the web that describes many aspects of skating, including figures:

http://www.worldfigureskating.net/index.php

Since I will basically have to teach myself, I read through the instructions for the forward outside eight and even printed them out and brought them with me in case I needed to check them. I practiced about six eights and then checked out my tracings. I measured them and found them woefully asymmetric. On the start of the circle, I go out too far so my circles are more oval-shaped and off-centre. You are not supposed to use markings but I currently need them as a learning tool, so I measured and marked out the proper locations of the quarter-circles. Then I tried to skate the figure again, hitting all the marks. This felt strange, like I was tracing circles with big bites out of them. But the resulting traces looked more round and smooth. Following the instructions from the website immediately helped my edges be more secure and less wobbly. So I feel very good about this progress, even if it is for a skill I cannot test. In a way, I feel like I am keeping alive a dying art.

In order to make better use of my lesson time I am going to make some rules for myself, which I will try to obey.

• No babbling or extensive analysis
• Try to just do what she says and see what happens
  
• No complaining about being too old, inflexible, etc.
• Don't explain why you did it wrong unless it is useful
• Pay 100% attention

After thinking about my lesson for quite a while today I had one realization that part of my frustration probably stems from a sense of 'already knowing this stuff' and wanting to just skate around and do my thing. Unfortunately what I already know is very technically flawed, and it needs a lot of correcting before I can just skate around, let alone have a program, test, and compete. Part of me is thinking 'I was in two competitions! I could do a lutz! I don't want to do waltz jumps'. This thinking is counterproductive because while I want to have fun, I want to be a good skater, not just someone who competes at the lowest level with crappy waltz jumps that never get any better.

I spent some time cruising the web for other adult skating blogs and found them very inspiring. I should figure out how to make links for them on my sidebar. By midday I was anxious to get back on the ice and just keep practicing. Furthermore I cleverly chalked up my overall terrible skating after the lesson to dull blades, which is not entirely impossible. I have skated at least 25 hours on this sharpening and I have heard that sharpening is recommended about every 20 hours. So I contrived to escape work early, and drove like a maniac to the skating store and get them done just before closing :) The blades look much better now and I hope they bring me a more pleasant skate tomorrow. Tomorrow is my 3-hour epic morning and I am looking forward to it now!