Fear and Awe

So the other day I was skating at the rink, minding my own business, when Emanuel Sandhu decided to drop by and practice some footwork and jumps. Uh, yikes! He was pretty good about not disrupting us; he mostly stayed at one end of the rink and only did some enormous jump when there was a clear path. I imagine that this is how I looked while trying to stay out of his way:


Looking him up just now, I discovered that we were born in the same month. But, even had I know that at the time, I don't think it would have been good enough to convince him to help me with my bracket turns. I'm dying to know why he was practicing, as far as I can tell he isn't competing anymore. Maybe he is still in the elite training program trying to break back in to the National crowd. Or maybe he just wants to maintain some of the skills that he worked so hard to attain. As far as I can tell his jumps need a lot of work before he could compete nationally again, but he still jumps high and has the carriage and grace of a champion.

In other news, my bracket turns still suck but slightly less now; my back camel is an ugly duckling but I can get in a couple of revolutions; I still jump about one millimeter off the ice; I feel more confidence in sit spins; I feel less confidence in forward camels; and my coach thinks my layback spin has improved a billion percent. She actually said today that my leg position is stunning. This is a great compliment considering that when I first started on layback spins, she immediately went to work on my leg position. Now that part is fine, and it's the whole rest of it. Oh we also had a neat breakthrough with my upright backspin. Coach recommended keeping the skating knee bent when I hook the spin, and gradually straightening it over some revolutions. This made a huge difference, the spin feels faster and I don't feel so wobbly either. Now I need to make sure I practice it again before I forget how to do it!

Back on the Ice

Well I haven't done a ton of skating in the last 6 weeks, hence the lapse in blogging.

• Primarily this is due to the closing of the public rinks for spring/summer, and because I experienced an injury to my neck and I wasn't able to jump or spin for a while.
  
• This week I had terrible luck and tweaked my neck again so I had to miss a session and then two other sessions were canceled for an ice show.
  
• That would not have been so bad if they had at least let us know that the sessions were canceled, but it was a surprise to everyone even my coaches.
• I've skated 3 times with the Adult synchro team. Now I see why it was called 'Precision' in the past. It's really hard! But it's so cool to skate with other Adults and they even talk to me.
• My skills have not taken too much of a hit and I think my spins have even gotten better. I've been working on more attack in all of them and I recently started putting more work into a layback spin and a sideways leaning spin. Camel spins are still inconsistent but because they've gotten a little wild as I try to make them faster. OK, my jumps have probably gotten worse, they barely leave the ground. But, I'm doing better at bracket turns and pivots.
• I got to play a couple of playoff games with my hockey team and we even made it to the final! We lost in the final, but whatever. For the spring I am playing in a league that plays on a day that works better for me, but so far it's very disorganized. The first game was ok but in the second game we only had 6 players and nobody arrived to give us jerseys or pucks. Eventually we procured jerseys and a couple of subs but double-shifts are not my favourite way to play hockey. Fortunately the other team was not too skilled and I had a lot of chances to breathe. Had a couple shots on goal too, not bad for a defender.
• I got both sets of skates sharpened and it made a huge difference. Duh!

Here's a video of my new layback spin. My parents watched one of my practices recently and brought their camera! OK so it doesn't look like Alissa Czisny's layback spin, but it sure feels like I am bent back until my body is parallel to the ice. The camera really has a way of shattering my internal perceptions ;)

Bonus Ice

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

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

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.
  

Just another day

Today I had another skate, and it was pretty average. In fact, the ice was abyssimal again. Condensation dripped from the rafters again and in addition to the bumps it was creating, the ice was frosty. It was the worst ice I've ever skated on, and I even complained to the manager afterwards. He said, 'what was wrong with it?' Ack!

Thee bad ice made it hard to do backspins and one-foot slaloms. Most everything else was ok as long as I avoided the bumps. I practiced my waltzing threes again, an I enjoy them. I had to modify it a bit sometimes to avoid the other skaters, so I am looking forward to being able to practice them on Friday morning on a nearly-empty rink. I ran through my jumps and they are about where I left them. Last time I did not really feel like jumping so it is good that I felt like it this time. My new-style loop jump is an ugly duckling, but I'm over my mental block of not being able to jump from the backward two-foot glide. The jump is just crappy, that's all. Better than no jump at all!

For my lesson I asked to work on the layback and the camel. For the layback, my coach says that I am rocking up on to my toe when I bring the leg behind. Instead I need to 'press into the ball of my foot'. She also suggested keeping the skating knee slightly bent, at least for now. I'm not sure if she eventually wants it straight or not. She's not too excited about my free foot position, but I told her I will have to work on it off the ice because it is just a flexibility thing.

As for the camel, we worked mostly on the entrance. Coach still wants me to spiral into a deeper curve, and by the end of the curve to be in the full spiral position. She told me again that my camel really has potential, that it will be spectacular one day! I will have to take her word for it, but it is exciting to hear nonetheless. Actually she says it is my best spin, which is a bit of a double-edged sword because I thought my other spins were ok, so now it means they were even crappier than my camel. But perhaps she's referring to the extreme amounts of travel my other spins suffer from, in which case it is probably a fair assessment.

That was it for my lesson, in addition to getting some skating skills printouts that I will have to study. Whee!

The group lesson today was more of the same. On Mondays it is always the same, crossovers and various moves down the length of the ice. This time the new thing we got to try was a sequence of turns. I didn't really catch the whole thing but it was something like three back crossovers, a back outside three turn, directly into a mohawk, then four back crossovers (or possibly two) and a back inside three turn, into the mohawk again. We are supposed to practice it in both directions. I didn't get enough time to practice the whole thing but I got the gist of it so I should be able to try it again on Friday.

Now there are three long dull days before I get to skate again. Boo! I will just have to settle for doing what I can off the ice.