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 ;)

Losers

We lost our hockey game tonight >:( 3-1. I had some moments of playing well and some moments of playing fantastically badly. I sure got winded too! Need to do some more cardio conditioning. Good fun anyhow, super good time to be back at hockey. My confidence grows with each game! Oh, this was the first team that could actually outskate me. Need to figure out which teams I can be lazy with, and which teams I can't slack off against!

One woman saw me doing a three-turn during the warmup and asked (as a joke) if I could do a triple toe loop. I told her that if I could, she would already know my name!

I had about two seconds to watch the synchro team practicing on my way out. They were doing some snazzy turns and skating in a circle holding hands. Also wearing very long skirts, almost knee-length. Strange.

Wow!

I almost didn't go to public skating tonight, but I'm sure glad I did. When I arrived there was only ONE other person on the ice. I couldn't believe it! Usually Sunday night is well attended. Some more people did eventually show up but it was never more than ten of us or so on the ice at once. Under such conditions it was so terrific I stayed for the second session, even though they turn the lights out and put on disco lights which make skating a bit more disorienting. I think the ice is in better condition too, it was much smoother than usual.

I practiced just about everything I could think of and had trouble of thinking of stuff to work on sometimes because I had already tried everything. I was having a fabulous day for camels! I could get used to this. I practiced my camel-layback-change-sit combination with some success. I even tried camel-change-camel and managed about one revolution of the back camel. I did about a thousand backspins and my problem with them currently is that I am leaning so much into my outside edge that my blade scrapes deeply and I lose my balance. This was difficult to correct however. Sometimes I manage a decent back spin but I can't exit them properly, this will take some work.

All in all, it was about 2 hours of skating, really fun. I hope my camel stays with me when I get on the ice tomorrow.

After the skating I noticed some ladies filing into the changeroom and suspected they might be with the synchro club. I asked them and indeed, they were synchro skaters. I talked to a couple of them for a while, they are really nice ladies and I love the idea of skating with other women my age. Unfortunately they usually practice at another arena on another night when I am busy >:( There just aren't enough hours in the week to do all the activities I want to do!