October 2009

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2009-10-07 12:52:00
Catching up
Oh man, I forgot about last week. I really needed to type about last week, it had highs and lows. And last night- well, I think I should stick with "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all"- but alas, that would make for a very boring entry, so I'll write about that too. Last week: On Tuesday Andy decides we should do something "fun". (Not sure what he thinks skating usually is...) We start doing cross rolls and he gave me some good tips on how to rotate my shoulder to get more power (and blade noise!) on each push going forward. But then going backward he adjusts my leg position -it needs to stay forward much longer- and that just completely throws me off, and the rolls I was getting pretty confident about are no longer something I'm proud of. :( Then we did spiral variations. He let us choose the edge, so I did them RFO to start: We did catch foot spirals first with our blade caught with the same hand, and then without a blade caught by the opposite hand. I pull too far outside, rather than keeping the leg behind me, and I can't get the knee above my hip. Sad... Oddly enough I prefer to hold with my right hand than with my left hand; one would assume I'd rather have my right arm free to catch me when I fall. I did fall- I also caught myself with my both hands. I think I like that better because I REACT quicker on that side. If I'm holding with my left hand, I only have 1 arm to catch me, holding with my right hand, I can get it down too. That fall also got a "good job" from my coach, which is beginning to worry me. That means BOTH of my coaches congratulate me when I fall. Seems a little mean. And it was a nothing fall, didn't hit anything, but I did pull my shoulder a bit. It still hurts, but that might be canoeing's fault more than falling. Then we moved onto Y spirals. And here lies the problem. My left leg is so inflexible getting it to be level, off ice, is tough. My right leg, off ice, I can bring to a respectable Y, and on ice, to just above level. But my right edge is weak, so it's scary. So I started with just LFO, and holding to about hip height. (Lovely, such a graceful skater I am. hah). Then I switched to backwards, which was a bit more comfortable, and Andy held my hand which allowed me to get a lot more speed, and bring my leg up a bit higher. And then like a mean Dad teaching a kid to ride a bicycle he would let go, and I'd be stuck with my leg higher than I'm comfortable and really no great way to get it down.... (just dropping it makes me fall). It was interesting, but kind of not fun. So last Wednesday, yesterday, and today are still to come. If I get to it. But Wednesday and yesterday are summed up by : MAJOR SUCK.
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2009-10-13 10:02:00
Got my skates sharpened, and why skating sucks
Wow, I never posted an update. Okay- so last Wednesday we worked on moves. We started with cross rolls which were okay, but the pattern requires 12, and I was only doing 6. So we figured out that the pattern doesn't want "big juicy" lobes, but instead just a hip movement. I need to relearn crossrolls. Backwards my lobe size is actually more correct, because I had been doing it wrong according to my coaches wishes- but apparently was doing what is expected. But I was still messed up with the foot in front thing. So then we moved to 8-step mohawk, and that's where my skating went downhill. Even on the "good" side this move is terrible. After working on it for about 10 minutes I was about to cry, and ready to leave the ice. I told my coach that we could either move on, or the lesson would be over, and I'll pay her for the whole thing. But I was not doing this anymore. I don't even remember what we did after that. So then last tuesday Andy told us we were going to work on spins, which I usually like. However, since adjusting my spin entry my forward spins suck so much I don't like to do them anymore. Then this particular day I was spinning so badly I couldn't get more than 4 revolutions, and those would travel halfway across the ice. Then sit spins I could barely get 2 revolutions and my entry was just so messed up. I was so irrationally frustrated and upset that after 10 minutes of lesson I just told him that it wasn't worth working with me today and just concentrate on the other student (who is one of his private students), so the group lesson was effectively over. After this, I canceled my freestyle lesson the next day, because if skating is going this badly, what is the point. Then last Wednesday synchro was fine, but I pulled a muscle in my upper hamstring/butt doing a lunge (we lunge 4 times during the program). This STILL hurts, to the extent that I'm still getting nauseated from the pain. I didn't skate Saturday either, because I still hadn't had my blades sharpened and I'm putting at least 40% of the blame on them. I did get them sharpened on Saturday. But now I'm still in so much pain I'm not skating tonight. This just isn't fun right now. Also- we are still 1 short for a synchro team. We might have a prospect, but if you know anyone in Eastern Iowa, let me know!
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2009-10-21 08:21:00
Tuesday
So I went to LTS last night. First time I've skated in 2 weeks. (Andy said when I didn't show up last week he was worried I was mad at him. Nope, not at him, at me for skating so badly. And hurt. Last week I could barely walk.) Skating went okay legwise. Deep knee bend, especially on forward crossovers was painful. But it was mostly good. Y. was sick, so I thought it would just be me (a fantastic value if I could get a private lesson), but no M. has joined the class. Y. is a good skater- working on doubles, pre-juv moves. M. isn't bad, actually she's probably about my level skill wise (maybe a bit lower) but like most kids she just doesn't have the attention. So while Y. can do anything asked, and I can't- I remember all the "arm here, head here" etc. instructors, and Andy really hates having to repeat those. That's where M. has the issue, so I think the dynamic of the class is going to be a bit different now. He'll have to cater more to her, whereas it's easy for me to work on a salchow while Y. does a double, or pretty much any move at all, I don't think he can throw high level moves at M. So anyhow, while we were waiting for M. to join us I asked Andy about the cross rolls on the silver moves. I had been doing a set of 6 across the ice- big, juicy lobes. We looked at the pattern, and uh, I need 12. This throws a huge obstacle at me. So he helped me see how the lobe size should be, and the depth of edge. I actually don't think it's much deeper than what I was doing, I just have a lot less time on each lobe to get set up to that depth. So my right side has a nice growl, and my left side is terrifying. But the worst part is I'm back to 6 months ago with the free leg. I have a huge swing to it and am lifting over and setting down. I've spent so much time working on setting it down and sliding it across the ice for the cross, but changing the lobe has me completely thrown off. But I'm sure I'll get it down way before I have the 8-step, so it's all good. Then we did waltz-8 for M, and man my left back inside (?) SUCKS. I had to set my foot down way too early for that back edge. Then we did forward outside edges, and they were somewhat okay, but on the left side sometimes I couldn't make the whole circle. I found that if I bent my knee as I was slowing down that gave me the little extra I needed to make it the rest of the way. Then while Andy worked with M. on back inside 3-turns he had me do FO to BI on the circles. HAHAHA that was a fun laugh. After a few attempts- I just don't have enough speed exiting either turn to make it back to the center, he had me just do them on the half circle- a silver field move, essentially. And once again the BI is impossible on a lobe that size. I'm never going to pass silver moves. Then we did backspins, which eluded me for a bit, but I think that was a blade sharpening thing, because I was getting a lot closer to doing them well by the 6th or 7th try. Andy said he wants me to alternate between holding the spin as long as I possibly can, and practicing the kick-out exit. Courtney's been really focusing on staying in the position, so I haven't worked on the exit for a long time. Lesson tonight. Leg still hurts, so we'll see how it goes.
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2009-10-22 15:35:00
Synchro
Went to synchro practice last night. I remembered why I didn't want to go back, well one of three reasons. This particular reason- I'm tired on Wednesday nights and want to stay home. (The other reasons were two-fold frustration, and money) But the practice went pretty well. I didn't lunge, due to my leg, but could do everything just fine. None of our skating is really taxing, though running the program full out does take my breathe. That's not good- this is a short program. 2 people were missing, plus 1 empty space we still haven't filled, so there were just 4 of us, plus a skating coach (so 5 during most of the things, but she'd step out to watch a lot.) The good news is our spiral/lunge pass through is gone. I was a spiraler, and if you read my silver moves notes you'll know that my spiral on my left leg is AWFUL, so of course, I would have had to do that. We added arms to our 3-spoke pinwheel, which is awful difficult to do graceful arms while trying to travel a pinwheel. Maybe we do it wrong, but the ends push the middle people in a ton, and pushing while being pretty is not easy. The arms are pretty though and go nice with the music. We also added arms to the end of our straightline, and assuming I remember them (and stay in that place), it's fun to do. I'll be sad if I get moved off the end of the line when we add people in/finish changing the passthroughs. As it stands now the end of the line has to push into a really big mohawk (on my good side) because the line is swinging around (so the swing end has to move much faster than the hinge) pushing big into that mohawk is something I could actually do well at.
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2009-10-29 18:17:00
skating is hard...
Did I ever post about last saturday? The summary is that I can't do more than two things at once. I can think about steps and counts or steps and space. But I cannot remember the steps, where I should go on the ice, AND count the music at the same time. Tuesday I didn't get to skate because I had to go to a computer class. I'm at that right now. But yesterday- first off, I centered a really really nice scratch spin. Maybe only 6-8 revolutions, but perfectly centered. I have hope that my spins will come back. Dance lesson was focused on pointing feet (I point wrong apparently) and bringing my feet back together. Tried the Dutch Waltz partnered and it makes the left progressives even scarier. Also I'm too bouncy on the slip steps of the canasta. I think that "bounce" which I think of as a drop adds to the tango, but Courtney thinks it looks bad. And she's likely right.
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