Weekend update

Skating
Saturday was my first lesson on the new schedule.  I got to freestyle at 8:00 and started off trying to practice.  Operative word: trying.  You'd think I had never been on ice skates before!  Couldn't do a scratch spin, basic edges were hurting my ankles, stumbling along on shallow edges for dance...
So Carson comes at 8:30 for my lesson, and I tell him things aren't looking too good... but we start with dance and it goes okay. He is pretty happy with the Dutch Waltz, and the Canasta Tango is okay- I'm not as confidnet with this one, so dodging people is difficult, which messes it up a bit.  Rhythm Blues went well too, I got almost all of the step behinds.  I find if the end pattern is flat across the end of the rink I am way more likely to hit the first one- the second and third I seem to get everytime.  So right now we are trying to flatten it out (as opposed to before when we weren't even turning it to an end pattern, but just shooting to the wall) and Carson says we will work on curving it again later.  This means the first end pattern goes well, but the second I need more power on the side pattern, because if we aren't as far down the rink as we need to be, the end can't be as flat, because then we haven't hit the ice coverage.  But at least now I think Carson understands what I'm saying about why I'm missing the step, so hopefully it will work out.  Communicating the dance issues are hard.  Power is a weird thing- he is skating in a way that he thinks I can keep up with, but I'm thinking "we'll never make it to the end, we need to push more"- but I can't really control the power of the couple, so even if I try a bigger push, it doesn't necessarily help.  Skating with music does help- so I'm glad we did all three dances to music- the speed we skate without it is very different.  At the end of the lesson we did spins, and my scratch spins ROCKED.  Awesome centered and fast.  I also had some really decent change foot spins (and some really bad ones, but we won't talk about those).  I can spin, it is just the stupid foot that's the problem.  Carson refuses to allow me to tuck my foot to my ankle.

I originally hadn't planned to take LTS on Saturday because my lesson is on Saturday, but Carissa came back, and I felt badly that she may not have a lesson to be in (she is very shy, and scared to skate in Burton's group), so I told Sue if she had a class for us, I'd take it too.  Because of the ice time that comes with it, LTS is a bargain. So Hannah taught our class. She did a great job - better than the Tuesday class she co-taught with Carson.  I assume a) because she was nervous she would say something different than Carson since he was the "lead" teacher and b) because she is like 17, so teaching me and Elka (who is 70?) may have been intimidating.  Carissa is a kid.

Carissa had brand new skates, so Hannah worked on some stroking exercises with her to help her get the feel for them (Carissa was amazing- I couldn't even skate day 1 with mine, she was doing everything pretty well- though I think the new big toepick scared her!) And I worked on some spins and jumps with occasional comments. 

Carson's axel+ class did off ice first, so it worked out really well for ice space, only a problem the last 5 minutes when they got on (because there are already 2 other freestyle classes, both sort of big, on the ice- axel+ is 3 kids, but they obviously need room to set up). As long as he does off ice first, we'll be good.  If he doesn't- I don't know where this class will go...


Rowing
I did another rowing practice on Sunday.  This time I was in a pair, which is a sweep boat.  I had the starboard oar, which is my idiot side.  My left wrist just isn't strong enough to do the feathering, so I do it with my right hand too, which is just wrong.  But that wasn't the biggest problem.  The lady I was rowing with was about as good as I am.  She is more experienced than I am, she said about a year, but not in a pair.  It was a very different experience than Thursday when I had a patient guide with me.  First, to get started, we rowed one at a time.  If you can picture a boat where each person has one oar, and only one is rowing, you'll know that it will do nothing but zig zag.  Which means staying to the right of the river is going to be tough.  But she wasn't interested in even trying to stay to the right- and was rowing very very center, and at times even on the left of the river.  When better rowers (in singles sculls) came to pass us, she'd say "it's fine- they always pass on the right", which is pretty much the opposite of what I was told- the river is a road, so you pass on the left!

Well, once we got a rhythm going with the zig zag, we decided to take a moment and "set the boat" to go ahead and try rowing together.  I do this, you need to figure out the oar height that allows you to stay even, and then you always row with the oars that height.  She was telling me to do this you let the oar go, and it will float to it's natural set position.  I told her if I let go of my oar, the boat would tip over!  If I even let go of the pressure on my oar, we tipped portside.  I didn't really want to be catty and argue with her, but I was being told to do something stupid, and being judged as obstinate for not doing it, so I didn't really have much choice.  Of course, this is when R.C. drove the launch by to check on us.  We got a "what are you two doing?"  I told her we were trying to find a good balance point so we could begin rowing together and then the woman started telling her about how we were letting the oars float to their "natural set".  I wanted to point to her and say "she's crazy...I'm not doing that", but of course, I'm not a third grader so I didn't.  R.C. then told us this was a TERRIBLE idea (yeah) and NEVER let go of your oar.  My partner then argued with her for awhile that this was how you do it (sure, the coach wouldn't know?), but then R.C. talked us through our balance point, and she told me to count the strokes, pausing at the catch and the recovery.

Now, this is why I say blind leading the blind.  This is my second time on the water, first in a sweep.  I'm bow seat, not stroke seat.  Stroke seat generally sets the rhythm, bow seat follows, but here I was being the one who set the rhythm.  The other woman had a much stronger stroke than I did, but her blade missed the water, or bounced, or dug too deep about as often as mine did.  It was a big mess!

After awhile we took out the pause at the catch, and then we progressed to rowing 3 strokes at a time before a pause.  Finally, at the very end of practice we were able to row continuously for a little bit, but even still, we were NOT rowing a straight line, and were way in the center of the river.  I think R.C. told the other rowers that we'd be rowing drunk, so they expected it, but I was very conscious of how badly out we were- rowing to the side was stressed so heavily in my private lesson.  I guess I see it as freestyle ice, and needing to stay out of the way.  Unfortunately, my partner greatly disagreed with me.

In other news- boats are heavy.  I can usually carry them, but if they slide off my shoulder, I can't get them back up.  And I pretty much always need help picking it up.   I hate being weak.
I'm signed up to row tomorrow at 5:30 a.m.  Wonder how that will go...