Every other week

So I seem to have an every other week thing going.  I didn't skate this weekend (I meant to, but then we stayed out late at a basketball game, and I slept again)- but I did skate last week.

It was not as good as my previous time back.  The rink was CROWDED- insanely so.  The Cedar Rapids skaters had all come down because their rink was shut down for a wrestling tournament (yeah, wrestling).  So the ice was very crowded, with fast movers, and a coach giving a group class.  Groups are tough, because it is hard to skate when  people are moving as a pack.  Ice times like this make me wish I didn't skate CW, it was very very hard to set up jumps.

It was also not a good session to not be able to stop on!  So the fall out of the blades- the sharpening was good. It was nice to have good bite on the ice and my skating was pretty good.  I CAN tell he moved the blade- I'm kicking up a lot of snow near the front of my blade (not the back, like I sometimes do on sit spins) when I spin.  However, I centered 3 or 4 really excellent scratch spins (and did 3 or 4 awful ones) so I can't really blame the blade for things being off, I think I just need to get used to it.

So no harm, no foul I guess.

Just need to make it back to the rink... My schedule really just doesn't let it fit in much anymore.  I was kind of thinking about doing the club show next month, but the rate I'm training, it just isn't going to happen!

Sharpening

This is just an FYI for me.  I got my blades sharpened.
It had been quite awhile since I got them done, so I expect a bit of an adjustment period.

I didn't want to drive to Cedar Rapids to have them done, so I had Burton sharpen them for me. He's done a nice job in the past.

He said the right blade was off centered so he moved it (?!!!) for me.  Since I've been skating on these skates since June 2011 with the blades where they were, I'm a bit terrified of this.  I wish he would have asked me first.   I'm going to give them a try and see what I think before taking them to my regular sharpener and having her move them back, but it seems like if they were as bad as he said I would have noticed by now (he suggested I'd have a hard time holding outside edges.)  Maybe they will be a huge fix and I'll be able to mohawk or something better than before.  It isn't my landing leg, so at least that shouldn't be different.

Well that didn't last long...

I see why skater's don't bother announcing retirements any more- it is just too tempting to come back.

After barely skating at all in November or December, and none in January or February, I really missed skating.

So today, I went skating.

I have no coach, and I don't really want to do group lessons right now, but I'm thinking about trying to adapt my old program to compete in June.

Being back on the ice today went pretty well.  Jumps are tiny, spins went okay.  The biggest surprise was that I was able to do my three turns in both directions (I usually freak out CCW).  I tried about half the silver moves (no spirals or 8-step)- do you think they'd give me 45 minutes to finish the test? Because I skate slow...

But the best part: my sit spins totally look like I'm sitting!

Here's the combo spin I'm going to try to work on. We'll see if it makes it into the program. ( Is there a time limit to change feet, because man it takes me awhile!)