May 7, 2006

1:08p

Skating on Friday
I just realized i never posted about skating on Friday. I told myself I would post everytime I skated- because I wanted a true journal of how it was going. (at least until I skated more than once or twice a week)

First off, dull blades was the problem. I picked up my skates an WOW were they a dream to skate on. This by rink sharpeners. I can't imagine what it will be like when I have a "real" sharpening on real blades.

I skated for an hour and a half and my ankle hurt a bit after it. The 6-weeks of rest aren't up yet, and I guess I need to stick to that. Nothing like it did before, but still, hurt.

Overall the session was not good. The Silver Skate is coming up next weekend and so the ice was filled (well 5) with high level freestyle skaters. I know that adult sessions are not treated as open sessions and you can skate however you want, but when there is more than 1 or 2 people jumping and spinning like mad, it makes it very difficult for the rest of us to fit anything in. The low level freestyle skaters I saw (who weren't jumping, but running through different program components) seemed to be able to fit things in okay, but the basic skaters I talked to all said they were very frustrated and that's how I felt.

There were also about 2 new skaters who were clinging helplessly to the wall who looked terrified and about an hour through the session the seniors came to rink circle- which just made it impossible to do anything.
Couldn't use the center, or stay near the wall.

I got a bit of practice on three turns in. I am consistently trying to turn the right direction, but never actually did one. At one point I was prepping for one- from a stop- as is required in basic 4, and a couple dancing cut right in front of me so I had to wait to push off. As I was about to get started one of the high level girls comes flying by me and yells "stand by the walls" That really made me mad. I wasn't standing, I was in a t-stance waiting to push off and not hit the pair, and I was only about 2 feet from the wall. I wasn't in a lutz corner, and she was just practicing stroking (although really fast). There is no reason I would have been in her way. If it was a freestyle session, then I shouldn't even be on the ice with my lowly three turns, but it wasn't. It was an adult session and we all had the same right to the ice. I spent most of the session making sure I was out of the way of people a million times better than me.

The good part of the session was the man who offered to teach me dance holds before I hurt my ankle taught me them this time. (he said he thought he had scared me off because I never showed up again) I learned a Killian hold, a Reverse Killian hold, a Foxtrot hold, and a Waltz hold.

So we worked on basic stroking around the rink in each of the holds. I realized how unsure I am on my left foot. When I do stroking I hold my left foot out for a long time, but rush through when my right foot is up. With counts I couldn't do that.

Then he taught me how to do swing rolls. My edges aren't good enough to hold them for long, but he kind of held me on the edges and we did laps of swing rolls in the Killian hold. Then we tried them in the Waltz hold, but because he was facing backwards he couldn't hold me on my edge and it was just to difficult for me at this point.

My main "correction" was to stop looking down. That's tough to do when you are worried about slicing through a semi-strangers leg.

Dance might be something I look into- it seems fun.

March 24, 2006

Skating Today
Skating this morning was nice. I got an hour and a half in. Practice basic stroking, forward crossovers, backwards half swizzles on a circle, 2 footed spins, and moving forward to backward 2 foot turns. The spins are improving. I can do it much better skating into it- but of course it has to be from a picked pivot.

Now I have to shower and get to work.

March 19, 2006

Skating with friends two weekends in a row
So once again this weekend we went ice skating :) A couple that we invited last weekend but couldn't go asked us if we wanted to go this weekend, I certainly didn't want to turn it down.

One of my friends decided at last minute she didn't want to go skating. Turns out she thinks she might be pregnant and didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that before she went to the doctor to verify. Seems a bit early in the pregnancy to be sitting things out- she was feeling fine. Turns out my other friend also had a positive pregnancy test and she's going to the doctor soon to verify that. While these gals are having kiddos, I'm going to stick with skating lessons.

March 17, 2006

Private Lesson ReCap The first lesson was wonderful! Within the first 5-10 minutes she told me I should not be in Basic 1-2, by the end of the lesson she told me I would start in Basic 4, with a note to the instructor that I had not mastered a two-footed turn yet. I wish I had more money for privates, it was great! Here is an email I sent to my husband overviewing the lesson. I didn't want to type it up all again, but if you're interested you can read it. I started the session with a half hour warm up. Just skating in cirlces, doing swizzles, backward wiggles, turns and stops. There were about 6 people there (maybe 14 by the end) and 2 of them were high level freestyle, the rest low-mid level freestyle. Even though it is an open adult session it is treated as a freestyle, so you have to yield to people doing programs- jumps etc. It would be a tough session for someone who is not adept at getting out of the way. What's nice is while I was on my lesson, people had to yield to me. Even though we mostly stayed on a hockey circle. The private lesson was definitely worth the money. Being in the basic 1-2 class would have been SO far below what I can do. She said some of the basic 1-2s can skate in an open session, but many are still trying to get a feel for standing on the ice. She evaluated me on the skills for that level and within the first 10 minutes she told me I would need to be in the 3-4 class. We started by skating a few laps around the rink. She told me I was stroking well (I'm not sure what that means) but I use my shoulders to propel me too much and I don't bend my knees enough. Then we did forward swizzles, backward wiggles, and a snowplow stop. I am doing the stop correctly, but have a tough time doing it on my left skate. I need to be equally good on both sides. Then we did front glides on one foot. My right foot is very strong and they were great. My left foot was good to the front but I held my shoulders wrong and it caused me to vear to the side a bit. We also did backward swizzles and a in place two foot turn. That was the first 10 minutes. After that we moved onto Basic 3. She said my forward stroking was good, and then we worked on backwards glides on one foot. Those were fine on my right side, but really hard on my left side. I would just stop moving and my ankle would shake. Then we moved to 1/2 swizzles on a circle. I was cutting the ice and scuffing it, which she said meant that I was using more effort than I needed to. I was able to correct this really easily on my right side and make a smooth tracings. The left side also went well. On these I was not using my shoulders enough. And I also don't remember which arm goes where and when. I'll have to look it up and write it down. We skated slalom patterns around the rink. This is like _ swizzles to skate in a straight line, but much bigger, and the foot kind of crosses over. It was really fun and really fast! Then we did two-foot spins. I have a hard time using my toepick on these. I don't really understand how it works. I also am going to have to learn to turn CCW. Right now I turn Clockwise much stronger- but she told me if I wanted to be a clockwise turner I would eventually have to land jumps on my left foot. Based on the number of times I've said in this my right foot was stronger, that's not going to happen- I'd much rather deal with learning the turns now and get to land on my stronger foot. But she also said I still have to learn to turn both ways, I just really need to concentrate on CCW. After that she told me I could start group lessons at a level four, but she would note to my instructor that I hadn't reached mastery on the two footed turns. She didn't tell me anything else that needed signifigant work on that level. I think the backwards glides on my left foot do, but I guess they were better than I thought. Then we moved to the Basic 4 stuff. I can't believe we did this all in a half hour. We did something on the hockey circle called edges. This involved picking up one of your feet and shifting your weight to the hip facing the inside of the cirlce. Depending on which foot you lift, you would either be on your inside or outside edge. I do remember the arms for this one- you put the arm on the same side of the foot you lift up to the front. Both inside and outside edges on the right came easily and I stayed on the circle well. The outside edge was easier to hold than the inside edge for the left leg. But I could do them fine too. Next we worked on backward 1/2 swizzle pumps on the circle. This is the basic step to learn how to do the skating that you always see professionals do before they jump. I'm sure it will come to no surprise to you when I say it was exteremely easy to pick up on the right side, but difficult to the left. After that we did forward crossovers on the circle. I had a little more difficulty with this, mostly because I wasn't shifting my weight right. I am now fairly confident with my right side, but can barely do it on my left side. On my right side I got REALLY fast- and it was really hard to do slower. She said the best way to slow down was to not push hard, but I didn't really feel like I was pushing hard. I guess moving fast isn't a terrible thing. But even still in the half hour lesson we reviewed all of Basic 1, Basic 2, I learned all of Basic 3, and learned 4 of 7 things from Basic 4. If I practice I imagine I'll be able to continue to do all the things I learned, because really only the crossovers were completely new to me- the rest was stuff I had kind of been doing, and was just told exactly how to do them. The spins are the thing that need the most work. I can't wait until group lessons. I think I will try to make the adult session every 2 weeks, because the lack of crowds make it great to practice, and then the in between week maybe we can go skating? I'm very excited. I hope I can pick things up as quickly as I was able to review them. The crossovers and edges give me hope that that will happen- the spin makes me wonder. After the lesson I skated for another 45 minutes. My left ankle really hurts. I practiced a lot of things on my left side because it is obviously the weaker side. It's more of a sore hurt than a damaged hurt. Hopefully it will get stronger. I will need new skates soon- mine aren't much better than rentals except I can keep them sharpened.

March 17, 2006

Private Lesson Anxiety
I leave to go ice skating in about 15 minutes. I'm anxious to find out how much "lesson" there will be and how much "evaluation" I'm really hoping more for the former, although the later needs to happen. I'm confused how anything really happens in lessons anyway because they are usually only 30 minutes long. That doesn't seem to be enough time to go over much of anything, but it's apparently standard, even at higher levels. I'm also used to ballet, where you are discouraged from practicing on your own time- out of sight from a teacher- and in skating all practice is done on your own, with coaches only a few times a week. (Or for early levels and non serious skaters every few weeks)

March 6, 2006

And so it begins.
I got my ice skates sharpened! They look beautiful and skateable. They haven't been used in at least 8 years. :(

I also got new skate guards (why would someone steal skate guards) in a pretty pink and my first ever pair of soakers in a nice terry cloth red.

YAY for ice skates.