Ice Dancing

Today, I signed up for a beginner ice dancing class, over at the posh rink. Cuz duh, my older but comfortable rink doesn't offer such luxuries. A friend of mine who takes lessons with the ice dance coach told me about it, and why not? Class is a half hour. Drive time one way is 50 minutes. But I suppose I could hop onto the public session after (this rink has two sheets) to get a bit more skating in, make the trip worthwhile. I'm looking forward to it but also am nervous. My edges and skating are all comfortable, but I lack speed and power. I'm worried I'll be the worst skater by a lot. I hate that. But I'm doing it, have already paid. It's 7 weeks. Wish me luck! (Did I mention the coach is Gary Shortland? Two time UK National Champion. Fun!)

Also had a lesson with my coach this morning. It's been a month. She gave me some things to work on when it comes to my scratch spin...you know, the one that left me. If anyone finds it, please return it to me. I'm sure I could scrape up a reward of some kind. I told her about my bucket list goal of passing senior moves. (Yup, I want to someday say I can do all the same moves tests the olympic skaters can do...maybe not quite as technically correct as they, but you know, roughly passable.)

I was perhaps not completely clear with my coach. I probably won't test. I will be the judge of whether it's good enough or not. But she wanted to go back and do perimeter stroking from pre-preliminary with me. I indulged her, but I certainly don't need to spend money on a private lesson for her to watch me do perimeter stroking. When she wanted to move on to basic edges, I stopped her and told her I wanted to work on more difficult moves.

Cross strokes and edge pulls are what she suggested. These are comical. But...at one point, I said the same thing about alternating 3-turns. And look how well those are coming along. Just keep skating...

When Moves Disappear

My scratch spin has gone on vacation. I have not authorized this. I have no idea how long it'll be gone. *sad face*

I remember for the longest time, I would spend such a large portion of my practice time just on edges. My main goal with skating is to take even the simplest of moves and make it look flawless. For like a year, I would spend 10 full minutes on each set of edges, 40 minutes total. Until my forward edges felt solid, then I would only spend 5 minutes on each forward edge. Then the back outside edges felt solid. May not sound like a lot, but when you're doing nothing else but that move, you can cover a lot of ice and lobes in 5 minutes. And get mighty sweaty. Or at least I do.

Now my thing seems to be alternating 3's. I probably spend at least 10 mins on each set. After warming up. So by the time that's all done, almost a half hour has passed, roughly half the session. I still struggle a bit controlling the back inside edge on my left leg, which makes that choctaw step to a forward outside edge tricky. So I worked on waltz 3's on the hockey circle. Over and over and over. I need to be able to sustain the edge along that circle.

And back outside 3's are fun now. I can pretty much do the back power 3's on my right leg (the strong leg). Along the hockey circle. I'm trying to get this on my left leg. After about the second turn, I start drifting toward the center of the hockey circle, like a spiral pattern. But I'll get it. Hell, a week ago, I couldn't even turn clockwise on two feet, let alone one. Just keep skating.

My back spin is decent. Slow but decent. Much better than when I first began working on it. Now if only my regular scratch spin would come back from vacation. I think most skaters have this problem. You'll nail something only to have it leave you for a while. And you never know how long it's going to stay away.

4th Freestyle

Whee! Skating again today. That back outside 3, on my left leg...I finally got it! Broke it down again doing it two foot without moving, then very slowly, then building up speed. Moving onto one foot, struggled a bit. When I finally did it and held the forward edge, my mouth popped open wide. Audible gasp. I was so excited! I did a few others, a little inconsistent, but I did a few more. Then I tried the power 3 move. I struggled but eventually could hold a steady enough forward edge to then mohawk step back into position for the next back 3. I can't quite get these on the big hockey circle yet, but I'll get there. I was just so stinking excited to get it!

Oddly enough, I hold that forward edge stronger than the other leg, which is the "easy" leg. Go figure.

I wonder how long before I need to start learning back inside 3's? oy. Can I just bask in this excitement for a little while?

Scratch spins were not happening today. I was getting mighty frustrated until I remembered it's not good to keep trying something when it's just not clicking because you might reinforce what you're doing wrong. But back scratch was decent today. A few of them even looked like real spins on the ice, maybe 3-4 revolutions, centered...made a nice little image on the ice. I wish I'd had my camera to take a picture.

Today was my 4th practice this week. Go me!

Back Three Turns

Ah, scratch spins. Will these ever be consistent? I did one semi-great one today, super fast and controlled. My free leg and arm position need a bit of improvement. Did a few other decent ones, but I can hear my toe pick scraping. And completely fell out of a few others.

Forget my back spin today. I was making progress Tuesday. Today, it just wasn't happening. Annoying.

But my back 3's are making considerable progress. Back outside, I mean. I can't do the inside ones yet. So right foot, which turns counter-clockwise, is fine. I struggle to control the forward inside edge after the turn. It's a bit swingy. But I'm working on it.

However that left foot, clockwise turn, has never been close. I keep coming up on my toe pick. Maddening. Even on two feet. After about 10 mins of trying it over and over, I was standing there thinking, not moving. I went through the motions of the turn on two feet and did it just fine. Why on earth can I do the turn not moving? I did a few more. Then I tried with two feet extremely slowly. Perfect. Every few turns, I would add a touch more speed, until I was doing them normally with two feet.

Time to try one foot. MUCH better. Still not quite there. But I'm hardly coming up on my toe pick. The last few I did, I had a tiny flow of edge after the turn before I had to put my free foot down. Then the session ended. But I'm happy. It's incredibly frustrating to practice something over and over and not see a lick of progress. Then when I see even a tiny bit of progress, I relax a bit. I'll get these. Eventually.

Update on last post

My rink may have lackluster freestyle and an online schedule that doesn't provide a whole lot of detail, but they have great staff. I skated Sunday as usual. Signed in for the walkon. Again this morning, and the guy (who knows me by name) told me he never charged me for Sunday. To make up for the public session last Thursday. I'm so impressed.

And also relieved. I looked into the other rink freestyle costs. Holy shit! At my rink, I pay a flat rate of $10 for the entire session (usually freestyles are 1.5 or 2 hours). So if I skate 10 minutes or an hour or the entire session, it's 10 bucks.

At the other rink? The walkon rate is $15 for 30 minutes. Basic math means that's 30 bucks an hour. I maintain...holy shit! You can buy stickers and reserve your spot in advance for $12 a half hour session, or $24/hour. But don't show, and you're out of luck. Not to mention, this rink is an additional 20 mins drive from my house (50 mins total).

I think I'll stick with my rink, thankyouverymuch.

Unreliable Schedule

Furious. First, most of the freestyles have been cancelled this week. I assume because of this synchro team camp. But hockey appears untouched. Heaven forbid we inconvenience the hockey players.

My attempt to go to the public session this afternoon ended up in extreme frustration. They coned off half the ice for the synchro team. But was there ANY mention of this on the public session calendar or daily rink schedule online? Nope. Pay full price, expecting full ice, get half, thus rendering the session to feel twice as crowded. The middle became nonexistent.

The guy at the front is nice, knows me by name, and did give me a refund. But I drive an hour round trip to get to the rink, not to mention gas. If there had been mention of this on the schedule, I would have saved myself the trouble.

I just sent off a complaint, politely worded, to the customer service manager. I don't know what I expect. The most I'll probably get is an apology, which gets me a whole lot of nothing. But from now on, no more public sessions. Or I'll call ahead of time, which defeats the whole purpose of an online schedule.

grrr

Roller Derby

I allude to this a bit in my bio, but last October, I decided to try out for my local roller derby. The year before, I tried out for the synchronized skating team. That didn't work out so well, but I couldn't let go of the fascinating idea of being on a team. Roller derby may be on wheels, but it appealed to me in that respect. I gave it my all as fresh meat, which apparently wasn't enough. I took what are called assessments in April, and it was the worst experience of my life. I never want to go through that again. My time in roller derby felt like nothing more than heartache and damaging self esteem, which I'm still trying to recover from.

However, there is one amazing thing derby did for me. It has renewed my love of figure skating so fiercely. I haven't seen this kind of dedication bordering on obsession since high school. Even in college, skating was tough. The drive was long from campus, and finding a class schedule around skating was frustrating. But in high school, I was at the rink almost daily. Of course, I lived a lot closer to the rink then. And had a flexible schedule. But it was all I wanted to do. Eat. Sleep. Skate.

It's ~20 years later from when I took my first lesson. I have adult responsibilities. A job. Bills. A husband. A rink that is 30 mins drive away. I couldn't possibly skate every day. But I'm skating a lot. ~3x a week for an hour with hopes of increasing to maybe 1.5 hours and adding a 4th day. I have recovered the abilities lost being off ice so long with roller derby...and then some.

Eeyore says: Rain clouds. Every silver lining has one. But in this case, the rain cloud that was derby has quite the silver lining. Just keep (ice) skating...

Cancelled Freestyles

Fabulous practice yesterday. Got a scrip from my doc to help me sleep. And it worked wonders Sat night. Up and at the rink for roughly 75 minutes of skating. Too crowded to bother with the camera. At first, 12 skaters on the ice. Maybe I'm spoiled, but that's pretty crowded for this rink at this time. Plus a few coaches. I spent probably a third of the time trying to get out of other skaters' way. But by the last half hour, we were down to 3 skaters and 1 coach.

If only I could start seeing improvement on these back 3's. Pretty decent on the back right leg outside. It's counter clockwise. My right leg is the stronger leg. Once I figured out that I balance better by keeping my free leg close while going backward then pull it in front when going forward, it's pretty clean. But the other leg outside, forget it. I try to sit so deep in the turn, but I still come up on my toe pick and can't finish the turn. And forget the insides. I do the same thing, both legs, come up on my toe pick and can't finish. le sigh.

This week is some synchro team camp, thus cancelling my usual freestyle times. The team is for kids. boo. My rink really shafts the adult skater. Tomorrow, there is freestyle an hour earlier than usual. I suppose I could swing this, since it's not on a regular basis. Gotta hit the sack early tonight. And hope I sleep well. Thursday will likely be an afternoon public. I hate public sessions. But it beats the alternative...not skating.

Insomnia

Enough is enough. I'm sick of this insomnia. Three times this week, I've had to miss skating due to crippling insomnia. Sunday, yesterday, and today. I maybe got two hours sleep last night, spread out over the entire night. ugh. I'm calling the doc. I even took a sleeping pill last night. Fat load of good it did me.

I just want to sleep so I can go skating. Is that too much to ask?