It was a game of chicken and I lost

I skated my usual early Tuesday morning freestyle but, before I give my overview of what I worked on, please allow me a brief moment to vent. There is one particular skater at my rink who is, well, an absolute bully. I don't know why she feels the need to purposefully get in my way but she often goes out of her way just to get in my path. Most of the time I ignore it and keep doing me and I never say anything because the girl is like 7 years old and I assume nobody taught her manners yet. I try not to take it personally because I have heard the way she speaks to her parents and I've watched her not be courteous to other skaters as well. But she is a bit of a terror, honestly.

So, picture this. There are only the two of us on the ice so there is plenty of room to not get in each other's space, right? I'm in the center working on a spin and, through the blur of my spin, I see a small pink blob heading my way. I exit the spin just in time to see that she is like 5 feet away from me heading right in my direction with no intention of stopping. Had I continued on in my exit position, we would have collided, so I took a fall. A hard one! And she kept skating on in victory (Yay, you made the old lady fall. You must be so proud of yourself!). Up until this point I have broken out of moves patterns to move out of her way and have generally stayed as far away from her as I can manage. But, you know, when someone is spinning, I feel like they have the right of way considering it's difficult to see precisely what's going on around you. I mean, that's why the middle is reserved for spinning. There was no excuse for her to get that close especially since she had the whole rink and she wasn't working on a moves pattern or choreography. If this continues I really will talk to her parents/coach because what she is doing is frickin' dangerous and I'll be damned if I get hurt again just because she feels some weird need to intimidate someone who is old enough to be her mother. Ok, rant is done.

Movez: I ran through the entirety of my bronze moves multiple times, including end patterns. Everything felt fine except for my five step mohawks (oddly). Those are usually my best move but today I was having a hard time fitting in four lobes without getting uncomfortably close to the boards at the end of the rink. I might have made the pattern too big? I don't know. It's a spacing issue though and not a footwork issue so I think this will be easy to fix.

Jumpz: Yeah, I ran through everything but spent the bulk of my time on the flip jump. Once I got all the miscellaneous jumps out of the way, I did a few loop jumps and then the flip prep. I paid special attention to the pick-in trying to be more committed to vaulting from my toe pick. And then I did some actual flips. All of them were two-footed. Alas. But hey, I worked on it.

Spinz: I worked on crossing the free leg in the backspin (unsuccessfully) and then moved on to sit spins. I'm getting the rotations with these but I just can't get low enough for it to look good. It's definitely more of a squat than a sit. I'm still working on ankle exercises to get more bend but it's a slow (and hurty) process. I'm proud of myself for getting the feel for the rotations, though! I can always get lower with time but at least the spin is happening. Oh and I'm keeping my back straight! I could probably get lower if I hunched more but that isn't cute so...

Sore everywhere

Busy weekend was busy! I had a library conference/workshop on Friday that only lasted until noon so I had some time to drop-in on an afternoon freestyle session at my rink. Christopher was on the ice working with another student so I was glad that he saw that I was practicing but I felt pressure to not screw anything up. It's weird sharing the ice with your coach when they're not working with you. I know he was focused on working with his student and wasn't actually watching me but I always felt like there was a pair of coach-y eyes on me. So much pressure!

Friday Practiz: I spent a lot of time working on power 3-turns to get them to flow a little more. I'm no longer scared of these and actually like working on them now. I'm determined to get these polished! I ran through the other bronze moves and then moved on to spins. Mostly, I worked on sit spins and attitude spins because those need the most work. Overall, it was really nice to skate on a Friday afternoon and I think I made progress on some things.

Saturday Lessonz: We started with power 3-turns because that's what I was working on when he got on the ice. The flow has definitely improved so now we are just working on staying on the axis. He wants me to use the red dots down the length of the rink as an axis but I'm having a difficult time actually seeing them. Something to work on. We moved on to the BX-BO edges. He changed my intro steps so that I'm going in at a diagonal, changed my starting foot to the right instead of the left, and instructed me to do three steps instead of four. It's amazing how much better these start now! Up until this point I was doing four intro steps from the hockey goal and a 3-turn to start the move and now I'm doing 3 steps from the opposite lutz corner and a mohawk and these are great now. Now that the beginning of the move is straightened out, he wants me to focus on power and making it BIG! We moved on to the flip jump and it's back to being a disaster. I think I just need to start from scratch with this. He said I'm putting way too much effort into making such a simple jump happen. Next time I'm on the ice, I'm just going to pick a small patch of ice and start small with it. Finally, we did some backspins. I'm glad I've been working on them but, of course, they still have a long way to go. We worked on getting me out of the flamingo position and into the proper crossed leg position. Again, I'm just going to start small with these and pick a spot on the ice and just do them over and over until I get them right.

Off Ice Exercisez: I've been trying to do more off ice to prepare for the sit spin and the layback spin but, in addition to that, I've been trying to build strength as well. I went to Target and got a hold of some 5lb ankle weights and have been using those for some leg lifts and one-legged squats. So now my body hurts everywhere instead of just in the usual old lady spots. Isn't all of this supposed to make me feel better? Ouch!

You spin me right 'round baby right 'round

I went to the Wednesday night public session at APEX and it was super busy. They put cones out so the figure skaters could have the middle but that was crowded too. Since I didn't have room to work on much of anything I stuck to elements that didn't take up too much space, namely spins and turns.

Attitude Spin: I'm still working on centering my spin before I get into an attitude position as well as getting the free leg higher. I had a few that felt like proper attitude spins so yay. 

Layback Prep: I've been stretching my back a lot lately and I'm feeling a little less stiff but the feeling of a layback is still so foreign to me. I did some two-foot spins where I pushed my hips out and tried to lean back but I kept catching my toepicks and the spins just died. This is going to take a while. 

Sit Spin: I've been doing other stretches to accommodate this move as well. I'm also doing some one-leg squats to build up strength to get back up from the spin (assuming I can get down first). The dorsiflexion in my bad ankle is slowly improving but it was so bad over this past year because I never had much reason to work on it. I'm feeling the pain now, of course. Literally. So yeah, things are becoming a little more movable but it's really slow progress. I was able to get two revolutions but I know I didn't get down as low as I probably should. 

Backspin: Ah, yes. Ye Olde Dreaded Backspin. They are still flamingo'd but I'm getting more comfortable with feeling where I need to be on my blade. So...progress. 

BO3 Turns: It got pretty crowded at one point so I didn't even have room for spins and I wasn't ready to get off the ice yet. I decided that working on backward 3 turns would be a valuable use of my time and I don't need a lot of room to do them. I haven't touched these in so long that I can't really remember the last time I did them. I know that ages ago (and by "ages" I mean like 10 years ago) when I was enrolled in group freestyle classes at my rink I learned all four backward 3 turns. Obviously that was a while ago so I was pretty cautious tonight. All I really remember from that period of time was that I had a lot of nasty backward tailbone falls while practicing these. Scary. So, I started off slowly with an RBO 3 turn and that came back to me pretty quickly. I tried one LBO (bad leg) and almost ate ice. I think I'll start working on these more as I know they will come back to haunt me when I get to silver moves. Also,  I see that the BI 3s are now part of the Bronze compulsory moves. I can't avoid them forever. 

In my head

I skated an early morning session and spent the bulk of my time working on moves. After Saturday's debacle, my head is kind of a mess. I can't believe I went from feeling so awesome for finally getting the flip jump to work to feeling so low in such a short amount of time. When I say that Saturday killed my spirit, I really mean it. I'm doubting everything now. I hate that one bad lesson set me back so far. But work got done today regardless:

Perimeter Power Stroking: I usually use this as part of my warm up so working on it never really feels like a chore. It feels pretty good, actually.

Forward Power Three Turns: These need the most work so I spent a lot of time at the blue line slowly trying to get my arms and hips to work in unison. The more I do them, the more comfortable they feel. I eventually moved the pattern out to the long axis of the rink and did several passes here too. Because I've spent so much time focusing on being aware of my body parts, I no longer fear those click of death moments. These still have a ways to go yet but I think I'm making some progress.

Alternating BX-BO Edges: Now that we have added a 5 count and Christopher fixed my arms, these feel so much better, even on my bad side! I just have to remember to count and keep my arms and head in the proper place and I'm good.

Circle 8: So much improvement on this! My LFO edge is so much more controlled and my circles are all pretty much the same size. I did these really early in the session before the ice got all marked up so I could see if I was retracing the circles and they actually look pretty good. I still want to work on a stronger push, though, so I'm not done with these yet!

Five Step Mohawks: No changes here. Just keeping them under my feet now. Christopher hasn't seen these in a while so I would really like him to look at them just to make sure they are acceptable.

I ended the session with some spins and jumps. Attitude spin and sit spin got worked on, all of my program jumps got done, and then I ended with some flip jump attempts (I fell on the only two I attempted). I feel like I'm starting over on the flips and I'm really sad that the confidence I built up to do these is completely gone now. I'll just keep chugging along!

Whenever there is a high, there is a low

Lesson today! Christopher is busy performing in a ballet so he arranged a substitute coach to work with me so I don't miss a lesson. It was the same substitute coach from last time. Guys, I think I need to tell him that I don't want to work with her again. I'm not sure how to talk to him about this because I know he seems to like her and I'm sure she's great with the younger students but I really don't work well with her. She just doesn't "get" adults (or, at the very least, just doesn't get me).

Earlier this week, I really battled through some of the fear I've been struggling with on the flip jump and felt like I made some progress. Today, however, my inability to do this jump came back. In fact, my ability to do any jump, really, left me. It just wasn't a good day for jumps. Usually when this happens, I work on field moves or spins instead. If jumps aren't happening, I'm not going to try to force them to happen. I don't want to get hurt again.

So, when she got on the ice, we started right away with the flip jump because that's what Christopher told her we should be working on. I told her that my jumps were not good today but agreed to work on the flip because I know I can't avoid it. It needs work. She had me start with some flip prep exercises. These are the ones I've been working on with Christopher - a half-flip that does a hop instead of rotate so I can get the feel of getting my free-leg in the "h" position. I did a few of these and when I skated back to her she said "You know that's not a flip, right?" I mean, yeah, you asked to see the flip preps, that's what I gave you. So, she made me feel stupid for doing the thing she asked me to do. So, fine, we moved on to actual flip jumps. She criticized where I was placing them on the ice and, I get it, I know that certain jumps are done in certain parts of the rink but I'm learning this right now. Does it matter if I fall here or fall over there? I'm not doing them at full speed yet or even as part of a program. I'm really just focusing on the mechanics of the thing.

After several attempts and no actual landings of this jump, I finally said "I don't think this is going to happen today" and she said "Let's talk about negative self talk and how if you say it's not going to happen, it won't." This....really made me angry! I don't give up and I hate that she got that impression of me based off of something I said out of frustration. How long have I worked on getting the LFO edge on my circle 8? How long have I been working on this stupid flip jump trying to battle a fear that makes no sense? I'm allowed to get frustrated but I NEVER GIVE UP!

Our whole lesson was a disaster. I felt like she was talking down to me and didn't give me any real techniques that would help with the things I'm struggling with. This is my second time working with her and I thought maybe during our first lesson we just didn't click and I should give her a second chance, right? Yeah, it's not going to happen again. I went from being so proud of myself for the progress I've made on the flip and the circle 8 to feeling worthless. You know, after my lessons with Christopher, I feel empowered and it gives me motivation to keep working through some of these problem areas. If she were my full-time coach, I think I would eventually quit. She killed my spirit :(

Like a Warrior!

So, my fight against fear has begun and I even made myself a playlist on Spotify that I can blast through my car speakers on the way to the rink. I think it worked because today I was not only able to make some attempts at the flip jump but I even landed a number of them! There is still such a long way to go but the first step is sometimes the hardest, right? It's all uphill from here!

Here's a video from this morning's practice as proof that it happened (with a bonus blooper at the end!)

Just say "no" to fear!

Okay, you know what? I'm mad! I'm so angry at my brain for constantly telling me to be afraid. It's stupid and I'm over it! Do you know that I haven't had a single fall in several weeks? That means I'm being waaay too cautious on the ice and I'm not letting myself be brave. I'm really sick of allowing my brain to tell me what I can and cannot do on the ice. I already know what I'm capable of! Time to push back and fight for what I want. Seriously! No more fear! I'm done! Fear is no longer welcome here!

YASSS SNOW!

It was just a light dusting but I will never not be excited about the first snow of the season! This Florida girl is always impressed by snow! I made the cold and wet drive to the rink this morning for a drop-in session. Since Southwestern Regionals are happening this weekend in Texas, rink schedulers moved some things around to account for lower volume. They got rid of the Friday and Saturday sessions and added drop-ins for today and Thursday. Since we can't have our regularly scheduled lesson this Saturday, Christopher agreed to coach me this morning instead. I had plenty of time to warm up and it was nice because for the first 30 minutes I had the rink to myself. Yay, nobody will see if I mess up! Oh wait...what if I fall and nobody sees me fall and I can't get up because I'm broken again and nobody can hear me scream because there's nobody there and OMGPANIC!!!!! Hello anxiety, welcome to my practice session.

Needless to say, I didn't work on anything too daring because I really was worried I would fall and freeze myself to the ice while waiting for someone to help me. So...field moves! My Circle 8 is looking so much better these days! I actually have a bit of confidence on this now that it's more and more consistent. I am finally able to better control that LFO (it only took like, what? 8 or 9 months?Ugh). I did a few of these just to make sure this is actually a thing now before moving on to the other moves. I did some simple jumps (including some loop-loop combos!) and spins and, by that time, Christopher had arrived for our lesson.

Lessonz - Since I am excited about the progress I made on the Circle 8, we started with that. He said it was good enough to pass the test so I'm considering that a HUGE accomplishment for me since it's been a disaster for so long. He wanted to see the other moves so we started working on the BX-BO edges at my request since I'm still not sure what to do with my arms. Up until now, I've just been using the same arms I use for a landing position. Turns out, that is not what you are supposed to do. So he gave me instructions on when and how to switch my arms and we added a 5 count for each lobe. Once we put in some time on this, we moved on to the Power 3-Turns. I have a tendency to avoid these because they are still not entirely comfortable but I can't avoid them when my coach asks to see them. We worked a bit on the timing of things and making the 3-turn lobe smaller and more shallow than the crossover lobe. We also worked on arms and that made a huge difference. My arms were backwards and that has been preventing me from having some good flow and control. From now on, I should have my right arm in front when I'm doing an LFO 3-turn and vice versa. So, he agreed I should spend more time on the blue line with these because I'm stepping forward too early before the axis to get ready for the next 3-turn. For now, I need the blue line to act as a visual for the axis until I'm comfortable enough to do it without. Like icy training wheels for my brain :)

We didn't have time to do much else after that but it was a good lesson and the corrections he gave me will help with a lot of the little things I've been struggling with. I asked him if he thinks it's reasonable to test these right after the new year in January or February and he said yes as long as I get more control over these Power-3 Turns. He admitted he was more concerned about the Circle 8 but since that seems to be doing okay now I should focus on improving the power 3's and then I should be good to test. So, that's what I'll shoot for. If I don't have a goal with a deadline, I start slacking. So now that I have something clear to shoot for, I have a plan.

He also asked if I was interested in the Holiday Show(!). He said it would be a good chance to skate in front of an audience again and get rid of some of those nerves. No judges, just fun. I told him I would think about it. I really like Lindsey Sterling's cover of Hallelujah and it has kind of a Christmas-y feel to it so that might work well (plus I think it would be nice to skate it in honor of Kathryn). I still need to marinate on this. Christmas felt like a long ways away but then it started snowing today and I realized that the Holiday Show would be in like...9 weeks. That's not a lot of time to learn a program. But I also like a good challenge so....we'll see :)

Half Lutz?! More like Half Klutz!

Lesson this morning! Kinda nervous as I don't really feel like I've made much progress with any of the things I was supposed to work on. But, the music in the rink was nice today! Some old late 80's early 90's rock ballads including Guns n' Roses "November Rain." It's a nice change from the usual Saturday morning country songs.

Lessonz: We started off with spins, specifically the sit spin. We spent a lot of time on the entry trying to get me to hold that LFO entry edge longer. I love how Christopher never gives up working with me on this. Persistent man, him. We made some adjustments to my arms to see if that would help. So, instead of keeping that left arm checked in front as I enter the spin, he now wants me to to have my right arm in front. Perhaps that will help. I'll try anything at this point.

Moving on to jumps! I admitted that I'm still struggling with the flip jump so he asked to see one. Given my history of only being able to do this jump in his presence, I was confident that I would be able to do one today but, to my surprise, I couldn't. It is now completely gone. Goodbye flip! We did several attempts and he mentioned that it really does look like I'm making it a lot harder than it needs to be. This proves that I have been overthinking it to the point of non-existence. I wish I could hit the "default settings" button in my brain to just start over with this. He's right, I'm too much in my head with this and I should just trust that my body knows what to do. This isn't a new skill.

He mentioned working on a lutz jump and I thought I heard him wrong so I asked him to repeat himself. Yeah, he actually said the word "lutz." No misunderstandings there. My first comment was, "ah, so you really are trying to kill me." He assured me that we'll take it slowly so we started off with the half-lutz. I haven't touched this jump since I was in Christopher's jumps class a year and a half ago and I remember making the comment back then that this jump seems like a great way to break an ankle. So, he showed me the entry (backwards one-foot glide, get on an LBO edge just before the pick in, and the rest is like a half-flip) and I was able to do one very slow half-lutz with an obvious LBO. Cool. Another thing to work on. I can't imagine building this up into a full fledged lutz without having a flip first but I suspect this is part of his plan to get me to rethink the flip. If I can wrap my head around a lutz, maybe my flip fear will go away :)

Well, I did....but I didn't

Early morning practice today and for once I wasn't cursing life when my alarm went off at 5:00am. I was actually pretty excited to get on the ice and work on the flip jump since I was able to do a bunch of them on Saturday. I felt empowered and capable. Well, guess what? I got on the ice and later in the session once I was warmed up, I...couldn't. I am so freaking disappointed in myself. Later, when I had less than 10 minutes left in the session I forced myself to work on them but every one I did was timid and two-footed. What's wrong with me????

Movez - I worked on other stuff too so things got done other than my jump failures. My circle 8 is looking really good lately. I feel like I have more control over the LFO edge now and my circles are evening out in size. Progress! I ran the other Bronze moves but spent some time on the power 3 turns because I have some fear issues on those as well. They are feeling more comfortable and less scary. I just need to work on better flow. I also noticed that I don't have a good side or a bad side with these. They are pretty equal in terms of skill.

Spinz - I wasn't as centered today as I have been during my last couple of practices but I was still more centered than usual. I started off with the attitude spin with a higher free leg and then spent some time on the sit spin. I actually had one sit spin that I had to abort because it got really speedy once I got into position. I was down more but I also angled my free leg differently and somehow that caused more speed? Yikes. I shouldn't have aborted as it was a really nice sit spin (for me) but again, I let fear call the shots. Stupid brain. I did some two-foot psuedo-laybacks just to say I did. This is going to take a lot of time. It's such an awkward feeling.

Jumpz - As usual, I ran through all of my program jumps but spent the majority of my time skating in circles trying to talk myself out of the flip fear. I even tried to pretend that Christopher was there so that I would have enough confidence to attempt some. That didn't work either. This is such a weird and unnecessary psychological thing. It makes no sense. I have done much scarier things! So stupid. Anyway, once I had about 10 minutes left I was getting pretty angry with myself for not trying. I made a commitment to work on it at every practice whether Christopher is there or not. I had to at least try, right? So I did and I hesitated on every.single.one! Because of the hesitation going into the jump, I wasn't fully committed and I two-footed every.single.landing. I don't know what's going on or why this is so debilitating. I mean, I'm not scared of falling because I fall on jumps all the time. I'm not scared that it will look messy because of course it will. All jumps do when you are learning them. If I could identify the cause of the fear I could at least try to fix it. How am I able to do them when my coach is there but balk when he's not?? So yeah, I worked on them and I know that even attempting them on my own is still progress but I'm still really frustrated with myself.

I know I need to remind myself of all of the scary things I've survived in my life up until now. I am braver than I think and I've overcome every challenge put in my path so far. It's just that sometimes courage is no match for the little voice in my head that keeps repeating "you can't."