I've taken many breaks from the ice and always came back stronger so how is it that I feel so very much weaker than all those other times, even the ones where I came back from multiple broken bones? Christopher asked me today at the start of our lesson if things felt better today than they did last week. I told him I feel 5% better, but hey, it's not at zero so that's something.
I just felt unsteady and unsure and...slow. I'm thinking about my Devil program and wondering if I can even do that anymore. When I chose that program music, I felt stronger both in body and in mind. Now? I just don't think I can do it. It will be a while, I think, until I feel that way again. I'm honestly thinking about shelving that program for a later date and maybe starting slow again. Maybe I need a season where I can get my feet under me again and build up confidence. I ordered a Brad Griffies dress back in April that was intended to be a test/compulsories dress but now I'm thinking I should use it as a program dress and pick music that won't push me right now. And I'm not saying I don't ever want to be pushed skillswise but right now I need to build myself back up to where I was before all of this crap happened. I need to start slow and work my way up to the Devil program. I feel defeated even typing this out especially considering today was day 2 on the ice but I need to be realistic about where I am at right now.
Lessonz - We started with some field moves and I told him I was struggling with my backward power pulls on my bad leg (good ol' lefty). My outside edge on that foot is definitely stronger than the inside edge so once I switch to my left foot halfway through the move, I start to veer toward the boards. We worked a bit on straightening me out and then moved on to backward 3 turns. I'm just so sad about all of the progress I lost with these! I really need to trust my edges more, relax, look behind me, and use my shoulders. All I'm doing now is forcing the turn which makes things so spastic. We rounded out our lesson by looking at jumps. He asked me to just start basic and work my way up. Waltz jump was okay, toe loop needs a better glide through with my free leg, salchow was scratchy and spinny, and loop was okay, I guess. Luckily we ran out of time and didn't get to the flip jump. I haven't done one since the rinks shut down back in March. I was making real progress with it back then but I feel like a different skater now. I'm scared again.
I think another part of my problem is that there isn't any time to really practice between lessons. I feel like I don't have time to work on anything he gave me for homework. Also, another hit to my self-esteem was this adult skater I met today. She was lovely and skated so well after having been off the ice for two months. And she's 63! Inspirational for sure but I felt like a bit of a loser for taking such a hit to my skills when this strong ass lady was out there killing it and she's twenty years my senior. Ugh.
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Thursday, May 21, 2020
Guinea Pigs
Well, that was weird! I got to the rink, they took my waiver and temperature, then sent me down to locker room Blue 2 where Christopher's students were to put on their skates and wait to be called out. The other skaters went to their respective locker rooms. Before getting out on the ice, the director of figure skating came in and talked to us a bit about the rules. We were the guinea pigs, essentially (she said "pilot group" but guinea pigs sounds more appropriate). The first skaters to get on that ice since March. She said if all went well today, they will expand skating opportunities to several sessions a day utilizing all three rinks. She then led us out to one of the side doors where we waited six feet apart to get on the ice. She encouraged us to wear our masks but if we are having a hard time breathing, we were allowed to pull them down or take them off completely as long as we put them back on when talking to our coaches. There were 3 coaches and each coach had 3 students. Christopher split the hour 3 ways so we each got a 20 minute lesson and a 40 minute practice. I'm glad I wasn't the first one up because it took a while to get my feet under me again.
Lessonz - I was the second student to get a lesson during the hour so I had a good 20 minutes to warm up and I needed it! My legs felt like jelly and turns were hard to manage. Also, I remembered that I had gotten my blades sharpened the day the rinks shut down so when I got on the ice, my blades were really sticky and it was hard to stop. Christopher asked how things felt and I told him my edges felt fine but everything else was garbage. We started by looking at cross strokes. They were fine. I was surprised that these were still okay. We moved on to power pulls. Forward pulls are still garbage but they were garbage before the plague. Backward was easier. Next, I mentioned that my backward 3 turns had disappeared so we worked on those using one of the hockey circles. I was sad to discover that I lost a lot of progress on these. After working on Silver Moves for a bit, we transitioned to spins. I started with a two foot to one foot spin, some scratch spins, and a decent back spin (without the leg cross). Pleased, we ended with some jumps! Since I've been off the ice a while, he wanted me to do some bunny hops as a warm up. I warned him that it had been 12 years since my last bunny hop (once I was in my car I recalculated and realized it has actually been 14 years!). He showed me how to do one and on my first and only attempt I fell. Hard! Like one of those really bad backward falls. I hit my head on the ice but luckily my bun took the brunt of the impact (yay for smooshy bun forms!). I got up and told him NO MORE BUNNY HOPS! EVER! So I did some waltz jumps, salchows, and toe loops.
I did some loop jumps on my own later since we ran out of time with our lesson and he had to move on to the final girl in our group. My loops feel awful. I'm not sure if it was the sharp blades or the time away from the ice but....ew. I worked some more on backward 3 turns, spins, and jumps to round out the hour. I think I only did one camel spin and it was actually a good one! So much so that when I skated by Christopher while he was teaching one of the other girls he said "that was a nice camel." Yay! I did something right!
It was great to be on the ice but I'm not sure when I can go back. Right now, you can only be on the ice if you are working with a coach so it's not like I can go back and practice when I want. In fact, I'm not even sure if I'll get a lesson next week either. Regardless, I'm lucky that Christopher gave me one of his slots and I was able to get on the ice today. Super grateful for that! That did so much for my mental health!
Lessonz - I was the second student to get a lesson during the hour so I had a good 20 minutes to warm up and I needed it! My legs felt like jelly and turns were hard to manage. Also, I remembered that I had gotten my blades sharpened the day the rinks shut down so when I got on the ice, my blades were really sticky and it was hard to stop. Christopher asked how things felt and I told him my edges felt fine but everything else was garbage. We started by looking at cross strokes. They were fine. I was surprised that these were still okay. We moved on to power pulls. Forward pulls are still garbage but they were garbage before the plague. Backward was easier. Next, I mentioned that my backward 3 turns had disappeared so we worked on those using one of the hockey circles. I was sad to discover that I lost a lot of progress on these. After working on Silver Moves for a bit, we transitioned to spins. I started with a two foot to one foot spin, some scratch spins, and a decent back spin (without the leg cross). Pleased, we ended with some jumps! Since I've been off the ice a while, he wanted me to do some bunny hops as a warm up. I warned him that it had been 12 years since my last bunny hop (once I was in my car I recalculated and realized it has actually been 14 years!). He showed me how to do one and on my first and only attempt I fell. Hard! Like one of those really bad backward falls. I hit my head on the ice but luckily my bun took the brunt of the impact (yay for smooshy bun forms!). I got up and told him NO MORE BUNNY HOPS! EVER! So I did some waltz jumps, salchows, and toe loops.
I did some loop jumps on my own later since we ran out of time with our lesson and he had to move on to the final girl in our group. My loops feel awful. I'm not sure if it was the sharp blades or the time away from the ice but....ew. I worked some more on backward 3 turns, spins, and jumps to round out the hour. I think I only did one camel spin and it was actually a good one! So much so that when I skated by Christopher while he was teaching one of the other girls he said "that was a nice camel." Yay! I did something right!
It was great to be on the ice but I'm not sure when I can go back. Right now, you can only be on the ice if you are working with a coach so it's not like I can go back and practice when I want. In fact, I'm not even sure if I'll get a lesson next week either. Regardless, I'm lucky that Christopher gave me one of his slots and I was able to get on the ice today. Super grateful for that! That did so much for my mental health!
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
68 Days Later...
Well, that sucked, huh? But, even though things are starting to reopen, we still have a lot more suffering to contend with. The pandemic is still raging and half of the country is in denial about it. I feel like these people won't care until it affects them personally. In the meantime, I will continue to do the right thing and go outside sparingly and wear my mask when I do.
So, what have I been doing this whole time? I've been working from home so I have had a lot of time to do off-ice training. Christopher kicked it right into gear from the beginning and created an Online Figure Skating Academy for his students with 2 sometimes 3 classes to choose from every day of the week. He offered off-ice jumps, pilates, ballet, stretching, spins, and even private lessons over zoom. Really cool.
Ballet - Most of my classes with him were ballet. I've been meaning to return to ballet after getting injured last fall so I was excited to get actual ballet instruction from my coach. I actually feel like I have learned more from Christopher than when I was taking in-person classes at the studio. Maybe it was the small class size or maybe it was the fact that I didn't have prima ballerinas in my adult beginner's class making me feel inept, but I feel like I'm getting a better handle on some of the technique. Once things open up more, I want to go back to in-person ballet classes but I'm thinking of switching studios so I can take an honest beginners class.
Jumps - I only did one off-ice jumps class with Christopher and it.kicked.my.ass! It was a great workout and I learned some helpful techniques for practicing jumps safely at home but I must have aggravated my torn calf injury because I had a hard time walking on it for a good week.
Stretching - In addition to a weekly ballet class, I took part in a weekly stretch class. I can do splits now! What! This class has helped so damn much!
Private Lesson - I took one private lesson with Christopher over zoom and we focused on jumps, spins, and jumping from a spin. It was also an ass kicker. I got myself a spinner to practice on while at home (one of the metal ball bearing type spinners) and so we worked on some forward and backward spins and getting into a jump from the spinner. Tricky, but helpful.
Overall, it's been nice to still connect with my coach and other skaters from my rink to keep the learning happening even if it's in a virtual environment instead of the rink. Tomorrow, I return the ice. It's been well over 9 weeks since I was there and I'm apprehensive about how it's all going to go. The last time I was on skates was March 13th (Friday the 13th!!!!) and I was feeling pretty good about some of the progress I have been making. I know I won't be able to exactly pick up where I left off and I also know that ice time won't be as plentiful as it was before the pandemic but I also know that I still have the spirit and the desire to continue working on challenging skills and making progress. From what I gather, I will be in a group lesson format with two of Christopher's other students. I think there might be another coach teaching a group lesson to some of their students as well. No more than 10 people on the ice at once and we should be wearing masks. I'm pretty nervous about that given my breathing problems but I'm just happy to get back to work. I'll do another blog post tomorrow about how it all went!
So, what have I been doing this whole time? I've been working from home so I have had a lot of time to do off-ice training. Christopher kicked it right into gear from the beginning and created an Online Figure Skating Academy for his students with 2 sometimes 3 classes to choose from every day of the week. He offered off-ice jumps, pilates, ballet, stretching, spins, and even private lessons over zoom. Really cool.
Ballet - Most of my classes with him were ballet. I've been meaning to return to ballet after getting injured last fall so I was excited to get actual ballet instruction from my coach. I actually feel like I have learned more from Christopher than when I was taking in-person classes at the studio. Maybe it was the small class size or maybe it was the fact that I didn't have prima ballerinas in my adult beginner's class making me feel inept, but I feel like I'm getting a better handle on some of the technique. Once things open up more, I want to go back to in-person ballet classes but I'm thinking of switching studios so I can take an honest beginners class.
Jumps - I only did one off-ice jumps class with Christopher and it.kicked.my.ass! It was a great workout and I learned some helpful techniques for practicing jumps safely at home but I must have aggravated my torn calf injury because I had a hard time walking on it for a good week.
Stretching - In addition to a weekly ballet class, I took part in a weekly stretch class. I can do splits now! What! This class has helped so damn much!
Private Lesson - I took one private lesson with Christopher over zoom and we focused on jumps, spins, and jumping from a spin. It was also an ass kicker. I got myself a spinner to practice on while at home (one of the metal ball bearing type spinners) and so we worked on some forward and backward spins and getting into a jump from the spinner. Tricky, but helpful.
Overall, it's been nice to still connect with my coach and other skaters from my rink to keep the learning happening even if it's in a virtual environment instead of the rink. Tomorrow, I return the ice. It's been well over 9 weeks since I was there and I'm apprehensive about how it's all going to go. The last time I was on skates was March 13th (Friday the 13th!!!!) and I was feeling pretty good about some of the progress I have been making. I know I won't be able to exactly pick up where I left off and I also know that ice time won't be as plentiful as it was before the pandemic but I also know that I still have the spirit and the desire to continue working on challenging skills and making progress. From what I gather, I will be in a group lesson format with two of Christopher's other students. I think there might be another coach teaching a group lesson to some of their students as well. No more than 10 people on the ice at once and we should be wearing masks. I'm pretty nervous about that given my breathing problems but I'm just happy to get back to work. I'll do another blog post tomorrow about how it all went!
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