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!
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