So, the day after my competition, I bent down to pick up the cat and pulled my back. I was on the couch for two days with Motrin and a heating pad. Figures that I can do all of these amazing physical feats and then I pull my back picking up the damn cat. Stupid. Needless to say, I took a week off of the ice to recover. I still have moments where it feels twingy but at least I don't have back spasms anymore. That was rough.
Sunday Practice - I was expecting to be awful given the fact that I've been off the ice and my back still sorta hurts but it was a really good practice! I felt fast and capable. All of my spins and jumps were lovely too. I ran both my Free Skate and my Free Dance and those went as planned. Maybe I should take a week off for rest more often! In addition to the program stuff, I wanted to spend half of my practice getting back into Gold Moves. I haven't really touched these since the beginning of Summer so I was expecting trash but, oddly, things seemed to have improved slightly. Weird. I made it around on all of the circles of my Backward Circle 8. I mean, the circles were deformed and my upper body was wonky but I got it done. Also, my Forward Double 3s were nice! I made it all the way down one side without a foot down! Finally, Brackets. I just did these in isolation working on the FI Brackets first and then working on the FO Brackets. But, get this! I didn't do any of them at the boards! They were all on open ice! That's cool. I didn't feel comfortable working on the Power Circles with so many people on the ice so I skipped these. All in all, it was a lovely hour of getting things done and I didn't have any issues with my back. I came home and immediately put the heating pad on just in case. But...yay!
Monday Lesson - We spent some time before the lesson talking about my #OldLadyBack. Christopher has a history of back issues as well so he gave me some good information on supplements and therapies. I actually stopped by his house on the way home to pick up a lower back massage thing that he is letting me borrow to see if that provides some relief. We'll see if it helps. On to the lesson! I told him I need to get back into Gold Moves so we started with the Backward Circle 8. The ice was pretty chewed up so I wasn't anticipating making it all the way around. But more than the bad ice, my pushes are still pretty weak so I don't have the momentum to get all the way around. Ugh. But still, I feel like they are at least a little better than they were. Next, we worked on the Forward Double 3s. It was a lesson in patience. The turns themselves are fine but on every forward turn he said "late" and on every backward turn I heard him say "early." The problem is I take too much time on the forward turn and almost treat like the Silver Moves turns where they are at the top of the lobe. Then, I start pre-rotating the backward turn so that it goes early. Ugh. I really have to focus on timing to get these right. Finally, we worked on Brackets. This is where I feel I had a bit of a bravery breakthrough. I froze up on the FO brackets and was struggling so he had me do 4-5 in a row on each foot. They got a little better each time. We also looked at BO Brackets. In the past, I have had to hold on to the wall or onto him but I just went out and tried them! And I didn't die! They weren't good but they were attempted and that's the first step, right? We wrapped the lesson up with some work on the Camel. Some slight improvement.
So yeah, I felt good today. Maybe taking a week off was just what I needed :)
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