Birthday Axel!

The day finally came. I got to try my first on-ice axels. On the harness, of course. And, it was my birthday! I got to say, that is a great way to start out a birthday.

We actually spent my entire lesson adding some style to my compulsory program, at the request of my primary coach. But I noticed when we were finished that no other students had showed up for a lesson, so I asked if we could take a few extra minutes and do the axels on the harness that she had promised in our first lesson.

She strapped me into the harness and we started with a couple waltz jumps to get a feel for the harness. Then she had me try a waltz backspin and after that we were off. The first few felt so much like the waltz backspin that I wasn't really sure that I was doing anything different. We tried getting more explosive, we worked on the take-off. Some attempts were wild, some were underrotated. And some were actually pretty decent, I think.

The strangest thing to me about the harness is that you can't hold a landing edge for very long because it pulls you away from the harness track. I was never really sure if I was standing up on the landing because shortly after I'd land, I'd pull against the harness and couldn't keep my balance. I had to rely on feedback from the coach to know how it had gone and she pointed out some things on one and other things on another.

I loved trying them. I was so excited at first, my legs were shaking and that made everything a little harder. I can't wait to try them again and it was a birthday event I will never forget!

Not Flutzing Around

Coach Picky is moving sometime this month and I decided to go ahead and end the relationship. It's been hard for us to make our schedules mesh and as I'm preparing for multiple events in upcoming competitions, I wanted to make sure I was getting lessons on a regular basis without turning my life upside down. I told her in person at our last lesson. She completely understood and we went on to have a really good lesson.

We worked on the lutz, and she focused on getting me to stop leaning to the left on take off and to bring my right arm close to the body. I never completely got it, so those are things that I need to work on. But she did say that I'd made tremendous progress since I'd first started working on it. And she told me, "Not a single one of those had an edge change." I nearly flipped over that because I did a LOT of lutzes in that lesson!

The rest of the lesson was spent on spins, and she had me play around with different combinations. She confirmed that it's a good idea to put more difficult spins into program run-throughs, because you can always simplify them if they're not there come competition time. I've already been trying camel-sit and sit-back sit in my program, but she suggested even camel-sit-pancake or sit-pancake-back sit. I've thought about it, but honestly, the camel-sit is still inconsistent enough, that when I get a good spin going, I don't like to try the extra position and mess it up. Same for the sit-back sit.

I haven't had another lesson with my potential new coach yet, the one who wanted to start my axel in the harness. I'm hoping to get one this week. But in the meantime, I've been working that waltz-backspin and I've even tried salchow-backspin. Coach Picky mentioned that she was a big proponent of getting the axel rotated off-ice before trying them on-ice so I revisited the off-ice axel after a freestyle session recently. There was a skating friend who's a coach hanging around as well as the friendliest senior mens skater ever and they both gave me some pointers. That was so much better than practicing them at the gym where I don't get advice, I get strange looks! I so hope to get to try these on the harness soon!

It's a little more like a jump twizzle, but it's a start.

Bronze FS Test and Other News

Bronze Free Skate Test
First things first, I took my bronze free skate test last week, and I passed! Looking back after a week, my feelings are that I did a respectable job on my elements (with a few bobbles), but I feel like the rest of the program was kind of half-hearted. By the time I got to take the test, I really just wanted to get it over with so that I could focus on my competition version of the program. But my performance at the test has made me realize how much I want to polish my skating, especially my transitions, for upcoming competitions. Now that I've passed this test, Adult Nationals 2014, here I come! Here's the video:


Coaching Changes
Coach Picky is moving next month. We've been able to meet less and less, and with the amount that I'm skating right now, I realized that one 20 minute freestyle lesson a week is not sufficient. This past week, I took my first lesson with the coach that my current primary coach often teams with. We took a few minutes at the beginning of the lesson to discuss goals and then she had me show her what I could do. She gave me some tips on my sit spin, back spin, flip and lutz which have made for good homework. It was a good first lesson. It was so satisfying to do a really good camel spin for her, because it's been eluding me so much lately.

Could it be...?
The last thing I showed her in the lesson was waltz-loop and waltz-backspin, since I told her that axel and beyond are part of my goals. She gave me a correction on bringing my knee through more on the waltz-backspin, and I think I did quite well with it. Her response was, "I think you're going to have a very nice axel." We scheduled a lesson for the beginning of next week. She said she wanted to start axel on the harness with me in our next lesson! She told me excitedly, "I want to be the one to start you on your axel. I'm selfish that way!" That's fine with me, since I haven't been working on any drills with either of my current coaches. I am beyond excited. Maybe she's stroking my ego to get my business, and if she is, it's working. But I also hope that the enthusiasm is genuine, of course. I will be sure to keep you posted on my first outing in the harness, and my first attempt at the axel on ice!

My Skating Story, Part 1

I can't remember the first time I went skating. To be honest, I can't even really remember learning to skate. I grew up in the American south where skating is not a popular pastime, but my dad grew up in hockey territory, skating on ponds and eventually playing hockey in prep school. He used to take us to the rink once or twice a year. I always loved it, but I never knew it was something I could do more of. It never even occurred to me to ask for lessons. In my family, we danced, and I always (mostly) accepted that.

During the summer, my sister and I roller skated in the garage and driveway. The garage, being flat, was the perfect place to pretend to be ice skaters after seeing some on TV. We both wanted to be Kristi Yamaguchi, but because I was older, I claimed her and made my sister be Michelle Kwan. Those were the only two skater names I knew.

I always wanted to have an ice skating birthday party, but I have a summer birthday. My mom told me I could still have a skating party, but I was convinced that my friends would think it was stupid to skate when it was hot out and I felt begrudgingly fated to pool parties. By the time I turned 22, I'd realized my friends didn't care and I threw myself a skating birthday party. My friends were good sports.

Travelling Europe with some friends in January a few years later, I learned that Paris has a free rink in front of its city hall in the winter months. I was determined that skating would be part of our Paris itinerary. We'd walked all over town that day, but we still trudged out to the rink and rented our skates. I told my friends not to ask me if I was ready to go--I never would be. Whenever they came to a consensus that they were ready to leave, they should just inform me and I would resign myself to turning in my skates.

A few months after I started working at my first long term desk job, I noticed my pants didn't quite fit the way they used to. And I hated being stationary all the time. In the past, I'd done various forms of dance, ultimate frisbee, flatwater kayak racing and they were all things that I really enjoyed doing so that they never felt like exercise. But I didn't feel like going back to any of them. I started looking around for another form of exercise that I would be motivated to do, not because it was exercise, but because I enjoyed the activity itself. You can see from the above stories--and they are just a sample of many--why ice skating occurred to me as an idea.

I looked at the website for the local rink, wondering if I could work it into my schedule to go to a public and skate laps. On the website, I discovered that a session of skating classes was about to begin and that they had classes for adults. I remember being giddy with excitement waiting for my first class. I had no idea what I would learn in a skating class, and skating EVERY week for 8 weeks seemed like such a luxurious arrangement.

And, well, is it any surprise? I got hooked.
(To be continued)

New Toys

The competition's over, and you know what that means? Freedom!!! Well, what I mean is practices and lessons don't have to be focused on my program every single time. I had two really great lessons this week. My primary coach started me on sit-back sit and camel-back camel. "These are your new toys," he said, "I want you to start playing around with them."

And, it's been determined. Moving up to bronze, I'm going to need spins with either a change of position or a change of foot, or even both.

Coach Picky also gave me some new toys:

• Camel-back scratch, which went well. While working on this, she challenged me to push harder into the camel spin. Last time I tried that, I ended up with a giant bruise on my right knee. But my camel spin entrance has gotten stronger since then, so I went for it and she counted out those revs: 5!
• Cannonball spin, or as she called it, a pencil spin. Oh my gosh. So disorienting. Coach Picky said that I hit a good position on my first try, but I just got down there and lost all body awareness! I had no idea if I was falling over or not, so I freaked and bailed before I could get very far. 
• Sit, pancake spin, back sit. - Meh.
• Aaaaaand..... (drumroll) layback! Oh, I'm so excited about this spin. We spent time practicing the position at the boards, and breaking some of my ballet habits which were counter-productive for the spin. I. want. a. layback.

So, new toys, yay! We've also gotten a chance to work on the lutz, which is not great yet, but it seems to definitely be on the mend. I'm really glad to be working on some new things, and I'm even pondering some new music... But for now, the new elements:

Droop and Flop

As someone who came to the sport of skating as an adult, I have a distinct advantage because of my strong dance background. A lot of good things, like posture and carriage, carry over from my many years of ballet. Sometimes I explain my ballet background to others when they ask about how long I've been skating, but sometimes I feel like I have to couch it a little bit and say, yes, I have many years of dance training, but that doesn't mean it all stuck! And it doesn't mean I didn't have bad habits as a ballet student that are still with me! For example, I had notoriously floppy feet, even in dance! 

Some people think that skaters don't need to point their feet (or at least that's what dancers think about skaters) but it's not really true. Skaters do point their feet, but the effect is not quite the same as it would be without skates. And so now, my floppy feet have carried over into skating, except now they look like club feet. I'm embarrassed to admit how many times I've caught my heel in the ice on a sit spin. The other day, it caught me so much by surprise, and I had enough speed that the effect was much like a pole vault. My spin suddenly stopped and I catapulted sideways over my foot and onto the ice.

Coach is always yelling at me to point my toes. A week or so ago, he told me that for the next 6 months, I should work on developing the habit of pointing my toes all the time when I skate. He also wants me to extend my free leg 3-6 inches higher on all my jump landings and spin exits. And he wants me to focus on looking up. I agree that I should do this, because I think it will improve the overall effect of my skating.

And I've added one more self-identified habit I want to break. This one didn't transfer over from ballet, it's new to me in skating. It's hand droop. I think I extend my arms and carry them well through the wrist, but then my hands just kind of hang off the end of them. Well, not both my hands. Primarily my right hand. In case you're wondering what that looks like, here's two examples of my right hand caught in the act of drooping.

Spread Eagle with Right Hand Droop

Solo ChaCha with Right Hand Droop

So, in the months to come, down with droopy hands and floppy feet! Do you have any nasty habits you're trying to kick to the curb?

Competition Video

I've decided to post the video from my competition, though the quality of the video is not great. Two of the jumps are completely out of focus. And then of course, there's the matter of the botched spins. Oh well, here it is. Can't just share the perfect things.

ETA: I'm surprised at how little the stones on my dress show up in the video. You can hardly see them at all!