Sunday, January 13, 2013

Last Day of Spins Class

Wednesday was my last day of spins class.

To start out, we were divided into two groups to practice scratch spins, and the instructor took one group and assigned his teenage assistant to the other, which happened to be mine. She watched the other skaters in my group and gave them some tips, but didn't approach me. After a while, she seemed to just be chatting with them and I started to wonder if I was going to get any help.

Now, I have nothing against this girl. She's helped out throughout the whole class with a professional attitude and an encouraging smile. I once asked to borrow a tissue from her on a free style. She told me yes and with a smile, that in the future, I didn't even have to ask. But I can see how it could be intimidating, as a teenager, to approach and correct an adult, even if you are loads better at the thing you're giving advice on.

After a few minutes of scratch spins, the instructor called us back together in one group. He asked his assistant if she'd gotten to everybody on her side. She looked a little embarrassed as she said everybody but... and pointed to me, trying to remember my name. "That wasn't very nice!" the instructor teased her. But he wasn't going to let my scratch spin go without a critique and had me do one right there in front of the entire class!

I panicked a little. I did. But I steeled myself. I can do this. I decided to go from a standstill, so as not to prolong this little impromptu recital. My first two revs travelled a little, but I fought for it, not willing to have a spin meltdown in front of my class. I pulled it together and got my free foot across and down, a good number of revolutions, too. Everything was going well, but by the time I tried to check out, I had spent all my mental energy on the spin. I pushed onto my landing foot and flailed a bit, and bobbled dizzily back to join the rest of the group.

"That was a very good spin!" he exclaimed. "Can anyone tell me what was so good about her spin?" he polled the class. His enthusiasm for my performance helped me focus on the positive of what I'd done as I waited for my evaluation from my much younger classmates. Two hands shot up, from some of the more animated, though not clued in, members of the class. "She held her arms like this!" one said, sticking her arms out in an L to illustrate. "She started it with a dead-end three-turn!" the other said, parroting back the answer to the instructor's favorite question about what starts a spin. "Uh, any other ideas?" he prodded. "It was centered," someone added. "Yes! It was centered!" he had gotten the answer he was looking for, and went on to make a point out of it. I didn't hear what he said. All I could hear was:

It was centered.

We went on to work on scratch spins. The instructor traded with his assistant and worked with my group this time and with me first. He gave me pointers about looking to the left on entry, getting my legs closer together, pointing my foot. None of the sit spins I did then were fabulous, but before he moved on to the next skater he had some words for me. "Your spins are night and day different from when I first saw you spinning. Even from four weeks ago, right before the recital. Have you been working a lot on your spins?" I could only manage a nod. I've been working my butt off on spins for the past few months and I was positively glowing to hear him recognize my hard work. "It shows. Good work."

After sit spins, we only had a brief minute or two to do back spins and class was over. I've decided not to do another session of spins class. It was exactly what I needed for these past four months, but it no longer makes sense for me. I got to experience the teaching of two different coaches, I got to participate in the recital, it forced me to dedicate at least half an hour a week to working on spins (though I did more than that), I got to see what it looks like when people progress in their spins by watching the other girls around me, and made me feel on several occasions like I was actually living in Disney's The Ice Princess. But now I'd prefer to leave work early for ice time when I can get to a freestyle (instead of 30 min of public plus 30 min spins class) and work one on one with one of the coaches who taught the spins class maybe every other week. That way, I'll get twenty minutes of focused instruction, instead of 2 or 3, and the cost will only be a little higher.

But spins class, it's been a good run. I won't forget you.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

"Rinking" in the New Year

It's the fifth day of the new year, and I've already skated three times at two rinks in two different states and had two lessons! I'd say I've hit the ground running.

New Year's Day
I started with a public session on New Year's Day. Ten minutes into the two hour session, the skate guard had the crowd start going clockwise and never changed it back again. That put a pretty serious limit on being able to practice many jumps. I took advantage of the opportunity to work on the CW side of the 8 step mohawk pattern. I also spun a fair bit and left the rink feeling very, very sick to my stomach. I've been struggling with dizziness or motion sickness more recently and it finally clicked that it might be because I'm actually getting 7 or 8 rotations in every time I attempt a spin. That's a lot more cumulative rotating then it used to be.

Skating on the Road
A few weeks ago when I was making arrangements for the business trip I went on this week, I decided to bring my skates. A rink nearby (well, 25 minutes) to the client site has a Thursday night public I went to once before. After the new year's day skate, however, I didn't feel a real compulsion to go skate at another winter break public session. But I had space in my luggage, so I brought my skates. The night of, I still didn't really want to skate, but decided to make use of my skates since I brought them.

I don't know why I bothered. It got crowded quickly, I forgot to put my gloves on before I closed up the rented locker, I visited the world's slowest snack bar because I forgot to bring a bottle of water. I couldn't practice much more than a couple of spins but I was getting dizzy and didn't want to get to feeling as sick as I did the other day. When they resurfaced the ice mid-session, I bailed and drove back to the hotel. That'll probably be the last time I take my skates when I go to visit that location.

Incomplete Sharpening
Dance coach sharpened my skates first thing this morning. He happened to see me two foot a loop during my freestyle lesson. "Oops! I didn't include that jump. Blame the sharpener!" "Argh! I can't do anything on these blades!" I called back, in mock irritation. "What was that all about?" Coach asked when I skated back to her, and I explained. Coach joined in on the faux complaining: "Hey, I think you forgot to include the lutz, too!" "Well, she asked for axels and double sals!"  Yah, right!

Speaking of Jumps...
They didn't go so well in my lesson. I kept getting freaked out on my loop, due to weird crowd patterns. I two footed a lot of them.  Flips are coming along okay, but I've noticed that my picking leg comes up really high and I sort of tip forward. I can overcome it and still jump on the flip, but I think it's the same problem that's affecting my lutz, and I can't get all the pieces of the jump together after that. Coach tells me to tuck my hips under. I think I also may need more knee bend.

Coach says we'll need combinations for the competition I want to do, so we tried waltz-toe. My toe loop is a disaster. I don't know why. It tends to be better in combination than by itself, but even that seemed to be toe-waltzing today. "Let's try something else," Coach suggests, "how about flip-toe or flip-loop?" The idea freaked me out a little, since I haven't been doing a full flip that long, but I went out to try it. It wasn't until I landed the flip that I realized I hadn't decided which combination I was going to try. I at least had the presence of mind to notice I landed the flip with my foot in front so on the next try, I decided to go for the flip-loop. I landed it twice! I need to work on the flow out of it and Coach says adding some speed to it will help with that.

My First Competition Cometh
The details for the March competition were published this week. Pre-bronze freeskate is limited to a maximum of 1:40 seconds. Coach and I picked a piece of music several months ago and have been playing with it, but I had a hard enough time cutting it down below 2 minutes. There's no way I'm going to get it to 1:40, so it's back to the drawing board. And now we're 9 weeks from the competition with no music and no program. This is going to be my very first program and my very first competition. It's too early for me to be getting nervous, right?